Despite delivering progress in transport and raising London's standing, Ken lost in the suburbs.

So strong was its Conservative vote, the green suburbs have been renamed the 'blue doughnut', the ring of outer boroughs circling the jam red, meaning the Labour centre.

Much prompted Ken's defeat: that after eight years he was running London as a personal fiefdom, insulated by cronies, immune to criticism or advice; it was time for a change; he was tired, abrasive and out of touch.

Even the successes like the congestion charge and the Olympics contributed.

As Hugh Muir in The Guardian wrote: 'With every success there was acclaim which seemed to erode his humility. The line between self-belief and arrogance is thin.'

The silver bullet, perhaps, was the Evening Standard and its suburban readership.

Its billboards lambasted the mayor at every opportunity. On the day crime fell to it lowest level in a decade, they read: 'Suicide bomber runs Ken campaign.' Not pretty, nor fair but effective. The Standard and Ken never got on, and in 2010 the deal to hand out its hugely profitable free Metro paper on stations is up for renewal - by the mayor.

Metropolitan Londoners now feel uneasy. As The Observer summed up: 'Ken was felled by suburban small-mindedness and the over-55s.'

The Australian strategist Lynton Crosby focused Tory time and bigger war chest on the suburbs, which in past mayoral elections had been part of London only in name. Ken had no answer, and no activists, in the doughnut.

Ben Page, of pollster Ipsos-Mori, told The Observer: 'The image of the content leafy suburb is a myth. The outer boroughs were more likely to consider traffic, cleanliness and state of the roads a problem ... while Boris' promises to evict rowdy teens from buses and confiscate alcohol was manna.'

Newly arrived Londoners, it says, have colonised the outer boroughs where housing is cheaper, changing the social and racial profile. Older residents now experience the 'crime and grime' without the metropolitan benefits of the middle.

'You have this terrible mix,' says Mr Page, 'of people who don't want to live in central London, now joined by people who do but can't afford it. They feel like poor relations.'

Residents of Bromley turned out in droves - at 60 per cent by far the highest level. Most voted Boris. The extremist British National Party also won a seat on the London Assembly, and its 2.6 per cent vote nearly all went on second preference votes for Boris.

But there is hope for the jam red centre. Boris is untested in office and many, even Tory grandees, believe his tenure could be a liability. Bruce Anderson in The Independent said the landslide already represented a large Tory cake.

'Did it really need to be crowned with a large cherry with a self-destruct mechanism?'

What Boris does in his first 100 days is key. On Friday he welcomes Michael Bloomberg, New York mayor, for talks on crime with Boris vowing to get rowdy teenagers off the street, buses and trains by getting more police riding public transport. Metal detectors will be fitted at stations to thwart knife crime.

The GBP25 (HK$384) charge for gas-guzzling SUVs will be scrapped, as will the low-emission limits. The congestion charge will also be reviewed.

The highly unpopular bendy bus will be phased out, although there is as yet no designed, costed or tested replacement. A parallel, perhaps, with London under Boris?

Tomorrow: Sydney