Alongside the council elections on Thursday, some 10 British cities will be voting on whether they want an elected mayor. It is to be hoped that they all vote "yes". At their best, mayors are not only a dynamic addition to local democracy, they are powerful figureheads for their city's identity and can help to reinvigorate slumping public interest in politics.

Inside Westminster

Few journalists mention Boris's slights against black people: all that talk of 'piccaninnies'

Prices are political. On one level this is a statement of the obvious. Of course the price of goods or services is political. Voters get worried or angry about how much things cost. Leaders who want to win elections must take note. Except that for the past three decades, the price of things is not something voters have got especially worked up about.

London's three top mayoral candidates published details of their income and tax payments yesterday but the row over their personal finances looked set to continue.

Ed Miliband has met Labour's major union donors more than 20 times since he was elected leader of the party in 2010, it was disclosed yesterday.

'It is read from the cabinet to the nursery'

The unending quest for populist, eye-catching initiatives with which Ed Miliband might be personally associated steers us into the realm of tax avoidance. Sadly this proposal would do nothing to rebuild fraternal bridges, but Little Ed is advised to announce that, as PM, he would fulfil an old Labour pledge to close a gaping loophole.

M odern elections can be won or lost according to what I call The Underdog Effect. All media outlets, except those who are actually a branch of a political party – like Fox News or The Sun – have an interest in seeing an extremely close contest. A nail-biting finish makes for the best story. So the media overplay the chances of the underdog and underplay the chances of the favourite. That gives the underdog an aura of electability they don't actually deserve – but thereby increases their attractiveness to voters and so their eventual chance of winning. You're seeing this in the contest to be the Republican party's presidential candidate this autumn, which is the longest suicide march in modern American history. Mitt Romney should be clear favourite. But Newt Gingrich's superb performance in South Carolina has created a momentum which all of America's media wants to feed. Gingrich finally triumphing over Mitt the Moderate – long established as the front-runner – would be a great story.

The week in books

In Dante's Inferno, the ninth and innermost circle of hell is reserved for those who have committed vile acts of treachery against people who had reason to trust them, such as Cain, and Judas Iscariot.

A nightclub full of politicians, and it's a hundred quid to get in. Could it be the worst night out in the capital's history?

Boris Johnson is planning to present Barack Obama with a congestion charge bill for £5.5m when the President visits London next week.