Ken Livingstone

File:KenLivingstone2.jpg

Ken Livingstone

Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born June 17, 1945), is an English politician. He has been the Mayor of London since the creation of the post in 2000. He was Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until it was abolished in 1986. After abolition he became Member of Parliament for Brent East, but did not enjoy national politics and had little impact in Parliament. He is noted for his plain, even blunt, speaking which has won him praise and criticism on various occasions.

Livingstone is known by some as 'Red Ken' because of his left-wing views. He is a member of the Labour Party, although he was initially elected to the mayoralty as an independent candidate when he could not gain nomination as the Labour Party's official candidate in the first mayoral elections. In January 2004, he was re-admitted to the party and stood as the official Labour Party candidate for mayor in the June 2004 elections, which he won with a total of 828,380 first and second preference votes.

Currently, Livingstone is facing a one month suspension from his post of London Mayor, imposed by the Adjudication Panel for England, in March 2006 for comments to a journalist that have been described by the panel as "unnecessarily offensive". On 28 February 2006 a High Court judge has imposed an injunction against the suspension pending an appeal by Livingstone for Judicial Review of the the Panel's decision.

Personal information

Livingstone is a noted bon vivant, having worked as a food critic [1] for magazines owned by both the Hearst Corporation and Associated Newspapers. He is well-known as a keeper of newts. He was married to Christine Pamela Chapman in 1973 but the marriage was dissolved in 1982. Ken Livingstone and his current partner Emma Beal, who also is Livingstone's office manager, have a son, Thomas, born December 14, 2002 at the University College Hospital, London. They had a second child, daughter Mia, born on March 20, 2004 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Ken Livingstone said in a recent wide-ranging interview that he believes his maternal grandmother, Zona, may have been Jewish.[2]

Early life

Born in Lambeth, London, Livingstone attended Tulse Hill Comprehensive School[3]. He worked for eight years as a cancer research technician and also trained as a teacher, qualifying in 1973. He was elected to the Lambeth borough council in 1971 and served as Vice-Chair of the Housing Committee from 1971 to 1973 (succeeding John Major in the job). He became a Labour member of the Greater London Council in 1973 and served as Vice-Chair of Housing Management in 1974-1975. He also served on the Camden council from 1978 to 1982 and unsuccessfully stood for Parliament in Hampstead the 1979 general election. While on Camden council, Livingstone gave permission for a strike by local government workers during the Winter of Discontent to be settled with a high pay offer; the District Auditor later ruled this amounted to illegal expenditure and a breach of fiduciary duty, but Livingstone was not surcharged.

GLC leadership

In the GLC election of May 7 1981, Livingstone moved constituencies to marginal Paddington. The Labour Party narrowly won control with the moderate Andrew McIntosh as leader having denied that he would 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 had organised to ensure its members were selected as GLC candidates, and all voted as a bloc within the Labour Party. They had also ensured that the left had control of the Labour manifesto for the election.

File:Kenlivingstoneglc.jpg

Ken Livingstone in the chamber of the GLC, explains his proposed solution to the Fare's Fair legal action in January 1982.

The GLC then set about reducing bus and London Underground fares, subsidised 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 transportation, it was challenged by the Conservative-controlled council of Bromley where there were no London Underground stations, and struck down by the Law Lords in December, 1981.

Despite his defeat in the fares battle, Livingstone would remain a thorn in the Conservatives' side, openly antagonising the Thatcher 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 (some critics have called "socialist"): sponsoring an 'Antiracist Year,' providing city grants to such groups as 'Babies Against the Bomb', 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 Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison. In the event, Adams and Morrison were denied entry into the country under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and met with Livingstone in Northern Ireland instead. When Adams was elected to Westminster, the ban was lifted. After meeting him, Livingstone said that Britain's treatment of the Irish over the last 800 years had been worse than Hitler's treatment of the Jews.

Such actions made Livingstone a favourite target for the press. He acquired the nickname 'Red Ken' and The Sun described him as 'the most odious man in Britain'. However, he 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 already lost all central Government grant 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 and the Militant Tendency 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 (which also abolished six other Labour-controlled metropolitan councils, including Merseyside) faced opposition from politicians on all sides, including former Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. On August 2 1984, Livingstone and three other Labour councillors resigned, forcing byelections 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 cannily chose not to contest the byelections, and the voter turnout was far smaller than Livingstone had hoped for. On December 15 1984, the House of Commons passed the Local Government Act of 1985 by a relatively slim twenty-three vote margin. The GLC was formally abolished at midnight on March 31 1986.

Livingstone in parliament

File:Kenlivingstone4.jpg

Ken Livingstone as the new Member of Parliament for Brent East

Livingstone again stood for Parliament in the 1987 general election, winning a seat in the Northwest London constituency of Brent East. As a mere Labour backbencher, Livingstone lost the public platform he possessed as head of the GLC; furthermore, his brand of radical socialism was increasingly out of step with the Labour leadership, which had moved sharply towards the centre under the chairmanship of Neil Kinnock and now blamed leftists like Livingstone for Labour's 'unelectability.' Nevertheless, he was elected to the party's National Executive Committee in September 1987, although he lost this position two years later (he regained it in 1997 in what some interpreted as a rebuke to Tony Blair). He was returned to Parliament in the election of 1992, with a six percent 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, after-dinner speaker, and restaurant reviewer for the Evening Standard. In 1987 he published an autobiography-cum-political tract, If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It.

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.'

Greater London's first mayor

File:KenLivingstone3.jpg

Ken Livingstone outside the Labour Party headquarters in Old Queen Street

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 with powers similar to the old GLC; this new body would be headed by an elected mayor, the first in London's history.

Livingstone was widely tipped for this new post. 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, with the understanding that he would not run as an independent if he failed to secure the party's nomination.

Labour chose its official candidate on February 20 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 system in which votes from sitting Labour MPs and MEPs were weighted more heavily than votes from rank-and-file members. Many people speculated that Livingstone would renege on his earlier pledge and run against Dobson as an independent; on March 6 he announced that he would indeed do so. He was suspended from the Labour Party the same day and expelled on April 4.

Red Ken car sticker: A car rental company's comment on the London congestion charge

The result of the election — held on May 4 — was a foregone conclusion: Dobson, who had allegedly been pressured into running by the party leadership, showed no real enthusiasm for the job, and the Conservatives remained becalmed after their catastrophic national defeat in 1997. Livingstone came out ahead in the first round of balloting with 38.11% of first-preference votes to Conservative Steven Norris's 26.5%; Dobson finished third, with only 12.78% of all first-preference votes — just ahead of Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer, with 11.6%. Under the modified instant-runoff voting system employed for the election, the votes cast for Livingstone and Norris (only) were considered in the second round, where Livingstone won with 57.92% of first- and second-preference votes, versus 42.08% for Norris.

Recent events

File:Ken Livingstone Press Conference on 2005 London attacks in Singapore.jpg

Livingstone gives a press conference concerning the series of bombings in London on 7 July 2005 before returning to the city from Singapore, one day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics at an IOC meeting there.

Controversies

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. Livingstone claimed the appointments were a "necessary efficiency drive," but these opponents believed it was a manoeuvre to help his chances of being re-elected.[4]

Allegations of a drunken party fracas involving the mayor surfaced in June 2002. The Evening Standard alleged that Livingstone tussled with Robin Hedges, a friend of his partner Emma Beal, at a birthday party for Emma's sister in the early morning of 19th May 2002. The paper maintains that he manhandled Ms Beal, who was pregnant with their first child at the time, and that he left the scene before the police arrived and after Hedges had fallen down a stairwell.

Livingstone denied any wrongdoing but the case was referred to the Standards Board for England by the Lib Dems on the London Assembly. The standards board went through each and every allegation made by the Standard, and owing to contradictory witness statements by parties involved (including two completely different statements made by one of the alleged victims[5]) and on the balance of probabilities the board "found no evidence" that Livingstone breached the Code of Conduct.

Livingstone sparked controversy numerous times, such as when he said he looked forward to seeing the Saudi Royal Family "swinging from lamp posts"[6] or in a March 2005 commentary [7] in The Guardian where he accused Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon of being a war criminal, citing his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre and accusations of ethnic cleansing.

Mr Livingstone caused controversy[8] when he invited Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi to a conference on the wearing of the hijab by schoolgirls in July 2004. The conference was called following the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools, which was seen as specifically targetted Muslim girls. The human rights activist Peter Tatchell strongly criticised the decision on the grounds of Qaradawi's views, which he claimed supported the death penalty for homosexuality and the right of husbands to hit their wives. Tatchell formed part of a coalition of some London based community groups which objected to al-Qaradawi, but whom Livingstone refused to meet. Another umbrella group of Gay and Lesbian groups calling itself the "Lesbian and Gay coalition against racism" issued a statement of support for Livingstone.

One of the key points of conflict between Livingstone and the Labour Party had been the proposed 'Public-Private Partnership' for the London Underground. Livingstone wished to finance the improvements to the Tube infrastructure by a public bonds issue, which had been done in the case of the New York City Subway. However the Mayor did not have power in this area and Livingstone was forced to make a deal. The PPP deal went ahead in July 2002, but it did not diminish Livingstone's desire to re-join Labour.

Recent Politics

An Association of London Government survey, conducted by MORI towards the end of Livingstone's first term, demonstrated Londoners' increased satisfaction with public transport and buses in particular were seen as more frequent and reliable.[9] In accordance with his pre-election pledge bus fares were frozen for four years, but then the standard single fare on the privatised London Bus increased 30 pence from 70p to £1. Livingstone decommissioned the famous Routemaster buses[10] with the last one running on Route 159 on 9 December 2005 replacing them with wheel-chair accessible buses - though several of the old buses still go on shortened "heritage routes".

Livingstone was also instrumental in introducing the London Congestion Charge, in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion in central London. The charge reduced traffic levels by 15% and Livingstone intends to extend the zone in which the charge applies.

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 January 9. The panel recommended that Livingstone be allowed back in the party. The move towards readmittance came amid considerable opposition from higher-ups in the party, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and former party leader Neil Kinnock. In a ballot of Labour Party members in London, Livingstone was overwhelmingly endorsed as the Labour candidate for the 2004 Mayoral election.

Also in November 2003, Livingstone was named 'Politician of the Year' by the Political Studies Association, which cited his implementation of the 'bold and imaginative' congestion charge scheme. The honour came a week after Livingstone made the headlines for referring to George W. Bush as 'the greatest threat to life on this planet,' just ahead of the President'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.

Livingstone was re-elected Mayor of London on 10 June 2004. He won 35.70% of first preference votes to Conservative Steven Norris's 28.24% and Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes's 14.82%. 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 55.39% to Norris's 44.61%. Some commentators believed that his re-election as mayor was hindered rather than helped by his readmission to the Labour party.

Fracas with Oliver Finegold

Ken Livingstone was publically criticised in February 2005 when he compared Oliver Finegold, a Jewish Evening Standard reporter, to a concentration camp guard after the reporter had tried to interview him following a reception marking the 20th anniversary of Chris Smith's coming out. The documented transcript of their conversation was:

Finegold: Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go?

Livingstone: How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment?

Finegold: How did tonight go?

Mr Livingstone: Have you thought of having treatment?

Finegold: Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?

Mr Livingstone: What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?

Finegold: No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal and I'm actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?

Mr Livingstone: Arr right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?

Finegold: Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight?

Mr Livingstone: It's nothing to do with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots.

Finegold: I'm a journalist and I'm doing my job. I'm only asking for a comment.

Mr Livingstone: Well, work for a paper that doesn't have a record of supporting fascism.

This last comment was a reference to the Standard's sister paper, the Daily Mail, which endorsed Oswald Mosley's fascists in 1934 and supported the nazis until 1939. Livingstone also claimed the Standard was guilty of "harassment of a predominantly lesbian and gay event"[11]. The gay rights group called OutRage! stated that the gay community did not need Livingstone's support if that meant resorting to abuse.[12] Outrage also used that statement to further attack the Muslim Cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

After listening to a recording of the attempted interview with Mr. Finegold, the London Assembly voted unanimously for Livingstone to apologise. Livingstone responded by saying "the form of words I have used are right. I have nothing to apologise for"[13]. 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". The Standards Board for England, the body responsible for English local government standards, referred the case against Livingstone to the Adjudication Panel for England, which could have resulted in sanctions ranging from a censure to a five-year ban from public office. The Adjudication Panel for England addressed this matter over two days on the 13 & 14 December 2005 [14][15][16], 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. [17] The ban was due to begin on 1 March 2006, but on 28 February 2006, it was announced that the four week suspension had been frozen by a High Court judge, pending an appeal by Livingstone. [18]

Support for minorities

File:Livingstone-hanukkah-2005.jpg

Ken Livingstone celebrating the Jewish Hanukkah festival in December 2005

In September 2005 Livingstone came out in support for the placing of a statue to 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."[19]

In December 2005, Livingstone hosted a Jewish Hanukkah ceremony at City Hall. He said he intended this to be an annual occurrence.

Reaction to 7 July 2005 London bombings

In the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings, Livingstone initiated a campaign to celebrate London's multiculturalism

Within hours of the 7 July 2005 London bombings, Livingstone, speaking off the cuff, and from half way around the world at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore where it had recently been announced London would host the 2012 Olympic Games, delivered a speech. Livingstone was visibly shaken and his voice conveyed a sense of disbelief and anger at the atrocities which had just been perpetrated in his home city.

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 don't 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. [20]

On July 20, 2005, Livingstone made the following comments in a BBC interview about the role of foreign policy as a motivation for the bombing:

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. [21]

Livingstone defended the police after the mistaken killing of a Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes, who police believed was a suicide bomber.

Announcement in 2006 of one-month suspension as mayor

Livingstone was to have been suspended from the mayorship for four weeks, commencing March 1, 2006. The Adjudication Panel for England, who examined the case after a complaint from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, stated that he seemed "to have failed... to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable" following his refusal to apologise for likening Jewish Evening Standard journalist Oliver Finegold to a concentration camp guard.

Livingstone is now seeking a judicial review from the High Court. He described the decision to suspend a democratically elected official from power as "striking at the heart of democracy". On 28 February a High Court Judge ordered that his suspension not begin pending the outcome of an appeal by Livingstone.

His deputy, Nicky Gavron, will stand in for him if his appeal fails.

External links

• Mayor of London, the London Assembly and the Greater London Authority - official London government website
• Mayor's Cultural Strategy Group - official London government website
• Mayorwatch.org pages
• CityMayors.com Profile of Livingstone
• Full results of the 2004 mayoral election

BBC articles

• Profile
• Mayor condemns 'cowardly' attack (7 July 2005) BBC video of Livingstone's statement (Realplayer format)
• Ken Livingstone : Rebel Mayor (5 May 2000)

Other External Links

• The Observer Profile: Ken Livingstone - Capital chap by Jay Rayner, published in The Observer, July 10, 2005
• You Can't believe in everything Guardian opinion piece
• Livingstone's response Letter to The Guardian
• Mayor's press release and dossier on Qaradawi
• OutRage! response to the Mayor's dossier on Qaradawi MS Word Document
• Labour's shameful debt to Livingstone Telegraph opinion piece
• The middle east now.com Article on Livingstone
• "London Community Coalition"
• Adjudication Panel for England - Notice of Decision: Ken Livingstone
• Livingstone's Statement about the Evening Standard Affair - 22 February 2005
• Livingstone's Statement about the Evening Standard Affair - 28 February 2006
• Timeline of the Evening Standard Affair
• Transcript of conversation with Evening Standard Reporter