This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The Tory-supporting businessman Ivan Massow has launched his bid to become the next mayor of London with a candid YouTube video in which he introduces himself as “gay, ex-alcoholic and dyslexic”.

Massow, 47, said the 70-second pop art-style animated video gave an “honest warts-and-all” portrayal of him.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ivan Massow’s YouTube video

His voiceover begins: “I’m Ivan and I want to be your mayor of London.” He adds: “I’m gay, I’m an ex-alcoholic, I’m dyslexic, I’m adopted, I’m an activist, I’m a businessman, I’m a disruptor, I’m a doer. I’m not your typical ‘politician’ politician” – at which point the cartoon turns grey.

He says he is “someone who takes the tube, someone who hates sitting in traffic, someone who hates red tape, someone who hates politics as normal.”

Massow said he would be spending “significant” sums of money on advertising on Facebook and Twitter in his campaign. He urged Londoners to use the Twitter hashtag #tellivan to let him know what they want him to do as mayor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ivan Massow in mayoral regalia in his campaign launch video. Photograph: Ivan Massow Youtube

Brighton-born Massow has lived in the capital for 25 years and in the 1990s briefly shared a Mayfair home with the now senior Tories Michael Gove and Nicholas Boles.

He joined his local Young Conservatives and became chairman aged 14, left school with one O-level, and set up Massow Financial Services, which grew to be valued at more than £20m.

He became chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, but was sacked in 2002. A year later, his business venture folded.

He has previously said he stopped drinking after an intervention by Joan Collins when he stayed at the actor’s St-Tropez villa.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ivan Massow says he ‘hates politics as normal’. Photograph: Ivan Massow Youtube

Massow says in a statement on his website that in 2000 he resigned from the Conservative party to “jolt the party out its 1950s mindset, and while I still stand by my decision, I’m older and wiser now, with greyer hair and a calmer approach.” He says he was invited back by the then leader, Michael Howard, and is now “proud to help the party I love embrace the modern world”.

Others in the running for the Tory candidacy include Stephen Greenhalgh, the current deputy mayor, and Andrew Boff, a London Assembly member. The former footballer Sol Campbell has indicated that he is considering a bid.

