LONDON (AFP-EJP)---Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson both have a risky way with words and rocky ties with their parties, but the rivals to become mayor of London would not have it any other way.

Local elections are taking place on Thursday in the UK.

The maverick duo have starkly different politics and backgrounds and they are neck-and-neck in the race to take charge of the capital -- one of the toughest tests of personality politics in Britain.

Sharp-suited socialist Livingstone, 62, the current mayor, admits he faces the battle of his life against a man who is his social opposite: upper-class, right-wing, and educated at elite school Eton and Oxford University.

Livingstone was born and raised in south London, becoming a cancer research technician then a teacher before switching to full-time politics. He rose to become leader of the now-defunct Greater London Council in 1981.

He relished goading the Conservative prime minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher, whose free-market policies were anathema to the man the media quickly dubbed "Red Ken" because of his left-wing views.

He erected an electronic billboard outside the GLC headquarters, just over the River Thames from parliament, which kept a tally of Britain's soaring unemployment figures as Thatcher's tough economic reforms kicked in.

After Thatcher abolished the GLC in 1986, Livingstone was elected a lawmaker to the lower House of Commons the year after, falling in with the "loony left" which opposed more modernising elements in the Labour Party.

The splits worsened when Tony Blair took the repositioned centre-left Labour to general election victory in 1997, pledging to create a directly-elected London mayor.

Livingstone lost a bitter battle for the Labour nomination in 2000 but announced he would run for mayor as an independent. He was promptly kicked out of Labour.

He won a resounding victory in the mayoral election, however, and was readmitted to the party -- despite vocal opposition to the Iraq war -- just before winning his second term in 2004.

He has introduced eye-catching measures including the congestion charge, an eight-pound (10-euro/16-dollar) levy for driving in the heart of London during weekday business hours, in 2003.

He was also a key figure in winning the 2012 Olympic Games for London.

But his controversial soundbites have often landed him in hot water.

In 2004, he told an interviewer that he wanted to see the Saudi royal family "swinging from lampposts" and the following year, he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.

In a “Jewish manifesto” published last week in London’s Jewish News, Livingtsone said that he had put good community relations at the centre of his Mayoralty and worked with the Jewish community “not simply to crack down on anti-Semitism but for the first time officially and very publicly celebrate the gigantic Jewish contribution to London.”

“The Simcha on Trafalgar Square is one of the biggest Jewish festivals in the world, we publicly celebrated Chanukkah and we have established the first ever regular guide to Jewish London,” he added.

Livingstone also stressed that as a candidate he is going “to campaign as hard as I can to ensure that there is no BNP (the extreme-right British party) of the London Assembly.”

A former journalist

Boris Johnson, whose wild mop of blonde hair is so distinctive that his silhouette has become his campaign logo, is a journalist-turned-Conservative lawmaker who has made frequent appearances on quiz and talk shows.

He worked for the Daily Telegraph newspaper and edited the right-wing Spectator magazine before becoming a lawmaker in 2001.

He was promoted to a shadow culture minister but landed himself in trouble in 2004 when he said the people of Liverpool, northwest England, were wallowing in "victim status" after local man Ken Bigley was executed in Iraq.

The then Tory leader Michael Howard made him go to the city to say sorry but he was sacked soon after for misleading Howard about an extra-marital affair.

When writing about infighting in the Tory party in 2006, Johnson linked Papua New Guinea to "cannibalism and chief-killing", prompting protests from the Pacific island state's diplomats.

Johnson promised to "add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology".

Anti-racism campaigners have condemned his description in a 2002 newspaper article of black people as "piccaninies" with "watermelon smiles".

Despite his lack of frontline experience, other than as Tory higher education and culture spokesman, Livingstone sees Johnson as a serious threat, describing him as "the most formidable opponent I will face" in politics.

Whichever man wins the poll, Londoners are guaranteed another four years of political theatre in City Hall.

In the Jewish News, Johnson wrote: “Last year there were 247 anti-Semitic incidents in London; 26% were categorized as assault. I take the recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism very seriously and if elected, would consult with the community on how best to implement these to stem the rise of anti-Semitism. I will not allow hate crime to flourish in any guise.”