Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone will be battling it out to be the next Mayor of London and the bookmakers expect Johnson to win again

Boris Johnson has come under criticism for not returning to London more quickly after news emerged that riots were taking place in the English capital. The Tory was also barracked in Clapham on his return, although he remains strong favourite to continue as Mayor of London.

Johnson is a 4/6 chance with Ladbrokes compared to the 2/1 (bet365) available about Ken Livingstone and it appears as though this will be a two-horse race, with Lembit Opik (40/1 bet365) unlikely to stand much of a chance.

Johnson has called for police budgets not to be cut in the wake of the London riots, telling the BBC: "If you ask me whether I think there is a case for cutting police budgets in the light of these events, then my answer to that would be a 'no'.

 "That case was always pretty frail and it has been substantially weakened.

"This is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers." 

Meanwhile, Ken Livingstone has called for the government to learn from Margaret Thatcher when it comes to police numbers, saying: "I was able to increase police numbers by 7,000 in my eight years as mayor, I didn't ask the government's permission, I asked the commissioner of police 'how many police do you need to cope with problems in London'?

"They should just look back to the lesson of Mrs Thatcher. When she went through the great recession in the early 1980s, she knew what was coming, she recruited more police.

"All this year officers in the Met have been warning the mayor and the government there is a real danger of civil disturbance on our streets, and they failed to act."