Gay Candidate Gets Another Try at Becoming London's Mayor

London's highest ranking gay police official will try again to become the city's first openly gay mayor, after winning his party's nomination earlier this week.

Brian Paddick ran as the Liberal Democrats' nominee in 2008, coming in last place. And history is repeating itself as the exact same field of candidates will compete for mayor once again in May 2012.

Still, Paddick says his chances of beating the Conservatives' incumbent, Boris Johnson, and Labour's Ken Livingstone are looking brighter.

"You've got Boris Johnson who now has an appalling track record as mayor, Ken Livingstone was sunk last time because of his track record. Therefore I think I've got a chance," Paddick told the UK Press Association.

Paddick only barely won the nomination, according to the BBC, with his 1,526 votes just beating his closest competitor, London Assembly member Mike Tuffrey, who garnered 1,476 votes.

The Guardiannotes that the country's phone hacking scandal figures to play prominently in the election, with the incumbent Johnson infamously dismissing as "codswallop" the suggestion that News of the World's misconduct was widespread. And Livingstone was mayor during the original investigation. Paddick, who retired as deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police in 2007, was a victim of the hackings, and he's known for pushing for an investigation.

Paddick married Petter Belsvik in Oslo, Norway in 2009, a year after it became legal there. And he has since became a proponent of marriage equality in Britain.

"When civil partnerships came into effect here, I thought that was good enough," Paddick wrote in 2010 in the Independent. "I did not want to go again into what some people in the gay community regard as the heterosexual institution of marriage.

"My opinion changed on that day in Oslo. It had quite an impact on me when I stood in front of the judge in the court and she said: "We are here to witness the marriage of Brian and Petter." It powerfully struck me how significant and how important it was for us to be treated exactly the same as if we were a straight couple.

"Yet we are only married in Norway. Here in Britain our status reverts to a civil partnership and that doesn't feel the same at all."