London - The most succinct manifestos to date have been produced by the three leading London mayoral candidates. All three have outlined their policies in just 480 characters or less - the length of a mobile phone text message.

Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Brian Paddick have each boiled their appeal to voters down to the bare bones in response to a challenge from UK company SpinVox, which converts voicemails into text messages.

Christina Domecq, Spinvox co-founder and CEO says: "There has been so much debate in this election; it's hard for most people to remember what candidates have really said and so to understand their policies."

"When you speak a message that going to be read as text, you tend to focus your thoughts a bit more than usual. We hope the SpinVox manifestos for the mobile phone generation are a bit of a political brevity people will appreciate and find useful in making their voting decisions."

In their responses to SpinVox’s challenge Johnson's was most succinct at 476 characters , whilst Paddick needed 478 and Livingstone used at the limit of 480.

Ken Livingstone said: "This election is about taking the big decisions that affect everyone, from the £1billion a year tube upgrades to the £16 billion Crossrail project. I will provide an extra 1,000 police officers on the beat and keep the neighbourhood police teams, fund £79 million for young people to have safe places to go outside school, and safeguard the policy that 50% of all new housing is affordable. Boris Johnson's lack of competence was shown when independent research found his bus policies would cost £100 million a year more than he said – equal to a £2 increase on a weekly bus pass."

Boris Johnson said: "London does not offer the quality of life a great city should guarantee. This election is an opportunity to have your say on crime, taxes, and congestion. Ken Livingstone's discredited regime is tired and out of touch - we need fresh thinking and new ideas on the issues that matter to Londoners. Only Boris Johnson will knuckle down, and work with the borough councils to improve Londoners’ quality of life. So Back Boris for the changes needed to make London great again."

Brian Paddick said: "We need a greener, more sustainable London, with its strong local communities, street markets and green spaces enhanced; a safer London with police you can see and talk to, and hugely improved leisure and training facilities for young people; far more affordable rented housing, especially for larger families; a more convenient London reducing the need to travel but improving public transport so it is safe, frequent and affordable and a fairer London, where good skills' training closes the poverty gap and where all Londoners have worthwhile opportunities."

'Voice-to-Text' the process of automatically converting the spoken word into the written word is one of the fastest-growing telecommunications trends of 2008. In less than two years, SpinVox has converted over 50 million voice messages in four languages and on four continents, delivering them as SMS texts, emails, blogs or posts on social network walls and spaces.

So if you want to get your message across succinctly then why don’t you try SpinVox’s free trial available from www.spinvox.com.