Factfile
Name: Ken Livingstone, a.k.a.
Red Ken. Born: June 17th 1945.
Occupation: Left-wing Labour MP, irritant to party hierarchy.
Why in the news: Wants to stand as Labour candidate for Mayor of London but is facing opposition at the heart of New Labour.
Most likely to say: I'm standing as an Independent.
Least likely to say: You're right Tony. Frank Dobson would be an admirable successor to Dick Whittington.
Ken Livingstone confidently predicted in the conservative Spectator magazine this week: "It's me or Jeffrey, folks," as he poured scorn on Tony Blair's attempt to cold-shoulder him out of the selection race for Mayor of London. Red Ken, the man who invented the Loony Left, according to the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, came out with guns blazing against Labour's decision to drop the one-member-one-vote system in favour of an electoral college that will almost guarantee the selection of the leadership favourite and former Health Secretary, Frank Dobson.
In typically barn-storming style, Livingstone condemned Labour's attempt to "fiddle" with democracy, warning of imminent disaster for the capital if the Conservative candidate, Lord Archer, was handed substantially more votes by standing against a less popular candidate - read Dobson - than himself.
Livingstone knows he would be a highly popular candidate for London Mayor, a fact borne out by an Evening Standard opinion poll this week that showed he would win 63 per cent of the vote among Londoners in the mayoral election with Archer "limping behind" on 27 per cent. And he knows that in the great scheme of the Blairite project, he is a thorn in New Labour's side, a reminder of the old days when the party couldn't get itself elected until Livingstone and his like toned down the socialist policies of the left or were jettisoned.
Instead, Livingstone remained in the party, turned down Blair's offer of a junior ministerial post saying that only a cabinet position would do, and has cheerfully set about rocking the New Labour boat ever since.
He cut his teeth in the damn-or-be-damned world of London Labour politics when he was elected to the bureaucratic monolith that was the Greater London Council (GLC), eventually rising to lead it before Margaret Thatcher abolished it in 1986.
Quickly introducing the "fares fair" transport policy, Livingstone's shining achievement slashed fares on public transport by 30 per cent and passenger numbers rose sharply. The number of cars travelling into London during the scheme fell by 15 per cent, a success that the present Labour government would not sniff at. However, during the "fares fair" scheme, funding on the London Underground was severely under target and it is still suffering. Few who lived through the administration of the GLC will forget his invitation to the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, and to Danny Morrison, to attend a London conference in 1984. The IRA was bombing London and Livingstone's critics accused him of giving £53,000 of GLC funds to the Troops Out Movement. He countered the criticism by arguing that the money went to the National Council for Civil Liberties to investigate the harassment of Irish-born Londoners under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Furthermore, he argued that without entering into dialogue with Sinn Fein, there was no chance of peace. Among his friends, the former sports minister, Tony Banks, remembers his association with Livingstone during the GLC years as a time of social upheaval. "It was tarred with the image of being a bunch of loonies. We were not a bunch of loonies. We were among the most progressive thinkers at the time and many of our policies have become accepted policy: on anti-racism, gays, the arts and the police."
Yet when the race for mayor shifts into a higher gear after Labour's shortlist of candidates is announced on November 16th, the Conservatives will no doubt rake over Livingstone's lefty tactics. Livingstone may have put aside his prediction of a few years ago that he had "a horrible feeling Britain isn't ready for me yet", but he is astute enough to realise that building bridges with the Labour hierarchy will be a plus when the selection process gets under way.
Earlier this week, he performed a U-turn on several mayoral "policies" abandoning his proposal to tax office car-parking and air travel and a promise to run trains as regularly as the tube.
Spectacularly ambitious, the policies were however, ill-thought out and little real calculation of the cost had been done by the Livingstone camp.
Moreover, he played the loyalty card by insisting he would remain in the party despite a veiled threat earlier this summer that he would stand as an Independent candidate if he failed to win the Labour nomination. The threat to turn the mayoral election into a vastly more interesting race than if London was forced to choose between Archer and Dobson was laughed off as a silly joke, But Livingstone has a knack for making his presence felt, even when he isn't saying very much.
Tackling crime and implementing a strategic transport plan for the city will be high on the list of Londoners' requirements when they come to vote for the mayor next May.
An intelligent, colourful candidate in the shape of Ken Livingstone would send a chill through the Conservative Party, but more importantly for Mr Blair, it would present a fascinating dilemma for the New Labour power base if one day Red Ken ruled over a constituency of five million.