Greg Dyke for Mayor of London??

It has apparently been reported that Greg Dyke has been asked to run by Francis Maude the Tory Party Chairman to run as a joint Tory/Liberal candidate for Mayor of London against Ken Livingstone.

At present both the selection process for the Conservatives and Liberals has come to a halt as the calibre of candidates putting themselves forwards was so poor or consisted mainly of the loony fringe(which Cameron is desperate to keep hidden away in his party) or complete non-entities. Apparently Greg Dyke seems to be quite keen on the idea, if he so keen why does not run as a Lib Dem, after all he may be just as successful running for them as he would be on a joint ticket.

This is clearly an act of desperation on the part of the Tories, effectively they've given up on beating Ken. From a Labour point of view, if the Tories and Liberal were to run a joint candidate, the Liberals would be committing political suicide in the parts of London where they are the main opposition to Labour(most of Inner London). Indeed until quite recently Greg Dyke was a member of the Labour Party(and stood as a Labour GLC candidate for Putney in 1977). I would be surprised if a joint ticket happened as I'd imagine that many Tory and Liberal activists would be completely aghast at a joint ticket.

Barring a catastrophe, Ken should be re-elected next year, as Mayor he done some great things for London including neighborhood policing, improving the buses and of course winning the Olypmics which will be of huge benefit to London in 2012. Ken is an effective Mayor and needs someone who will put the case for London effecitvely, why change a winning formula?

UPDATE: Looks like the Tories and Liberal are back to square one in their search for a mayoral candidate as Greg Dyke rules out standing.