Douglas Carswell MP is a winner in the Private Members’ Bill ballot and has decided to crowd-source his Bill. Guido has set up a poll allowing readers to choose from five ideas what you would like to see debated. As a result of this exercise in direct democracy, Carswell will prepare a formal Bill with the table office, and present the winner to Parliament. Below are five ideas to choose from, use the voting form below to vote (your email is required to validate your votes).

1. Bloggers Freedom Bill: the law on copyright and libel developed in an age when very few people ever published anything. Today, millions of people blog and tweet. The law needs to reflect this. While other people’s intellectual property needs to be safeguarded, and people need protection from libel, this law would provide bloggers and tweeters with some protection against being sued, with a 48 hour period of grace before legal action could be taken.

2. Defence Procurement Bill: too much of the defence budget is spent in the interests of big defence contractors, and not in the interests of our armed forces. This Bill would make it a legal requirement to put most defence contracts out to public tender, and prevent those who have worked for the Ministry of Defence from working for defence contractors without clear safeguards.

3. Great Repeal Bill: there are too many rules and regulations. The government’s Freedom Bill, which promised to do something about it, has turned out to be pretty useless. Instead, the Great Repeal Bill – the world’s first Wiki-Bill – would repeal a vast swathe of unnecessary red tape. The details of the Bill are here.

4. Repeal of the European Communities Bill: Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973. It has turned out to be an economic and political disaster. This Bill will get us out.

5. Competing Currencies Bill: having struggled to save the Pound, this Bill will save the value of the Pound. It will prevent ministers debauching our currency to help pay their debts. While the idea of competing currencies is not new, the internet – which allows different currencies to be used seamlessly – is, making it practically possible. Translations of the Bill will be available in Greek, Spanish and perhaps even French.

The Guidoisation of polling…

YouGov, who were the most accurate pollsters in London 4 years ago, have produced projections for the Greater London Assembly. The good news is they expect the BNP to be wiped out, the bad news is that London could be looking at a Red-Green majority in the assembly trying to thwart Boris on cost cutting. In Germany Red-Green governed cities have veered to the far left.

It is still close and with the Tories polling double digits behind Labour since the budget, Boris has to overcome a tough national polling deficit. Paddick, despite being a better candidate than he was in 2008, is not expected to poll in double digits and UKIP are projected to cement their claim to be the third party gaining two seats and equaling the LibDems. The graphic below shows how London became Boris Town in 2008:

The suburbs besieged inner London to take control of City Hall from Red Ken…

Just tried to vote. My polling station, in Hammersmith, had closed two hours early. Has anyone else had same problem?—
Stephanie Flanders (@BBCStephanie) May 02, 2012

My democratic outrage is now in abeyance. Apparently all stations closed because, er, today isn't Thursday. Clearly I need an early night.—
Stephanie Flanders (@BBCStephanie) May 02, 2012

Stephanie Flanders is the Theresa May of democracy…

Dave beats Ed 37% to 30% when it comes to the question of which party leader best defends Britain’s interests. No great surprise there.

To those who claim UKIP is not going to cut through what is interesting is that the pollsters Survation found that 24% of those that voted Conservative in 2010 –  almost a quarter - choose UKIP’s Nigel Farage as the party leader that best defends Britain’s interests. The crowding at the centre of politics is opening up space for UKIP on the right…

Tory MP Douglas Carswell might also have the last laugh after being slapped down by Cameron at PMQs for a lack of a sense of humour. The Mail on Sunday found that voters preferred Carswell’s policies over Cameron’s:

To be fair Dave too used to be in favour of an EU referendum, open primaries, MP right to recall laws and the rest. Before he was elected…

Lots of chatter this morning about the “shock” poll that has seen UKIP overtake the LibDems, but once again it seems people just haven’t been paying attention. UKIP bloggers like Michael Heaver have been tracking this trend for months and predicted it was only a matter of time. Although they use a slightly different methodology, last week Survation had a similarly high UKIP standing. Yesterday the Standard called an Assembly Seat for the Eurosceptics and predict that the Greens will lose both of theirs, though you wouldn’t know that from most of the coverage. The crucial figure for UKIP strategists is where this surge is coming from: with reliable pensioner voters UKIP are on 17% and ten points clear of the LibDems. For those hacks saying how shocking this all is, Guido recommends reading Anthony Wells who calls it “inevitable”.

YouGov regularly asks respondents do they approve or disapprove of the party leaders. Subtracting disapproval from approval gives a net approval rating. Guido can’t recall public negativity towards politicians being higher.

Collectively it stands at -121, that is minus one hundred and twenty-one. Dave’s personal ratings are at an all time low at -27, Clegg’s continue to be the worst at -53 and despite a bad week for the Tories, Ed Miliband’s personal rating went down further to -41. In short, the public hates all politicians.

The political class can forget forcing the public to pay for politics. We hate them all. The Guidoised perception of politics is mainstream…

While the apparatchiks over at LabourList declare that “Ken’s campaign is in fact moving from strength to strength”, the Labour Uncut website is home to Labour members of the reality based community. This morning they have gone tonto on Ken. With facts to back up their argument… 

While Boris Johnson’s 49%-41% lead on first preferences was widely reported, some of the most striking results were lost in the news vortex of the budget. Chief among these is the scale of Ken Livingstone’s problem with Labour supporters: 31% say they will not vote for him in the mayoral election. Just weeks before the election, almost 1 in 3 Labour supporters are refusing to back the party’s candidate for mayor.

The figures highlight what anecdotally we have been saying for weeks – many on the left just cannot bring themselves to vote for the hypocritical friend of the clerics.

Those Labour types that are still in denial that Ken’s tax hypocrisy is not a problem need only look at these numbers.

Eyebrows have been raised by the replacement Douglas Alexander has chosen for his departed spinner Steve Van Riel. You would have thought that as shadow Foreign Secretary he would have brought someone in with some actual foreign policy experience, but instead the one time campaign manager to David Miliband has chosen Michelle Napchan. She’s a pollster…

Officially the line is that Napchan will be helping to craft Labour’s message by focus grouping on issues like Europe. However, given that Wee Dougie was one of the few figures able to flit between the Blairites and the Brownites, he is a key unity figure in Ed’s Shadow Cabinet and the slightest hint that he is on manoeuvres gets people talking. One Labour spinny-type suggests that he has studied how Brown did things from the shadows: “he’s building his own private operation, his own army”.  Another Labour source was not so sure though: ”The only army I see Douglas Alexander building is one with Action Men”. If there is ever a move against Ed, Guido would put good money on the “unity” man being involved…

Who said negative campaigning didn’t work? After being exposed as the old hypocrite that he is, Ken’s January lead in the polls has been annihilated. In the latest YouGov poll of first preferences, Boris is on 49% to Ken’s 41%. On second preferences the gap was the same: Boris leading Livingstone by 54% to 46%. That would see Boris improving on his 2008 result.

Earlier today a ComRes poll for the BBC was a similar headache for Ken. Boris is beating him on crime, trust, likeability and, most embarrassingly, on transport issues. Ken has made his fares promise (which FactCheck said was rubbish) the central plank of his campaign, but the public just don’t buy it. Last month Ken was ahead of Boris on sticking to promises. That lead has now gone…

Ken has seen a six point drop in those who say he “sticks to what he believes”. If Ken can’t even be honest abut his own finances, what chance does he have of convincing others to trust him with their money. Trust is Ken’s biggest weakness and he seems incapable of being honest and straight-forward, despite evidence countering what he says being freely available. Take last night’s rally where his campaign claimed there were 500 people:

Surprise, surprise the pictures tell a different story.

UPDATE: Our co-conspirator who made it inside last night’s Ken event says by the entrance door there were two mug-shot pictures of Guido and Neo-Guido presumably for the benefit of the security guards. He also says that in his speech Ken called the Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan “mad” and Guido a “thug“. Ken’s hurting, badly…