By Jess Freeman & Laura Sainsbury

Labour shortlist their candidates for London Mayor today so Total Politics interviewed Ken Livingstone, Oona King and Seton During about their candidacies and hopes for London. The fourth candidate, artist Emmanuel Okoro, was unavailable for comment.

Why do you want to be mayor?

Ken Livingstone: Boris has carried on some of the projects that I have started but he’s cancelled all of the ones that we had in place. All our major competitor cities have moved on. Also, what has really emerged since the budget is that the government is using the excuse of the banker’s recession to shift British politics to the Right. I want to use the Mayoralty to try to protect London as best I can until we get a Labour government and a return to fairness.

Oona King: I don't want things to stay as they are! London generates incredible wealth; it is an extraordinarily creative and diverse city. Yet, it is one of the most unequal places in Britain, and it is often a stressful place to live. A mayor has to use their powers of persuasion to help employers pay the living wage, to help school leavers find apprenticeships, for example.

Seton During: To improve the quality of life and health for all Londoners.

Why are you the best candidate?

KL: I come in knowing how it works, where the leaders are and what you can do with it. The other factor in all this is that it matters a lot to the Labour Party. Media attention will be looking at anything that happens at City Hall to embarrass the Labour party and I’ve got a lot of experience in how to manage that.

OK: I'm a fresh candidate, with new ideas and energy for the role. I may not have been around London politics for forty years, but people have not made up their mind about me either. I want to listen to Londoners, and in particular make it clear that outer London is as important as inner London.

SD: I have better and more demanding hands-on management, administrative skills and terotechnological experiences. I also have the knowledge, and education to create higher levels of costs-consciousness and effectiveness.

What’s your favourite thing about London?

KL: It’s the most relaxed, major city on Earth. I know people say we’re all stressed but actually compared with New York or somewhere like Shanghai, Mumbai, we’re more tolerable and more comfortable with each other here than any other place on Earth.

OK: I could say the parks, but really it's the bus queues. There's no other city in the world where you would see such a variety of people patiently queuing for a bus, and although there's a bit of pushing in when the bus comes, most people wait roughly in line.

SD: London and the South-East are our nation’s most important engines, driving our economy. Its residents and businesses therefore need my superior and exemplary nurturing.

What’s the one thing you would like to achieve as mayor?

KL: Total independence for London. A Republic of London. If London was independent we would have more people than half the members of the UN do, we’d be able to use more of our wealth to provide better infrastructure and a better quality of life instead of pumping £20 bn more into the national economy than we get back.

OK: I want to take proper control of the police service, to actually be in charge of it, rather than abdicate from the police authority as Boris Johnson has done. I want to safeguard police numbers, not cut them like Boris, and fight to preserve spending on law and order against George Osborne's cuts. I want to look carefully at how the police spends its money and time.

SD: Reducing waste with allied undesirables etc [sic] for the majority e.g. reducing NHS and public sector costs.

But with the election next year why are Labour selecting their candidates so early?

Update: Oona King and Ken Livingstone have made the shortlist and will now fight it out to become Labour's candidate. Hard luck Seton and Emmanuel.