Mayoral campaign comes to SE1 with gay hustings & youth rally

Conservative candidate Boris Johnson, Labour's Ken Livingstone, Lib Dem Brian Paddick and Green candidate Jenny Jones all took part in the Stonewall event at BFI Southbank on Saturday morning.

"It's really impressive that all of the main mayoral candidates wanted to engage lesbian, gay and bisexual Londoners – something that would have been unthinkable 15 or 20 years ago," said Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill.

"What was particularly interesting was that many of the people in the audience were completely undecided about how they were going to vote, so clearly no-one should take London's 350,000 gay voters for granted."

In the afternoon attention turned to the Ministry of Sound where Jenny Jones, Ken Livingstone, Brian Paddick and independent candidate Siobhan Benita addressed the Youth Vote London event intended to encourage young Londoners to use their vote on 3 May.

The five-hour event at the Elephant & Castle nightclub featured an array of musicians and actors who took to the stage to stress the importance of engagement in the democratic process.

Boris Johnson was notable by his absence from the youth event. If he wins next month's election a tricky planning dispute involving Ministry of Sound will be near the top of his in-tray.

Listen to speeches from Youth Votes London

• Ken Livingstone – Labour Party candidate
• Brian Paddick – Liberal Democrat candidate (with Duwayne Brooks)
• Siobhan Benita – independent candidate
• Owen Jones – journalist and author of Chavs
• Shaun Bailey – former Conservative parliamentary candidate