Britain:
"Red Ken" defies Labour leaders

by Daphne Liddle

Britain's Labour Party officially suspended the membership of popular left-
wing figure Ken Livingstone (formerly assailed in the bourgeois media as 
"Red Ken") after he announced his decision to stand as an independent 
candidate in the elections for mayor of Greater London.

The next day an opinion poll published in the British Guardian 
newspaper gave Livingstone a 55 point lead over the official Labour Party 
candidate, Frank Dobson.

Now Labour headquarters at Millbank House is internally divided with 
recriminations and accusations flying over their disastrously managed 
campaign to Stop Ken.

In particular Labour Party General Secretary Margaret McDonagh has come in 
for heavy criticism for misjudging the mood of Londoners and Ken 
Livingstone's resolve to stand his ground.

The poll gave Ken Livingstone 68 per cent, Frank Dobson 13 per cent, Steve 
Norris the Tory candidate 11 per cent and Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer 11 
per cent.

The Millbank campaign against Ken Livingstone has been so blatant and 
unfair that everything the spin doctors have done to stop him has boosted 
him in the eyes of Londoners.

He now faces an uphill task to raise funds for his campaign to match those 
of the three main parties — around L450,000. "I am starting with virtually 
nothing", he said.

So far no Labour MPs have dared to support him openly and Millbank has 
wheeled out a succession of hacks to condemn his stand — some of them 
former left-wingers.

But some are still arguing that Ken should be the official Labour candidate 
after polling thousands more individual votes than Frank Dobson. He won 
74,000 votes compared to Dobson's 24,000 yet the Labour Party's rigged 
electoral college system of voting gave Dobson the victory.

Livingstone said: "Frank won because one trade union leader and one Co-op 
branch cast eight per cent of the total votes in Frank's favour without 
balloting their members.

"Labour MPs' votes were given 1,000 times the weight of an individual party 
member and — under massive pressure from the whips in a ballot that was 
not even secret — most of them cast their votes for Frank."

If elected there will be a limit on what he can do. When Labour first 
created the post they made sure it came with a limited budget and remit but 
winning in itself will shatter the myth that the right-wing grip on the 
Labour leadership — and some of the trade unions — cannot be challenged.
Livingstone's campaign will focus on the future of the London Underground.

The Blair leadership wants it privatised — in spite of the disaster that 
has brought to British Rail. Ken Livingstone wants to keep it in the public 
sector.

Another mistake made by the Labour leadership is to try to scare voters 
with the "looney left" tag and references to when Livingstone was leader of 
the Greater London Council.

For most Londoners this was a good time when, for the only time in living 
memory, London had a transport policy that worked. Cheap fares led to an 
increase in the use of public transport and a big reduction in traffic 
congestion.

Also it was a time when money was spent on some of London's most needy, for 
example low cost holiday schemes for children from deprived areas funded 
through the Inner London Education Authority — now sorely missed.

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