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Posts Tagged ‘Ken Livingstone’

Enough is enough. Labour should kick out Ken Livingstone

08/05/2014, 03:44:44 PM

by David Talbot

In January 2004 a controversial member of the Labour family was readmitted to the fold. Ken Livingstone, the hitherto independent Mayor of London, had submitted his application before Labour’s NEC in order to run as the official Labour candidate in the forthcoming second London-wide ballot.

Livingstone had been expelled from party membership for five years in 2000 when, having been blocked by the party’s hierarchy from running as its official candidate for Mayor, he stood as an independent. Labour’s gerrymandering of the selection procedure, coupled with its heavy-handedness in throwing out the longstanding MP, merely resulted in Livingstone beating Labour’s official candidate into a humiliating fourth place.

Upon his return to the Labour column a jubilant Livingstone described it all as an unfortunate misunderstanding and of a marriage that had temporarily broken down. It is near long-forgotten that this fiercely independent firebrand lobbied extensively for his readmission to the party. But since then Livingstone has abused this “marriage of convenience” with the Labour party to the point where many right-minded Labourites can no longer willingly tolerant his membership of their party.

He has taken all he could from the relationship, and given scant in return. The charge sheet of abuse, varying in seriousness, is so extensive and so oft-repeated it is barely worth the bandwidth to detail further; campaigning against an official Labour candidate in 2010, admitting that he never voted Labour under Tony Blair’s leadership, whilst throwing in the customary charge that he should be tried for war crimes; his tax avoidance, his penchant for the mullahs of Tehran, telling the Reuben brothers to go “back where they came from”, likening a journalist to a concentration camp guard – even after he knew he was Jewish, his distaste for the Jewish community in general, and his patronage of Shaykh Yusuf Al Qaradaw, who denies the Holocaust, promotes female genital mutilation, and urges the throwing of homosexuals from rooftops as a punishment for their sin.

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Livingstone: still there, still up to his old tricks

18/11/2013, 10:35:00 AM

by Rob Marchant

Now, Labour Uncut has never been a fan of Gordon Brown’s decision to leave the “Golden Rule” behind and stop balancing the books over the economic cycle. He borrowed more than he should have, with the result that Britain was rather caught with its trousers around its ankles when the global financial crisis came.

But it takes a certain kind of front for a politician on his own side to call the former prime minister a coward (although marginally better, one supposes, than asking for him to be tried as war criminal).

Especially if that politician (a) still holds office at national level (albeit on Labour’s NEC and not an office elected by the general public); and (b) wouldn’t know fiscal responsibility if it jumped up and slapped him in the face with a wet kipper.

It really could only be one person, couldn’t it? Step forward, our old friend Ken Livingstone, who told the Labour Assembly Against Austerity last weekend that the raising of debt was “an act of cowardice”.

Now, let’s examine that for a second as an exercise in multiple levels of irony.

First up in the irony stakes is the issue that he was speaking at the Labour Assembly Against Austerity. Yes, the anti-austerity movement. The primary function of this body, as far as anyone can understand, is the economic equivalent of the Flat Earth Society; that of fighting of any cut of any kind.

Now, although Livingstone later implied – disingenuously – in the same speech that he is open to cuts, this goes entirely against the whole ethos of the anti-austerity movement. No-one can possibly seriously buy that argument, least of all from him.

So, the equation is pretty straightforward: if you can’t cut and you can’t raise debt, you have to raise taxes. That is the clear conclusion of this kind of policy and the modus operandi which has followed Livingstone throughout his political life.

And there’s the second irony. You can certainly say that Livingstone has always been consistent about not wanting to raise debt and securing all revenue through tax-raising, but let’s look at the facts on that.

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The far left has gained entry at the top of the Labour party

06/02/2013, 01:24:28 PM

by Rob Marchant

While the latest controversy surrounding the Socialist Workers Party shows that we all still have an odd, vicarious interest in the goings-on of a fringe, far-left party – or as blogger Laurie Penny put it in an unintentional comedy moment, a party which contains “many of the UK’s most important thinkers and writers” – we might just miss something less obviously scandalous but closer to home.

Three weeks ago, Ken Livingstone’s former chief of staff, Simon Fletcher, was appointed as trade union liaison manager to the leader’s office. A backroom role, it is there to manage the relationship between trade unions and the party and has the ear of the party’s leader and deputy.

While the Mail and the Standard, not really newspapers which understand the running of the Labour party, ran their predictable “Red Ed” headlines and tried to use the appointment, laughably, to attack Miliband for being a Trot in disguise, in the process they made one legitimate point which should concern us on the mainstream left. It relates to the so-called Socialist Action group.

Although most Labourites believe they know Livingstone, it is surprising how many of his supporters are still unaware of Socialist Action. For those requiring a brief refresher, the Trotskyite clique that spawned most of Livingstone’s advisers during his mayoral tenure is documented in an extract from his biography:

“[it is] so discreet and secretive that it does not even admit its own existence and its members will not confirm they have ever belonged to the group.”

The only member of Ken’s coterie listed on the group’s website appears to be Redmond O’Neill – who died in 2009 – although Fletcher’s and others’ associations with it have been documented by other sources, including said biography and former members. With Socialist Action, the emphasis, as the above quote indicates, is on plausible deniability, an old tactic of the far left frequently wielded by the former mayor himself (although, in his case, the word “plausible” may have often been stretched to breaking point).

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The party machines might not know it yet but political parties are dying

13/12/2012, 07:00:31 AM

by Peter Watt

Political parties are strange constructs where by necessity a coalition of views is encapsulated under one brand. So you have the campaign group and Progress all sharing the Labour banner or left leaning Lib Dems sharing a party with the orange bookers and so on.

To put it even more colourfully, it means that Frank Field and Jeremy Corbyn can share the same political colours! While there will be some shared world views of course and certainly a degree of shared culture and history, actually it is often more of a case of “vive la difference” or “damn your principles and stand by your party” depending on your view or current mood! And the reason for this is that it is important for two very good reasons.

Firstly, when it comes to elections voters are offered a relatively easy to consume and unified approach from a small group of potential political alternatives. Debates around the direction of travel and then the detail of policy happen within the parties in order that common policy stances can be offered to the public.

And secondly, that there is a reasonable chance of a stable administration being formed after the votes are counted.

There are other benefits of course. Political parties have been excellent institutions at identifying and developing potential future political representatives. They also allow a forum and focus for the discussion and development of policy positions as the wider environment changes. All of this relies on party discipline and a desire for unity to work; and the system has generally served the country well for many years. And at election times people have voted for their preferred party rather than their preferred candidate.

But slowly such certainties are changing.

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The status quo in London is not an option

16/05/2012, 07:00:59 AM

by Rob Marchant

As the post-election dust settles, we must hope that the party is, somewhere, currently holding a quiet post-mortem, to take away the lessons for next time. There are many positives we can take away, of course: that the locals went swimmingly and so did the London Assembly. And that we held Glasgow, that vital first step in turning around the Scottish party, a task which is, in turn, a sine qua non for preserving the very Union.

However, in a post-mortem, the biggest lesson to learn – and the easiest to forget if, as in this case, things have gone well – usually comes from what went wrong, not what went right.

In this case, it’s staring us in the face: we lost the mayorals to a mediocre candidate whose party was fairly unpopular, while our London result overall was a resounding win. And what went badly wrong was not the policy offering or the party’s campaign tactics, but the Livingstone candidacy itself.

What is the long-term lesson for Labour, then? How should we be fine-tuning our London strategy? There’s no need to go through again how the election was thrown by the candidate (although, if you need one, there’s a summary here). But he is just one man, and now he is gone. So, job done, right?

Well, no. Labour’s pressing task now is to ensure this can never happen again. And, by the way, he is not gone.

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Lions were led by donkeys in Labour’s London mayoral election campaign

05/05/2012, 06:30:21 AM

by Atul Hatwal

The phrase was memorably used by Alan Clark to describe the shambolic command of British infantry in the First World War. In the wake of Ken Livingstone’s defeat, ‘lions led by donkeys’, captures the essence of what happened to Labour in London’s mayoral election.

Thousands of Labour activists ordered over the top in the cause of a flawed figurehead, as part of a doomed campaign that the top brass had privately written-off several months ago.

In the carnage of a London loss, where Labour’s candidate under-performed his party’s Assembly vote by 43,480 votes or 5% on first preferences, it can be hard to disentangle the reasons for defeat.

But three distinct reasons stand out: the suicidal candidate selection process, Ed Miliband’s judgement and, of course, the candidate himself.

At the root of Labour’s London problem was a ludicrous decision on the timetable for candidate selection

In the aftermath of the general election defeat in May 2010, while the party reeled, the NEC decided that this was the best time to pick a mayoral candidate – 24 months before the election.

Gordon Brown’s resignation forced the timetable for a leadership election. Running the mayoral selection in parallel was entirely voluntary.

It meant potential candidates from the front bench such as Alan Johnson were unprepared. The selection process was railroaded through just days after the general election, before many MPs could collect their thoughts after a bruising election contest, let alone raise the funds to fight.

It didn’t have to be this way. In 2000 the Labour selection wasn’t concluded till three months before the election, while Boris Johnson only got the nod just seven months before the 2008 election, and that didn’t seem to do him any harm.

But when the NEC made their decision, sanctioned by acting leader Harriet Harman’s team, they knew all of this.

It was part of the charade of democracy Labour frequently conducts on its candidate selections. This was a stitch-up, pure and simple to help Ken Livingstone – the candidate who had been running since he lost the mayoralty in 2008.

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After the London mayoral election, Labour has a new campaign rule book

04/05/2012, 07:00:47 AM

by Jonathan Roberts

In March I wrote an open letter to Ken Livingstone – where I promised to abstain from the mayoral election. It is a promise I kept, but for the avoidance of doubt, I proudly voted Labour for the London Assembly.

Now, the 2012 election campaign has drawn to a close. As a consequence of the hard work of countless Labour activists, we have seen hundreds of new Labour councillors elected as a sign that Labour is back, its reputation making good progress down the road of recovery. From Plymouth to Birmingham, new Labour councils will help make a difference across the country.

It is a physical manifestation not just of the unpopularity of this Government, but also of Ed Miliband’s improving leadership – a vindication of the belief that Labour is most in touch with the needs of ordinary people in difficult times.

But there is a moral threat already placed upon this welcome return to Labour’s electoral competitiveness, because the London mayoral election has changed the game of political campaigning forever.

There was once an unwritten rule book, a code of conduct that governed Labour activity to ensure high standards of integrity and consistency were met. Labour activists have always claimed a higher moral standard, and revelled in holding the supposed immorality of our opponents to account. But we now have a hypocrisy problem.

It is truly dreadful that we have a Conservative prime minister willing to make discriminatory attacks on the basis of age. But apparently it is righteous and just to support discriminatory “posh-boy” attacks on the basis of class.

It is disgraceful that Conservative policies attack the disabled. But apparently it is fair and appropriate for Labour to mock a Conservative MP because of his cerebral palsy.

Hypocrisy can be seen by all but those who choose to be blind.

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We need to send the Tories packing

02/05/2012, 02:38:08 PM

by Siôn Simon

Fifteen years ago the country went to the polls, cast their vote for Labour and sent a message to the incumbent Tory government. People said: we won’t be treated like this; we won’t be lied to, conned, taken for granted; asked to work harder for less, while the rich get richer; we don’t want hand outs, but sometimes we need a hand up. And Labour voters delivered that message and sent the Tories packing.

But they came back.

It didn’t take long for David Cameron’s mask to slip, or for them to reverse the work of the last Labour government. Snatching tax credits away from millions of working families, scrapping the education maintenance allowance, increasing tuition fees and, with Osborne at the wheel, driving the country back in to recession.

Tomorrow we have another opportunity to send a clear message to the Tories and their Liberal Democrat houseboys that we won’t stand for their lies, cozy kitchen suppers, daily updates with media barons and shambolic handling of the economy. In polling booths up and down the country people have the chance to tell David Cameron and George Osborne exactly what they think of them.

The local elections aren’t just about individual communities, they are a report card on this government. Whether it be in Birmingham, where the Tory and Lib Dem controlled council has done nothing to support, speak up or stand up for our city against their central Government cronies cuts. Or in London where Boris Johnson has done nothing to help the woman on the street but managed to find time to campaign for tax cuts for his wealthy mates. We need to send the message.

Because if we don’t kick them out of power in Birmingham, if we don’t send Boris packing in London, then Cameron and Osborne will think they can get away with it. That they can keep looking after the few and make life harder for the many.

The message to wavering Londoners is clear: it doesn’t matter whether you like Ken. You need Ken. Because you can’t afford Boris. He is an out-of-touch playboy who has taken Londoners for a ride, and charged you 50% more for your bus trip on the way.

Ken has an unparalleled track record of putting ordinary Londoners first. Now, of all times, that is what London needs.

In Birmingham, eight years of Tory-Lib Dem misrule – during which they never won the popular vote – has devastated our city. They have attacked our must vulnerable people with disabilities. Twice their cuts have been found to be illegal. The fight back for ordinary Brummies needs to start tomorrow.

We must show them that we won’t stand for it – we won’t be made mugs of by these privileged chancers. We need to stand up and tell them no. Enough is enough. We want our great cities back.

There’s only one way to send this message: vote Labour on Thursday, vote Ken and vote Yes in Birmingham’s Mayoral referendum.

Siôn Simon is running to be the first directly elected Mayor of Birmingham

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What on earth is going on with politics at the moment?

19/04/2012, 07:00:53 AM

by Peter Watt

Does anyone know what is going on out there? Really? Until a month ago it was all so much simpler.

The Tories didn’t really have a coherent tale to tell but then nor did anyone else so it didn’t really matter all that much. They bumbled along making mistakes and generally looking incompetent. But crucially voters had been persuaded that they were dealing with an out of control deficit that Labour had caused.

And that was the end of the discussion.

Anyway, they had David Cameron and he looked and sounded prime ministerial, made tough decisions and even diplomatically bashed the Germans and French. No matter how bad it got, he was their trump card. And Labour, not to put too fine a point on it, had its own problems: perceptions of economic incompetence and a leader who was still finding his feet as far as voters were concerned.

But then came the budget and suddenly the Tories and David Cameron are wobbling.

All that bravado and self-confidence appear shaken to its core. Instead of charting a route to sunnier times the budget looked elitist, favouring the rich. And worse it looked muddled as its measures unravelled and established more and more losers.

Ed Miliband gave one of his finest performances in the Commons after Osborne’s budget speech. The discomfort on the faces of David and George was there for all to see, and on the benches behind them you could see doubt.

Over 4 weeks later the budget is still the issue of the moment, and at issue is the Government’s credibility. George Osborne appears to have disappeared and no one on the Government side seems overly keen to defend the finance bill. Certainly not David Cameron; he seems intent on avoiding answering any of Ed Miliband’s questions at successive PMQ’s.

Ed’s victories at the despatch box have rattled Cameron. And the more rattled David Cameron gets the less prime ministerial he looks and sounds. His attacks become more and more sneering, dismissive and personal and his lack of attention to detail becomes ever more obvious. It’s not attractive.

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Break out the nose pegs and vote for Livingstone

18/04/2012, 03:12:48 PM

by David Talbot

You would be forgiven for thinking that the only segment of the United Kingdom that is to vote this May is London. But on May 3^rd elections will take place in 180 councils across the country, with 5000 seats up for grabs. Over the Easter break I duly volunteered to distribute leaflets in my home CLP back in rural Warwickshire. Amidst the endless open countryside, hamlets and villages I could not have been more removed from the hectic London political scene.

Until, that is, I stopped in the hamlet of Ardens Grafton and frequented the sole shop. A picture of Ken Livingstone weeping greeted me as I picked up the front page of the Guardian. Much has been said about the authenticity, or not, of the performance since. But with accompanying prose underneath the picture spilling over to page two, and a double-page spread adjoining pages seven and eight, it confirmed, if nothing else, just quite how London-centric our media is. It also focused the mind on the London mayoral election ahead – and what those with serious doubts about Livingstone should do come that Thursday in early May.

I am seemingly in a large rump of Labour voters who do not view Ken Livingstone favourably. YouGov put the figure at 31%, ComRes 17%. In a tight election these numbers are more than enough to secure significant defeat for the Labour candidate.

The charge sheet against Ken Livingstone has been heavily trailed in recent weeks. Commentators ranging from Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, Philip Collins in the Times, Nick Cohen in the Observer and, more troublingly, the Jewish Chronicle have voiced serious concerns about our candidate. Coupled with the usual antagonists; Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph is his usual obsessed self, and the Evening Standard, who have effortlessly slipped back to where they left off in 2008; vast swathes of the media, and ordinary Labour members, are, to put it politely, at best lukewarm about Livingstone.

Ken Livingstone is the problem of this campaign. To pretend otherwise is to, wilfully, miss the point. At a time when Labour has opened up the biggest lead over the Tories since the aftermath of the general election, Livingstone is trailing the London Labour vote by 6%, whilst Boris Johnson is outperforming the Tories in the capital by 10%.

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