Oona King

Two weeks from now, Labour will have a new leader. Yet his – and it's usually always "his" – biggest electoral test before winning a general election will be winning London in 2012, and using that as a springboard to beat this Tory government – a government that is shameless about hitting the poorest hardest.

Labour members and trade unionists have to decide who can best beat Boris Johnson – Ken Livingstone or myself? Who can best win back the voters Labour lost in outer London, in parliamentary seats like Enfield North and Brent Central? Equally important, it's about who best represents the future for the Labour party, and who can inspire a new generation of Labour party members to join our movement.

The launch speech from Oona's campaign to become Labour's mayoral candidate, Haverstock School, 26 May 2010

I’m delighted to be back here in the area I grew up, and at Haverstock, my old school. Today is the beginning of a journey that I hope will take me from Haverstock to City Hall. But I’d also like to talk a bit about the journey’s you’ll take, and the journey’s you’ll make in your lives.

If you took a helicopter and flew from Epping forest to the South Downs, from Rainham Marshes to Richmond park, what would you see? You’d see a citadel stretching in every direction, containing fantastic landmarks, a river running through it and big green parks.

Ken Livingstone is planning to bring his former rival Oona King into City Hall if he is elected London mayor next week. Lady King will be the young people's champion implementing Labour's manifesto for young Londoners, if Livingstone beats Boris Johnson on 3 May, though the status of her advisory role remains unclear at this stage.

The surprise announcement, a week before polling day, comes 19 months after Livingstone promised to make use of King's talents after he beat her in Labour's selection process for a mayoral candidate.

Livingstone said of his decision to bring the former MP for Bethnal Green and Bow into the fold: "I was consistently impressed by Oona's ideas to help young Londoners during the Labour selection contest. I told her then I'd steal her best policies – now I've gone further, asking her to lead on our work with London's young people and I'm delighted that she's agreed.

"Oona will form an integral part of a fresh Labour administration at City Hall, as we work together to stand up for Londoners being hit hard by a Tory onslaught."

British politics at the top end? It's a sea of fortysomething white male faces. The real coalition is the Coalition of Chaps, and a country that is diverse and mixed-up, is represented by a political class that's anything but. Now, though, some excellent news: at least in London we might have a real choice, because Oona King, one of the best of the Labour women, will let it be known tomorrow that she wants to be mayor.

Yes, she will be taking on the always formidable Ken Livingstone in the race to be the Labour candidate; but King, who thought that Livingstone was a good mayor, points out that he has been around for four decades. "It's nobody's birthright, and I don't believe in the hereditary principle." So there is a chance of a mixed-race woman arriving to represent this most mixed of the world's great cities.