| Ken Livingstone | |
|---|---|
| Ken Livingstone at the 2008 World Economic Forum | |
| 1st Mayor of London | |
| In office 4 May 2000 – 4 May 2008 |
|
| Deputy | Nicky Gavron Jenny Jones |
| Preceded by | Office created |
| Succeeded by | Boris Johnson |
| Leader of the Greater London Council | |
| In office 17 May 1981 – 1 April 1986 |
|
| Deputy | John Wilson |
| Preceded by | Horace Cutler |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Member of Parliament for Brent East |
|
| In office 11 June 1987 – 7 June 2001 |
|
| Preceded by | Reg Freeson |
| Succeeded by | Paul Daisley |
| Majority | 23,748 (67.33%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 17 June 1945 Tulse Hill, London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse(s) | Christine Chapman (m. 1973-1982, divorced) Emma Beal (m. 2009–present)[1] |
| Children | 5 |
| Residence | North London |
| Religion | None (atheist)[2] |
| Ken Livingstone | |
|---|---|
| Candidate for Mayor of London |
|
| Election date 3 May 2012 |
|
| Opponent(s) | Boris Johnson (Con) |
| Incumbent | Boris Johnson |
| Personal details | |
| Website | Ken Livingstone |
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who is a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party. During his political career, he has twice held the leading political role in London local government, firstly as Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and secondly as the first elected Mayor of London, a post he held from its creation in 2000 until 2008. He also served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent East between 1987 and 2001. He is standing as the Labour Party candidate in the London mayoral election, 2012.[3][4]
He became a Labour Party member in 1968 and was elected to represent Norwood at the Greater London Council in 1973, before transferring to represent Hackney North and Stoke Newington in 1977, and then to Paddington in 1981. That year he also became the leader of the Council itself. His vocal opposition to the policies introduced by the right wing Conservative Party government headed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, coupled with his socialist beliefs, led to him gaining the moniker of "Red Ken" in the mainstream press. In 1986, the Conservative government abolished the Council, and so the following year Livingstone instead successfully stood for election as a Member of Parliament for Brent East.
In 1997, the Labour government established a new Greater London Authority that would be controlled by a directly elected mayor. Despite the fact that Labour leader Tony Blair opposed Livingstone and expelled him from the party, Livingstone still ran successfully for the post of London Mayor, being elected as an independent candidate in 2000. During his first term, he organised an upgrade of the London transport system and introduced the London congestion charge. He later rejoined the Labour Party, and was again elected mayor in 2004, following which he continued supporting and expanding such policies. In the 2008 mayoral elections, he was beaten by Conservative candidate Boris Johnson.
Considered to be on the left of the Labour Party, Livingstone considers himself a socialist, and his mayorship was characterised for its support of social liberalism. A polarising figure, Livingstone has been praised by the left for his support of socialist world leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, but criticised by his opponents for extending official invitations to an Islamist scholar.
Ken Livingstone was born in his grandmother's house in Lambeth, London on 17 June 1945.[5] His parents were working class, and his mother, Ethel Ada (née Kennard, 1915–1997), had been born in nearby Southwark, before training as an acrobatic dancer and working on the music hall circuit prior to the Second World War.[6][7][8] Ken's father, Robert 'Bob' Moffat Livingstone (1915–1971),[9] was Scottish, having been born in Dunoon, before joining the Merchant Navy in 1932 and rising up to become ship's master.[10][11] Having married in 1940, following the end of the war the couple moved in to live with Ethel's mother, Zona Kennard, a fierce and aggressive woman whom Livingstone would later describe as "tyrannical".[6] Robert and Ethel went through various jobs in the post-war years, with the former working on both fishing trawlers and on ferries crossing the English Channel, whilst the latter gained employment in a bakers, at Freemans catalogue dispatch and as a cinema usherette.[12]
Livingstone's family background was right wing, and he has described his parents as "working class Tories",[13] although despite this they also held socially liberal views, opposing racism and homophobia, something which was unusual for the time.[14] Livingstone would only adopt the leftist views that would characterise the rest of his life when he began to feel optimistic about the new Labour Party government led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson that was elected into power in 1964.[15] The family was nominally Anglican, although Livingstone gave up his belief in Christianity and monotheism when he was eleven, instead becoming an atheist.[2]
After the family moved to a newly built housing estate in Tulse Hill, Livingstone began attending St. Leonard's Primary School. Here, he failed his eleven plus exam, and so in 1956 began his secondary education at Tulse Hill Comprehensive School,[16] where being rather shy he was bullied,[17] and got into trouble with the school authorities.[15] It was at Tulse Hill Comprehensive that he first gained his interest in amphibians and reptiles, keeping several as pets, leading his mother Ethel to worry that rather than focusing on school work all he cared about was "his pet lizard and friends".[18] Meanwhile, he attained four O-levels in English Literature, English Language, Geography and Art, the subjects that he later described as simply being "the easy ones". To stay on for sixth form however, he had needed six O-levels, and so dropped out of school to look for work.[19]
From 1962 through to 1970, Livingstone worked as a technician at the Chester Beatty cancer research laboratory in Fulham, where his job involved looking after those animals used in animal experimentation.[20][21] It was here that he found most of the technicians were socialists, and first got involved in political activism, founding a branch of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs to fight staff redundancies being imposed by the company's bosses.[14][15] With a friend he had met at Chester Beatty, Livingstone went on a tour of Africa in 1966, visiting Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana and Togo.[14] Returning home, he took part in several protest marches as a part of the anti-Vietnam War movement, becoming increasingly interested in politics.[15]
Livingstone joined the Labour Party in March 1968, when he was 23 years old. He would later describe it as "one of the few recorded instances of a rat climbing aboard a sinking ship", for at the time many socialist activists who were party members were leaving in disgust at the policies being implemented by Harold Wilson's Labour government, which included supporting the United States in the Vietnam War, implementing budget cuts to the National Health Service and introducing both anti-trade union laws and immigration policies perceived to be racist in nature. After abandoning Labour, many of these activists went on to join explicitly socialist (and in most cases Trotskyist) parties like the International Socialists and the Socialist Labour League, as well as single-issue groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Child Poverty Action Group.[22][23] There was also wider dissatisfaction with Labour across the general populace, and the party suffered mass electoral defeats at the local elections. In London, 15 boroughs were lost from Labour's control, including Livingstone's own London Borough of Lambeth.[24]
"My arrival [at the Norwood Labour Party meetings] had been rather like taking a bottle of gin into a room full of alcoholics. I was immediately passed round and consumed."
Despite this, Livingstone believed that grassroots socialist campaigning, such as the student protests that were going on globally at the time, were not achieving results, and that "those who wanted to see change could not ignore the traditional parties of the left which gave us access to the levels of power". For this reason he joined Labour, believing that it could be reformed from within to adopt a more socialist platform, and considering the party to be the best chance for implementing progressive political change in the United Kingdom.[25]
Members of his local Labour Party branch in Norwood were surprised by the fact that Livingstone had joined them considering the general disenchantment with the party amongst British socialists and other leftists at the time.[20] He soon got involved in the party's local operations, and within a month had become chair and secretary of the Norwood Young Socialists, had gained a place on the constituency's General Management and Executive Committees and was on the Local Government Committee, whose job it was to prepare the Labour manifesto for the next borough election.[20][26] Meanwhile, after leaving his job at the Chester Beatty laboratory, in September 1970 he also began taking a course at the Philippa Fawcett teacher training college in Streatham. It was here that he began a romantic relationship with Christine Chapman, the president of the student's union.[27]
Realising that the Conservative Party governance of Lambeth Borough council would be hard to defeat in an election, Livingstone and other Labour activists, centred around party agent Eddie Lopez, began the task of reaching out to those members of the local populace who were disenfranchised from the traditional Labour leadership. As a part of this, Livingstone began associating with the leftist Schools' Action Union (SAU) which had been founded in the wake of the 1968 student protests, as well as the Brixton branch of the socialist Black Panther Party, encouraging their members to join Labour.[28] His involvement in the SAU however led to him being dismissed from his involvement with the Philippa Fawcett training college student's union, who disagreed with his attempts to politicise and unionise secondary school pupils.[29]
"It was intoxicating to be at what seemed at the time the centre of events. We were pushing ahead with our schemes. We had honoured our pledge that pensioners should travel free on London Transport buses. We introduced the provision of free contraception for anyone who lived or worked in the borough. When Mrs Thatcher (then Education Secretary) made it illegal for Education Authorities to give children free school milk, Lambeth - which was not an education authority - stepped in to continue paying for the service."
In 1971, Livingstone and his fellow socialist members of the local Labour branches developed a new strategy for obtaining political power in Lambeth borough. They focused on campaigning to get elected in the marginal seats that were found in the south of the borough, whilst the safe Labour seats in the north were left to either established or right wing, capitalist members of the party. Public dissatisfaction with the recently elected Conservative government of Prime Minister Edward Heath led to Labour achieving its best local government results since the 1940s, with the Labour leftists successfully gaining every one of the marginal seats in Lambeth,[31] and the borough was returned from Conservative to Labour hands.[32]
Later that year, Livingstone, then aged 25, was voted by his fellow Labour Party members to the position of Vice-Chairman of the Housing Committee on the Lambeth London Borough Council, his first actual job in local government.[33][34] In this position, Livingstone, along with the Committee Chairman Ewan Carr, set about cancelling the proposed rent increase which the Conservative government wished to force onto those living in council housing, temporarily halted the project that would have seen Europe's tallest residential tower blocks built in the borough, and implemented plans that would have meant that homeless families had to be immediately rehoused, even if it meant allowing them to squat in empty houses.[35] However, Carr and Livingstone faced much opposition to these plans, and the latter would later relate that "the council bureaucracy... stood in the way of the implementation of our policies", which were subsequently "finally buried by a fatal blow from [the Conservative-led] central government."[36]
Livingstone and other socialists soon became embroiled in the factional in-fighting within Labour, as they vied for powerful positions with capitalist members on the right of the party. In this struggle, Livingstone was influenced by Ted Knight, a Trotskyist who convinced him to oppose the 1972 Housing Finance Act that would force those living in council accommodation to pay higher rents, and to oppose the sending of British Army troops into Northern Ireland (then in the midst of The Troubles between nationalist and loyalist communities), which Knight, and subsequently Livingstone, believed would simply be used to quash nationalist protests against British rule in the country.[37][38] Livingstone would go on to stand as the leftist candidate to become Chair of the Lambeth Housing Committee in April 1973, but was defeated by David Stimpson, who was on the right of the Labour Party.[39] Stimpson and his supporters had gained majority control in the Committee, and set about restoring "the normal protocol and respect for the formal hierarchy which had been subverted in the initial radicalism of the new Council", for instance undermining the Family Squatting Group that Carr and Livingstone had helped set up.[40]
At the 1973 elections Livingstone won the Norwood seat on the Greater London Council (GLC) and served as Vice-Chair of Housing Management in 1974-1975 before being dismissed when he opposed spending cuts urged by council leader Sir Reg Goodwin. He also served on the film censorship committee and urged the abolition of censorship. Coming up to the 1977 elections, Livingstone realised that it would be difficult to retain his seat and managed to be selected for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, a safe seat, following the retirement of Dr David Pitt. This ensured that he was one of the few left-wing Labour councillors to remain on the council.
Livingstone had been selected as the Labour Parliamentary candidate for the Hampstead constituency. He moved to Camden just before the deadline to stand for the borough council in 1978, and was elected there. Livingstone became Chair of Camden's Housing Committee. In the 1979 general election, Conservative incumbent Geoffrey Finsberg defeated Livingstone in Hampstead by a margin of 3,681 votes.
When Sir Reg Goodwin retired as leader of the Labour group on the GLC in 1980, Livingstone had performed surprisingly well in a leadership election to succeed him but still lost to the moderate Andrew McIntosh. In the GLC election of 7 May 1981, Livingstone moved to the marginal constituency of Paddington. The Labour Party narrowly won control, having been led through the campaign by McIntosh who said that he would not be deposed. The day after the election, Livingstone challenged McIntosh for the leadership, and defeated him by 30 votes to 20. This was the culmination of a long process in which the left-wing of the party had organised to ensure its members were selected as GLC candidates, and all voted as a block within the Labour Party. They had also ensured that they had control of the Labour manifesto for the election.
The GLC then reduced London Bus and London Underground fares, paid for by a special 'supplementary rate' in a policy known as 'Fares Fair'. Although the measure was generally popular and led to an increase in the use of public transport, it was challenged by the Conservative-controlled Bromley Council where there were no London Underground stations, and struck down as unlawful by the Law Lords in December, 1981. The new system of flat fares within ticket zones, and the inter-modal Travelcard ticket, was retained and continues as the basis of the ticketing system.
Despite his defeat in the fares pricing battle, Livingstone would remain a thorn in the Conservatives' side, openly antagonising Margaret Thatcher's government by posting a billboard of London's rising unemployment figures on the roof of County Hall, the GLC headquarters, directly across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster. Under Livingstone, the GLC pursued a variety of unconventional and controversial measures: sponsoring an 'Antiracist Year,' providing city grants to such groups as 'Babies Against the Bomb',[41] and declaring London a 'nuclear-free zone'.
Livingstone made perhaps his most controversial move in December 1982, when the GLC extended an official invitation to the leaders of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin. In the event the leaders, Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison were denied entry into the mainland under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and they met Livingstone in Northern Ireland instead. After meeting him, Livingstone said that Britain's treatment of the Irish over the last 800 years had been worse than Adolf Hitler's treatment of Jews. For his opinions on Ireland, The Sun newspaper called Livingstone "the most odious man in Britain". It also made him a potential target for Ulster loyalists: in 2003 it was revealed in Michael Stone's autobiography that there was an Ulster Defence Association plot to kill Livingstone while on the Tube,[42] though it came to nothing as the UDA agent (revealed in 2006 to be Stone himself)[43] became convinced the security forces were on to him.
Such actions made Livingstone a favourite target for the press. He acquired the nickname 'Red Ken' and Private Eye dubbed Livingstone 'Leninspart' (after their character Dave Spart), partly in response to his earlier toppling of McIntosh. However, Livingstone favoured European integration and proportional representation, neither of which were particularly popular causes among the British left at that time. When several Labour councils (including Militant-controlled Liverpool) protested against the government's rate-capping policy by refusing to set a property tax rate, Livingstone refused to join the campaign because he knew the GLC could run its services while keeping within capping limits. The GLC had lost all central government grants by 1983. Many on the left regarded Livingstone as having sabotaged the campaign and it led to a personal rift with John McDonnell, who had been finance chairman and deputy leader. Livingstone's preference for practical politics, which was being demonstrated at a time when the rest of the Labour left were more interested in theoretical debates, may in part explain why his popularity grew . Other politicians identified as the 'hard left', such as Tony Benn, found themselves increasingly isolated from the general public.
The Conservative Party won the 1983 general election with a large majority, and forged ahead with their long-standing plan to abolish the GLC and devolve control to the individual boroughs. The GLC mounted a massive and expensive campaign to 'save London's democracy,' while the proposed abolition bill faced opposition from politicians on all sides, including the former Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, who had introduced the six other Labour-controlled metropolitan councils which were also to be abolished. On 2 August 1984, Livingstone and three other Labour councillors resigned, forcing by-elections that they intended to serve as a referendum on the abolition issue. John Wilson, the Labour Chief Whip, served temporarily as Council Leader. However, the Conservatives chose not to contest the by-elections, and the voter turnout was smaller than Livingstone had hoped for. On 15 December 1984, the House of Commons passed the Local Government Act 1985 by a relatively slim 23-vote margin. The GLC was formally abolished at midnight on 31 March 1986.
Livingstone stood for Parliament in the 1987 general election, winning a seat in the north-west London constituency of Brent East. He replaced Labour MP Reg Freeson. Freeson had retained his seat at the 1983 general election, but was deselected in 1985 after a bitter struggle, described as "political 'murder'" in his Guardian obituary, and replaced as Labour candidate in Brent East by Livingstone.
In his maiden speech to Parliament in July 1987, Livingstone used parliamentary privilege to raise a number of allegations made by Fred Holroyd, a former Special Intelligence Service operative in Northern Ireland. Despite the convention of maiden speeches being non-controversial, Livingstone alleged that Holroyd had been mistreated when he tried to expose MI5 collusion with Ulster loyalist paramilitaries in the 1970s and the part Captain Robert Nairac is alleged to have played. He also voiced Colin Wallace's allegations of MI5 dirty tricks levelled at Harold Wilson, part of what became known as the "Wilson plot".
In September 1987 he was elected to the party's National Executive Committee, although he lost this position two years later; he regained it in 1997 beating Peter Mandelson in what some interpreted as a rebuke to Tony Blair. He was re-elected MP in the general election of 1992, with a 6% swing to Labour in his Brent East constituency. Besides serving in the Commons, Livingstone held a number of other 'odd jobs' during this period, including game show contestant and host, after-dinner speaker, and restaurant reviewer for the Evening Standard. In 1987, he published his autobiography-cum-political tract, If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It.
Livingstone was again re-elected in the 1997 general election, in which Labour was returned to power under the leadership of Tony Blair. Among Labour's proposals was the establishment of a Greater London Authority which was to be a strategic body: unlike the GLC the Greater London Authority would not provide any services to Londoners directly. The new Greater London Authority would be headed by a directly elected mayor, who would be watched over by a 25-member Assembly.
Despite having earlier criticised the specific proposals for a new London-wide authority, Livingstone was widely tipped for the new post of Mayor. The mayoral election was scheduled for 2000, and in 1999, Labour began the long and trying process of selecting its candidate. Despite Blair's personal antipathy, Livingstone was included on Labour's shortlist in November 1999, having pledged that he would not run as an independent if he failed to secure the party's nomination. William Hague, then-Leader of the Opposition taunted Blair at Prime Minister's Question Time: "Why not split the job in two, with Frank Dobson as your day mayor and Ken Livingstone as your nightmare?"[44]
Labour chose its official candidate on 20 February 2000. Although Livingstone received a healthy majority of the total votes, he nevertheless lost the nomination to former Secretary of State for Health Frank Dobson, under a controversial system in which votes from sitting Labour MPs and MEPs were weighted more heavily than votes from rank-and-file members.[45] On 6 March, Livingstone announced that he would run against Dobson as an independent, confirming speculation that he would renege on his earlier pledge. He was suspended from the Labour Party the same day and expelled on 4 April. Tony Blair said that Livingstone as mayor would be a "disaster" for London; he later said he was wrong in that prediction.[46]
The result of the election was a Livingstone victory: Dobson, who it was alleged, had been pressured into running by the party leadership, unsuccessfully based his campaign on claims that Livingstone was an egomaniac, and the Conservatives remained becalmed after their catastrophic national defeat in 1997. Livingstone came out ahead in the first round of balloting with 38% of first-preference votes to Conservative Steven Norris's 27%; Dobson finished third, with 13% of all first-preference votes — just ahead of Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer, with 12%. Under the supplementary voting system employed for the election, only the votes cast for Livingstone and Norris were considered in the second round, where Livingstone won with 58% of first- and second-preference votes, versus 42% for Norris.
Livingstone continued to sit in parliament, as an independent (having had the Labour whip withdrawn), until standing down at the 2001 general election.
Livingstone applied for readmittance to the Labour Party in 2002 but was rejected. In November 2003, however, rumours emerged that the Labour Party would allow Livingstone to rejoin, just ahead of the 2004 London mayoral election. Opinion polls consistently gave a poor showing to Labour's official candidate, Nicky Gavron, and many in the party leadership (including Tony Blair himself) feared that Labour would be humiliated by a fourth-place finish. In mid-December, Gavron announced she would stand down as the Labour candidate in favour of a 'unity campaign,' with Gavron as Livingstone's deputy, with Labour's National Executive Committee voting 25-2 to pave the way for Livingstone's readmittance. The deal hinged on a 'loyalty test' administered by a special five-member NEC panel on 9 January. The panel recommended that Livingstone be allowed back in the party. The move towards readmittance came amid considerable opposition from senior party members, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and former party leader Neil Kinnock.[46] In a ballot of Labour Party members in London, Livingstone was overwhelmingly endorsed as the Labour candidate for the 2004 Mayoral election.
Livingstone was re-elected Mayor of London on 10 June 2004. He won 36% of first preference votes to Conservative Steven Norris's 28% and Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes's 15%. Six other candidates shared the remainder of the votes. When all the candidates except Livingstone and Norris were eliminated and the second preferences of those voters who had picked neither Livingstone or Norris as their first choice were counted, Livingstone won with 55% to Norris's 45%.
"Obviously everyone respects the decision of the electorate. But it is already clear that Boris Johnson's Tory regime is one of decline [in] London: economic decline, social decline, cultural decline and environmental decline. This is the real root of the incompetence [his administration] has shown in its first two months in office. I believe this will become increasingly obvious and therefore I will use the normal methods of democratic debate to convince electors that the previous policies were successful and the new ones will fail."
Livingstone sought re-election in 2008, but was defeated by Conservative candidate Boris Johnson on a night that saw a huge swing against Labour right across Britain. Once first and second votes were taken into account Johnson had 1,168,738 votes, Livingstone 1,028,966 - a margin of 139,772 votes or just over 6% of those who voted.
Speaking immediately after the count, Johnson paid public tribute to his defeated rival, praising "the very considerable achievements of the last mayor of London" and describing Livingstone as "a very considerable public servant". Johnson went on to say "You shaped the office of mayor. You gave it national prominence and when London was attacked on 7 July 2005 you spoke for London." Johnson also spoke of Livingstone's "courage and the sheer exuberant nerve with which you stuck it to your enemies" and expressed a desire that the new Conservative administration could "discover a way in which the mayoralty can continue to benefit from your transparent love of London".[47]
Livingstone acted as a stand-in presenter on London talk radio station LBC 97.3's Jeni Barnett for a week beginning on 30 June 2008. In July 2008 he announced his intention to run again for the office of Mayor of London at the next mayoral elections and signalled his intent to organise a "progressive alliance" of political parties (such as the Labour Party and the Green Party of England and Wales), trade unions and interest groups to defend the progress which was made during his terms as Mayor and to prepare for the next mayoral elections.
On 28 August 2008, it was announced that Livingstone will be an adviser on urban planning to Caracas, Venezuela.[48][49][50][51] He will act as a consultant on the capital's policing, transport and other municipal issues.[49][50] Livingstone was appointed by Hugo Chávez to advise officials and mayoral candidates in Caracas, in order to help transform the city,[48][51] which journalist Rory Carroll described as suffering from, "Gridlocked traffic, a crumbling centre, hillside slums, horrific murder rates, corrupt police and inept local government".[50] Livingstone reckoned that in twenty years a "first-world city" can be made out of Caracas,[51] stating, "I have a very extensive network of contacts both domestically and internationally which I will be calling on to assist in this."[50] No decision on a salary for the ex-mayor has been made, although he mentioned that, "The whole cost of this trip has been paid for by the government of Venezuela and as an unemployed citizen I would not be able to pay for my own fare otherwise."[50] The appointment follows on from the controversy surrounding the deal brokered by Livingstone in February 2007 for the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to provide advice to Venezuela in exchange for cheap fuel to help with bus subsidies. The deal was later overturned by new mayor Boris Johnson,[48][49][50][51] and Livingstone offered his services to Chávez so that Venezuela gets the "advice that we promised".[48][51] Livingstone played down any accusations that his close relationship with the Venezuelan President was controversial, "unless you believe American propaganda",[49] while a spokesperson for Johnson said, "Ken Livingstone is free, as a private individual, to offer his advice and services to whomever he wants."[48] Livingstone is now being touted as a key asset for Chávez in the upcoming November elections in the country.[50] From September 2009, Livingstone has been a presenter on Television book-review show 'Epilogue', episodes of the flagship show are being pre-recorded to be broadcast in 2010 on the Iranian international news channel Press TV.
On 17 March 2010, Ken Livingstone appeared on a platform with Cambridge's Green Party Parliamentary candidate, Tony Juniper, and prominent environmental campaigner and former Green Party co-Principal Speaker Jonathon Porritt, at the Emmanuel United Reformed Church in Cambridge. He has courted controversy for this appearance with the Cambridge Labour Party for his apparent support of Tony Juniper, who was dubbed as a possibility to steal the Cambridge seat at the 2010 General Election. Livingstone said that he would be 'delighted' to see Juniper elected, though stopped short of announcing his endorsement of him.
In July 2010, he was a speaker at the Durham Miners' Gala. In his speech he praised the culture of the working class retained in the Gala, and suggested it should have been brought to London during his time as Mayor.[52] He also used the speech to attack spending cuts by the new coalition government, claiming they were not necessary.[53]
In April 2011, Livingstone announced than his second memoir would be published the following year by Faber & Faber, who were rumoured to have paid him around £90,000 for it.[54] In August 2011, Livingstone caused some controversy when he jokingly claimed that the coming mayoral election was "a simple choice between good and evil. I don't think it has been so clear since the great struggle between Churchill and Hitler", before going on to joke that "Those who don't vote for me will be weighed in the balance come Judgment Day. The Archangel Gabriel will say, 'You didn't vote for Ken Livingstone in 2012. Oh dear, burn for ever.'" Conservative MPs and right wing media outlets immediately condemned the comments, branding them "crass" and in "incredibly poor taste".[55]
He married Christine Pamela Chapman in 1973; the marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Around that time he became involved with Kate Allen, now director of Amnesty International in the UK; the couple separated in November 2001.[56]
Livingstone and Emma Beal, also his office manager, have a son, Thomas, born 14 December 2002 at the University College Hospital, London, and a daughter, Mia, born on 20 March 2004 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. He also has three other children[57] whose existence was only publicly revealed during the 2008 mayoral election. Livingstone has declined to explain, respecting the privacy of the mothers, whether his other children were conceived through intercourse or by artificial insemination.[58] He married Beal on 26 September 2009 in the Mappin Pavilion of London Zoo and lives in North London[1][59]
Livingstone is a noted bon vivant, having twice worked as a food critic for London's Evening Standard newspaper and various magazines.[60]
He is known for his enthusiasm for gardening and keeping and breeding newts. He was the first person to breed the Western Dwarf Clawed Frog Hymenochirus curtipes in captivity.[61]
Although nominally raised into a Christian family, Livingstone renounced monotheistic belief when he was eleven, instead becoming an atheist, and in a 2005 interview he commented that in doing so he had rejected "mumbo-jumbo in favour of rational science."[2] The British Humanist Association identifies him as one of its distinguished supporters.[62]
One of Livingstone's challenges as Mayor of London was dealing with the city's ageing transportation infrastructure. Despite conflict over appropriate funding schemes and engineering challenges to modernising both the London Underground and the city's bus system, an Association of London Government survey, conducted by MORI towards the end of Livingstone's first term in 2004, suggested growing public satisfaction with public transport, with buses in particular being seen as more frequent and reliable.[63]
In accordance with his pre-election pledge, bus fares were frozen for four years, but then the cash fares on buses more than doubled while Oyster (see below) fares stayed the same. The purpose of this was to increase uptake of the Oyster card. Passengers not paying in cash greatly increased the speed and reliability of bus services. Livingstone also removed the famous Routemaster 1950s buses from routine service on 9 December 2005, claiming it was because the new buses were wheelchair-accessible, although several of the old buses are used on shortened "heritage routes".[64] There was some question over the legality of using the old Routemaster under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 as the Routemasters were inaccessible for wheelchair users. They were also impractical for the elderly and parents with prams due to the amount of steps compared to modern low-floor buses. The amount of deaths and serious injuries resulting in people falling down the stairs, falling off, or failing to get on, these open platform buses reduced to zero. In tandem with the removal of Routemaster buses, Livingstone oversaw the introduction of articulated buses in London, which were swiftly nicknamed "bendy buses". They initially caused concerns after a series of fires,[65] and were the subject of debate during the following Mayoral election campaign over claims of potential danger to cyclists.[66] However these new buses turned out to be much safer, quicker and more reliable than the buses they replaced. Three doors were available for getting on and off, with the requirement that a ticket or pass be purchased before travel. The driver was no longer responsible for checking the tickets. To occasional bus travellers they erroneously appeared to be 'free buses' or a fare-dodgers paradise. However, daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal Oyster card holders were not required to "touch in" their Oysters. Only those using Pay as You Go. Those irregular travellers, seeing only themselves "touching in" and everyone else not, jumped to false conclusions about the clued-up (and honest) majority. Teams of enforcement officers accompanied by police were a regular feature on these routes and hence fare avoidance was not higher than the 1950s Routemasters they replaced.
Livingstone introduced and has been a strong proponent of the Oyster card smartcard ticketing system for London's public transport network introduced in 2003. In late 2005, Livingstone proposed large fare increases for on-the-spot tickets across the Tube and bus network to encourage regular travellers to use the automated Oyster system, to reduce queuing at Underground stations and to avoid delays in conductorless buses as drivers issue tickets. The plans, although ratified by the GLA and introduced in January 2006 were condemned by those who argued that the increases would increase the cost of travelling in London to tourists and others who do not travel regularly. Civil liberties groups have expressed concern over the way in which Transport for London is able to track the movements of passengers using the Oyster card system.[67] Livingstone moved to make all bus journeys free for passengers under the age of 18 enrolled in full-time education who travel with an Oyster card[68] and introduced initiatives to enable visitors to buy an Oyster card before arriving in London.
One of the key points of conflict between Livingstone and the Labour Party had been the proposed Public-Private Partnership (PPP) deal for the London Underground. Livingstone had run in 2000 on a policy of financing the improvements to Tube infrastructure by a public bond issue, which had been done in the case of the New York City Subway. However the Mayor did not have power in this area at the time as the Underground operated independently of Transport for London. The PPP deal went ahead against his wishes in July 2002, but it did not diminish Livingstone's desire to re-join Labour. Metronet, one of the winners of the contract for PPP, subsequently went into administration in July 2007. It was subsequently bailed out by the UK Government at a cost of £2 billion.[69]
Livingstone introduced the London congestion charge with the purpose of reducing traffic congestion in central London. Since being introduced the charge has been controversial, though Transport for London states that traffic has fallen by 20% within the charge zone since the scheme began.[70] One reason for the controversy is that whilst the scheme has been lucrative for its private-sector operator, Capita, some critics argue it has failed to raise the promised levels of funding for public transport as costs eat up the revenue.[71]
However, its apparent success in reducing congestion has led to similar schemes being proposed in other major cities such as New York.[72]
In November 2003, Livingstone was named 'Politician of the Year' by the Political Studies Association, which cited his implementation of what the association called a 'bold and imaginative' congestion charge scheme.[73]
Ken Livingstone has been called “an environmentalist, a leftist, a lover of newts,"[74] and has made a significant effort to reduce London’s impact on the environment. He began by creating the London Hydrogen Partnership and the London Energy Partnership in his first term as Mayor of London.[75] The Mayor’s Energy Strategy, “green light to clean power,” commits London to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide by 20%, relative to the 1990 level, by 2010.[75] However, he does support the Thames Gateway Bridge in East London that Friends of the Earth say "would bring few benefits to the local people and lead to more traffic, more noise and air pollution and an increase in climate-changing emissions".[76] In October 2007, London Councils stated Livingstone had gone back on his promise to chair the developing London Waste and Recycling Board, and to provide £6 million of funding for the project, because "the government had failed to provide him with absolute control of the Board."[77]
In June 2007, Livingstone criticised the planned £200 million Thames Water Desalination Plant at Beckton, which will be the United Kingdom's first, calling it "misguided and a retrograde step in UK environmental policy", and that "we should be encouraging people to use less water, not more."[78]
At the beginning of July 2005 Livingstone was in Singapore, shepherding London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games through the decision-making of the 117th IOC Session. On the 7 July London was bombed in four co-ordinated attacks, and Livingstone responded with an address that ended:
Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life. I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail. In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They do not want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.[79]
Livingstone defended the police after the mistaken killing of a Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes, who police believed was a suicide bomber.
In 2001 Livingstone revived the free anti-racism Music festival now called Rise: London United. He believes that this, along with other anti-racist policies, is why London has seen a 35% decrease in racist attacks.[80]
In September 2005 Livingstone came out in support of placing a statue of Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, on the north terrace of Trafalgar Square. Livingstone said "There can be no better place than our greatest square to place a statue of Nelson Mandela so that every generation can remind the next of the fight against racism."[81] He was highly critical of the Planning and City Development Committee of Westminster City Council who refused planning permission.
In 2008 Livingstone's race advisor Lee Jasper resigned after allegations of misuse of public funds.[82] Jasper was later cleared of the charges, but was heavily criticised in a report by the district auditor.[83] Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote has said the 2008 Mayoral campaign has seen the media pursue a "wholly disproportionate" focus on Jasper, Doreen Lawrence (Livingstone supporter and mother of Stephen Lawrence), and others.[84]
On 23 August 2007, at 12 noon, Mayor Ken Livingstone formally apologised for London's role in the transatlantic slave trade. In a bicentennial day memorial event, he also called for the 23 August to be named as a national day for remembrance in the UK for the "horrific crime against humanity of the transatlantic slave trade." He went on to make the following tearful speech and formal apology:
"It is because it is the anniversary of the biggest slave revolt in history, that UNESCO officially marks this day, the 23 August, the anniversary of that outbreak in Haiti, as slavery's official remembrance day. This is why we, in London, call for it to be the annual slave memorial day. We are therefore here to initiate London's annual slavery memorial day, and call for the establishment of a national, annual memorial day. In 1999, Liverpool became the first major British slaving city to formally apologise. The Church of England soon followed suit. In March I invited representatives of London's institutions to join the City of Liverpool and the Church of England for formally apologising for London's role in this monstrous crime. As Mayor, I offer an apology on behalf of London and its institutions for their role in the transatlantic slave trade."
Rejecting the idea that it is not possible to "meaningfully apologise for something a former generation did," Livingstone emphasised that London and by implication the rest of the developed world still profited enormously from the assets accumulated in the slave era, adding "It was the racial murder of not just those who were transported but generations of enslaved African men, women and children. To justify this murder and torture black people had to be declared inferior or not human. We live with the consequences today."[85]
After rejecting the idea for a couple of years, Livingstone hosted a Jewish Hanukkah ceremony at City Hall in December 2005. He said he intended this to be an annual occurrence.[86][87] On 17 March 2002 Livingstone introduced an annual Saint Patrick's Day festival to London to celebrate the contributions of the Irish to London, with around 250,000 people annually turning out for this.[88] On 28 October 2006 he helped organise the first ever "Eid in the Square" in Trafalgar Square, in commemoration of the Eid ul-Fitr festival which marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.[89]
In 2001, Livingstone set up Britain's first register for same-sex couples; while falling short of legal marriage rights, the register was seen as a "step towards" such rights. Legal status was later passed by the government through the Civil Partnership Act 2004.[90]
In March 2002, while still independent, Livingstone was accused of "cronyism" by some Labour party members in the London Assembly after he had appointed six officials as special advisers at a salary level which seemed to them excessive, and a manoeuvre to help his chances of being re-elected. Livingstone denied the allegations and stated the appointments were a "necessary efficiency drive."[91]
In December 2007, the Evening Standard published news of an investigation into grants worth £2.5 million paid to organisations in which Ken Livingstone's adviser Lee Jasper was involved. It is confirmed that some of these grants were paid directly by the mayor's office.[92]
Following Mr. Livingstone’s defeat in the 2008 Mayoral Elections, The Daily Mail reported that “Eight 'cronies' of Ken Livingstone are to receive £1.6 million in pay-offs following his defeat in the London mayoral elections.” Mr. Livingstone changed the rules for political appointees who would otherwise not have been eligible for severance packages, which paved the way for the eight City Hall advisors to receive an average of £200,000. Liberal Democrat Leader Dee Doocey stated that the payments were “completely inexcusable” and added that “It seems like there's one law for the ordinary working person and one law for the political class.” Tony Travers, local government expert at the London School of Economics, said: “I think most people will be shocked. You could do quite a lot about knife crime with £1.6 million. It is odd indeed that the full benefits of labour laws designed to protect the vulnerable are being claimed by courtiers who knew they would lose their jobs if their master lost the election.”[93] Mr Livingstone responded to the comments by stating that 'It's a question of what the law requires. Either there's a legal responsibility or there isn't.'
Livingstone's opposition to the creation of a public-private partnership (PPP) was a key part of his campaign in 2000. Following his election, Livingstone appointed Bob Kiley, the former CEO of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Chairman and CEO of the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as London's Transport Commissioner, in charge of Transport for London (TfL).[94] Kiley had funded improvements to the New York subway using the system Livingstone advocated in opposition to PPP.[95] Both Livingstone and Kiley continued to oppose the government's plans for the Tube, clashing publicly with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.[96] After negotiations between TfL and the government failed, the government moved to impose the PPP.[97] TfL initiated a High Court challenge to the government's plans, but lost its case.[98] Shortly after his re-election in 2004, Livingstone urged tube drivers of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) to cross picket lines rather than join a strike over pay and conditions following a dispute with the new management. This call led the general secretary of the RMT, Bob Crow, to resign in protest from the board of Transport for London.[99] Amongst those who criticised Livingstone for this was the Respect candidate for Mayor, Lindsey German.[100]
Ken Livingstone was criticised in February 2005 for remarks made to an Evening Standard reporter, comparing him to a Nazi concentration camp guard, after the reporter had tried to interview him following a reception marking the 20th anniversary of Chris Smith's coming out as gay. The reporter, Oliver Finegold, was in fact Jewish and said he took offence at the remarks, but Livingstone refused to withdraw the remark and was subsequently accused of antisemitism. Finegold had an audio recorder running.[101] The Evening Standard decided not to run the story at first but the following transcript of the conversation was published by guardian.co.uk:[102]
The epithet "German war criminal" and Livingstone's subsequent jibes refer to the Standard's then owners, the Daily Mail and General Trust, which endorsed Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in 1934. Livingstone also claimed the Standard was guilty of "harassment of a predominantly lesbian and gay event".[102] Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell suggested in the Evening Standard that this explanation "came across as patronising. Gay people don't need the Mayor's protection to fend off a journalist asking simple questions."[103]
After listening to the recording supplied by Finegold, the London Assembly voted unanimously to ask Livingstone to apologise. Livingstone responded by saying "the form of words I have used are right. I have nothing to apologise for."[104] Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron, herself the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, said of Livingstone: "These were inappropriate words and very offensive, both to the individual and to Jews in London."[105] Some two dozen complaints were referred to the Standards Board for England, the body responsible for English local government standards, which passed it to the Adjudication Panel for England, which has the power to ban individuals from public office for five years.
The Adjudication Panel addressed the case over two days on the 13 & 14 December 2005[106] and adjourned the hearing for two months. On 24 February 2006, Ken Livingstone was found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute and suspended from office for four weeks, stating that he seemed "to have failed... to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable".[107] Livingstone attacked the decision on the grounds that the Adjudication Panel members ought not to suspend a democratically elected official from power, describing their actions as "striking at the heart of democracy". The ban was due to begin on 1 March 2006, but on 28 February, a High Court judge postponed it pending an appeal by Livingstone.[108]
Livingstone was criticised following a 21 March 2006 press conference at which Livingstone is alleged to have said of David and Simon Reuben — two Indian-born Jewish businessmen involved in a property development project for the 2012 Olympics — that "if they're not happy they can always go back to Iran and see if they can do better under the Ayatollahs". The Reuben brothers were born in Mumbai, India and are of Iraqi-Jewish ancestry, rather than Iranian, but have carried out work in Iran. Brian Coleman and other Conservative members of the GLA accused Livingstone of anti-Semitism, while The Guardian and The Times ran leaders accusing Livingstone of anti-immigrant remarks. The Guardian wrote that Livingstone's remarks would "shame a loudmouth pub buffoon", and that "The Reuben brothers have as much right to be in Britain as Livingstone himself", while the Times leader said simply "Ken Livingstone is a fool".[109] Livingstone refused calls for him to apologise for his remarks, stating "I would offer a complete apology to the people of Iran to the suggestion that they may be linked in any way to the Reuben brothers. I wasn't meaning to be offensive to the people of Iran."[110] He also accused Coleman of behaving like the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels.[109] The Standards Board referred the comments to the GLA's monitoring officer, whose investigation exonerated the mayor.[111]
On 5 October 2006 at the High Court of Justice, Mr Justice Collins overturned the decision to suspend Livingstone, regardless of the outcome of his appeal concerning the breach of standards.[112] The final judgement upheld Livingstone's appeal and stated that the Adjudication Panel had misdirected itself, although the judge stated that the Mayor should have apologised.
On 7 December 2006, at a City Hall reception marking the launch of the London Jewish Forum, Livingstone apologised for any offence that he had caused the Jewish community.
In 2004 Livingstone said "I just long for the day I wake up and find that the Saudi Royal Family are swinging from lamp-posts and they've got a proper government that represents the people of Saudi Arabia."[113]
In a March 2005 commentary in The Guardian he accused Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon of being a "war criminal", citing his alleged personal responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and accusations of ethnic cleansing.[114]
On 20 July 2005, Livingstone made the following comments in a BBC interview about the role of foreign policy as a motivation for the London bombings of two weeks earlier:
"I think you've just had 80 years of western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil. We've propped up unsavoury governments, we've overthrown ones we didn't consider sympathetic. And I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama Bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians and drive them out of Afghanistan. They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that he might turn on his creators. A lot of young people see the double standards, they see what happens in Guantanamo Bay, and they just think that there isn't a just foreign policy."
Later in the interview he stated, about the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip:
"Under foreign occupation and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work for three generations, I suspect that if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves."[115]
Right-wing commentator Mark Steyn described the interview as Livingstone "artfully" attempting "to draw a distinction between Muslim terrorists blowing up his own public transit (which he didn't approve of) and Muslim terrorists blowing up Israeli public transit (which he was inclined to be sympathetic to)."[116]
In November 2003, Livingstone made headlines for referring to US President George W. Bush as 'the greatest threat to life on this planet,' just before Bush's official visit to the UK. Livingstone also organised an alternative 'Peace Reception' at City Hall 'for everybody who is not George Bush,' with anti-war Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic as the guest of honour. In 2004 he referred to Bush as "the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties".[117] In July 2007 Livingstone stated that Prime Minister Gordon Brown needed to explain to Bush "that US governments need to return to a realistic view of the world. The US is the world's single most powerful country, but much weaker than the rest of the world put together. The attempt by one country to unilaterally impose itself on the rest of the world is not only undesirable but simply won't work."[118]
At a 2 January 2009 London press conference featuring celebrities announcing opposition to Israel's launch of the Gaza War, Livingstone called for the European Union and the UK to bring home their ambassadors to Israel to express disapproval for the "slaughter and systematic murder of innocent Arabs".[119][120]
In February 2007, Ken Livingstone signed a deal with Venezuela to provide cheaper oil for London buses. In return, the Greater London Authority was to advise Venezuela on recycling, waste management, traffic and reducing carbon emissions. This deal came under criticism from the London Assembly Conservatives including Richard Barnes, who stated that the "money would be better directed at the poor of Venezuela,"[121] and journalist Martin Bright, who said that the deal "effectively takes from the poor of Latin America to give to one of the richest cities in the world."[122] Prices were reduced by 20%; following this, half-price bus travel became available to Londoners on income support. Livingstone stated the plan "rises on the suggestion of President Hugo Chávez and builds on the work his government is doing around the world in tackling the problems of poverty,"[123] and also said, "This will make it cheaper and easier for people to go about their lives and get the most out of London. The agreement... will also benefit the people of Venezuela, by providing expertise in areas of city management in which London is a world leader."[124] The deal was discontinued in September 2008 by incoming mayor Boris Johnson.
A dispute with the US Embassy in London over payment of the London Congestion Charge escalated on 27 March 2006 when Livingstone criticised the Embassy's decision not to pay. The Embassy argued that the charge is a form of taxation, not a charge for a service, and diplomats and their staff are therefore exempt under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Embassy officials have never paid the charge, which was instituted in 2003. Livingstone, however, alleged that the decision was made by Robert Tuttle, who took up the post of Ambassador in July 2005. Livingstone described Tuttle as "one of George Bush's closest cronies and a big funder of his election campaign" and said he was trying to "skive out of [paying] like some chiselling little crook".[125] The group Liberty and Law reported this remark to the Standards Board for England as a breach of its code, but the Board decided not to investigate it.
Germany stopped paying the charge in 2005, Japan followed in 2006, and in 2007 France, Russia, Belgium, and 50 other missions followed suit when the zone extended to their missions' locations (Iran, Sweden and Syria continue to pay the charge). Asked about Japan's refusal to pay in a March 2007 interview on LBC Radio, Livingstone responded, "I think there are several problems with Japan that we could go on about here. Admitting their guilt for all the war crimes would be one thing. So if they've not got round to doing that, I doubt they're too worried about the congestion charge." London's Japanese embassy responded that their government had already apologised for previous war crimes.[126]
Livingstone became involved in a major dispute with Peter Tatchell, who had previously supported him, when he invited the Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi to a conference on the wearing of the hijab by female students in July 2004. The conference was called following the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools, which particularly affected Muslim girls. Peter Tatchell, who had stood as an independent Livingstone supporter in the 2000 elections, strongly criticised the invitation because of al-Qaradawi's support for "female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the execution of homosexuals in Islamic states, the destruction of the Jewish people, the use of suicide bombs against innocent civilians and the blaming of rape victims who do not dress with sufficient modesty".[127] Livingstone defended the invitation on grounds of Qaradawi's eminence as "one of the most authoritative Muslim scholars in the world today" who "has done most to combat socially regressive interpretations of Islam on issues like women's rights and relations with other religions". He also published a dossier giving a rebuttal to Tatchell.[128][129]
According to Le Monde diplomatique, Livingstone had requested a report to inform himself on al-Qaradawi before his visit. After reading the study, he concluded "nearly all of the lies distorting al-Qaradawi's statements came from the MEMRI institute, which pretends to be an institute of objective research. However, we found out that the MEMRI had been founded by a former Mossad officer, who systematically distorts not only al-Qaradawi's statements, but what many other Muslim scholars say. In most of the cases, disinformation is total, and this is why I published this study."[130]
Peter Tatchell formed part of a coalition of some London-based community groups which objected to al-Qaradawi, but whom Livingstone refused to meet. The Lesbian and Gay Coalition against Racism issued a statement of support for Livingstone signed, among others, by Ben Summerskill of Stonewall and Linda Bellos, which cited his record of support for gay rights "irrespective of the differing views over his meeting with the Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi".[131] The row went on for many months, with Livingstone insistent that the mayor of a major diverse city had a duty to maintain close relationships with all faith groups even if he disagreed with some of their views.
Running as an independent candidate for Mayor in 2000, Livingstone was supported by the Trotskyist group Socialist Action. His decision to appoint members of Socialist Action to his administration during his first term drew criticism in the media.[132] In a January 2008 article that was subsequently spun as revealing a "secret Marxist cell" at the GLA, Atma Singh, a former member of Socialist Action who had been Policy Advisor on Asian Affairs to Ken Livingstone from 2001 to 2007, detailed some of the history and activities of Socialist Action, accusing members of planning a "bourgeois democratic revolution", trying accumulate power and manipulating the Mayor.[133] A subsequent episode of the Channel 4 documentary series Dispatches, "The Court of Ken", presented by journalist Martin Bright, featured Singh and others making these same allegations. The advisers named, including chief of staff Simon Fletcher, deputy chief of staff and director of public affairs and transport Redmond O'Neill, economic adviser John Ross, green adviser Mark Watts and culture adviser Jude Woodward, have refused to state whether or not they are still active as Socialist Action, and a spokesman for Livingstone responded to the charges by referring to Singh's removal from his job for "failure to discharge his duties" and calling Singh "an embittered ex-employee".[134]
Livingstone describes himself as a socialist, stating in 2007 that "I still believe one day that the idea that the main means of production are owned by private individuals... will be considered as anti-democratic as the idea serfs could be tied to the land. But I will not be alive when that day comes."[135]
In September 2010, Livingstone criticised the public spending cuts announced by the recently elected Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, which he stated amounted to £45 billion a year for London alone, and were "beyond Margaret Thatcher's wildest dreams" (in other words more drastic than the spending cuts during her time in power) as well as threatening to result in widespread division and poverty across the capital.[136]
As a politician comfortable in light-hearted and satirical situations, in 1990, Livingstone was the first MP to appear on the topical panel show Have I Got News For You. For a long time, his first six appearances would stand as the show's record; his current tally of nine - the most recent being in December 2010 - fall one short of the record for guest appearances as a panellist (without appearing as host or team captain) held by Andy Hamilton.
In 1995, Livingstone appeared on the track "Ernold Same" by the band Blur, taken from the album The Great Escape. Livingstone provided spoken word vocals and was listed as 'The Right On Ken Livingstone.' He appeared at the 2000 Meltdown festival curated by Scott Walker (Singer) providing vocals during Blur's performance of "Ernold Same".
Livingstone appeared in one of a series of advertisements extolling the virtues of cheese in the 1980s, appropriately endorsing red Leicester. On the other side of politics, Edward Heath advertised Danish Blue. Their respective choices were a result of their parties' official colours - red for the Labour Party, and blue for the Conservative Party.[137]
Ken Livingstone is also the subject of a Kate Bush song called "Ken", b-side to single Love and Anger which was written for the episode of The Comic Strip entitled "GLC: The Carnage Continues...".
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Horace Cutler |
Leader of the Greater London Council 1981–1984 |
Succeeded by John Wilson |
| Preceded by John Wilson |
Leader of the Greater London Council 1984–1986 |
Office Abolished |
| Preceded by Office Created |
Mayor of London 2000–2008 |
Succeeded by Boris Johnson |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by Reg Freeson |
Member of Parliament for Brent East 1987–2001 |
Succeeded by Paul Daisley |
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