Ken Livingstone

Kenneth Robert Livingstone
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1st Mayor of London
Incumbent
Assumed office May 4 2000
Deputy	Nicky Gavron 2004- Jenny Jones 2003-2004 Nicky Gavron 2000-2003
Preceded by	New Office
Leader of the Greater London Council
In office 1984–1986
Preceded by	John Wilson
Succeeded by	Office Abolished
In office 1981–1984
Preceded by	Horace Cutler
Succeeded by	John Wilson
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	(1945-06-17) 17 June 1945 Lambeth, London, England
Political party	Labour
Website	Official Biography

Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born June 17, 1945) became Mayor of London on the creation of the post in 2000 having previously been Labour Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until it was abolished in 1986. After its abolition, he became Member of Parliament for Brent East, but was quoted as saying that being in the House of Commons was not enjoyable and he made little impact there.

During the 1980s Livingstone was considered by many to have strong left-wing views, earning him the nickname "Red Ken" and 'Ken Leninspart' by Private Eye magazine. He is a member of the Labour Party, but was initially elected to the mayoralty as an Independent candidate when he could not gain the Labour Party's nomination in the first mayoral elections. In January 2004, he was re-admitted to the Labour Party. He 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.

Early and private life

Livingstone was born in Lambeth, London, England, the son of Ethel Ada (Kennard), a professional dancer, and Robert Moffat Livingstone, who was of Scottish descent and worked as a ship's master in the Merchant Navy. Livingstone has described his parents as "working class Tories". He married Christine Pamela Chapman in 1973 and the marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Around that time he became involved with Kate Allen, now director of Amnesty International in the UK, but the couple separated in November 2001. Livingstone and his current partner Emma Beal, also his office manager, have a son, Thomas, born December 14, 2002 at the University College Hospital, London, and a daughter, Mia, born on March 20, 2004 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Livingstone is a noted bon vivant, having worked as a food critic for magazines owned by both the Hearst Corporation and Associated Newspapers. He is well known for keeping and breeding newts.

Livingstone attended Tulse Hill Comprehensive School. He worked for eight years as a cancer research technician and also trained as a teacher, qualifying in 1973 but never actually teaching. Livingstone joined the Labour Party in 1968 at a time when party membership was falling and few new young members were joining, and therefore rapidly rose in the local party. He was elected to the Lambeth Borough Council in May 1971 and served as Vice-Chair of the Housing Committee from 1971 to 1973 (succeeding John Major in the job).

At the 1973 elections Livingstone won the Norwood electoral area on the Greater London Council (GLC) and served as Vice-Chair of Housing Management in 1974-1975, being dismissed when he opposed spending cuts being 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 council in 1978, and was elected there. Livingstone's performance in Hampstead in the 1979 general election was good, although he did not come close to winning the safe Conservative seat.

GLC leadership

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 May 7 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 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 the left had control of the Labour manifesto for the election.

The GLC then reduced 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.

Despite his defeat in the fares 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' , 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 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 Adolf Hitler's treatment of Jews. Livingstone's support for Irish republicanism made him a target for 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, though it came to nothing as the UDA agent (revealed in 2006 to be Stone himself) became convinced the security forces were on to him.

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Livingstone sits beside Jesse Jackson at an Anti-Apartheid rally in 1985

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'. Private Eye dubbed Livingstone 'Leninspart', 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 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, 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 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 August 2 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 cannily chose not to contest the by-elections, 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 23-vote margin. The GLC was formally abolished at midnight on March 31, 1986.

Livingstone in parliament

Livingstone again 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 who was a committed left-winger, but his relatively moderate ("sensible left") views made him vulnerable to the hard left in the early 1980s. Freeson was able to retain 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. Livingstone's move against Freeson (aided by the 'hard left' within Labour) was, arguably, a re-run of the tactics used against Andrew McIntosh in May 1981.

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 leadership of Neil Kinnock who now blamed left-wingers like Livingstone for Labour's 'unelectability.' Over the long term, though, it was Livingstone rather than Kinnock who was to achieve electoral success. 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 an autobiography-cum-political tract, If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It.

As a politician comfortable in light-hearted and satirical situations, in 1990, Livingstone made the first of seven appearances 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 seven - the last being in 2002 - fall one short of the record for guest appearances currently held by Germaine Greer and Will Self.

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.'

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. (The colour red is associated with the Labour Party, and blue with the Conservative Party.)

Greater London's first mayor

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

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?"

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 controversial system in which votes from sitting Labour MPs and MEPs were weighted more heavily than votes from rank-and-file members. On March 6, 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 April 4. Tony Blair said that Livingstone as mayor would be a "disaster" for London; he later said he was wrong in that prediction.

The result of the election — held on May 4 — was a foregone conclusion: 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 38.1% of first-preference votes to Conservative Steven Norris's 26.5%; Dobson finished third, with 12.8% 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 57.9% of first- and second-preference votes, versus 42.1% for Norris.

Livingstone's first term in office was deemed to have been fairly successful, and Livingstone was re-admitted to the Labour Party in 2004. In the 2004 mayorial election Livingstone stood as the official Labour candidate, and was easily re-elected to a second term.

Public transport

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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 International Olympic Committee meeting there.

Livingstone's greatest challenge as Mayor of London has been dealing with the city's ageing transportation infrastructure. Despite conflict over appropriate funding schemes and engineering challenges to modernizing 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.

In accordance with his pre-election pledge, bus fares were frozen for four years, but then the standard single cash fare on buses more than doubled. Further, and contrary to his election pledge, Livingstone removed the famous Routemaster 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.". As of 1 January 2007, London's public transport is the most expensive in the world, with a single-stop tube journey in zone 1 now costing £4 when paid in cash, more than twice the cost of the second-most expensive transport system in Tokyo.

Livingstone has been a strong proponent of the Oystercard 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 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 Oystercard system. Livingstone moved to make all bus journeys free for passengers under the age of 18 enrolled in full-time education who travel with an Oystercard 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' 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 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.

Congestion charge

Livingstone introduced the London congestion charge with the stated purpose of reducing traffic congestion in central London. Since being introduced the charge has proved to be controversial, though transport for london, chaired by Livingstone, maintains that traffic has fallen by 20% within the charge zone since the scheme began. One reason for the controversy is that whilst the scheme has been lucrative for its private-sector operators, Capita, it has failed to raise the promised levels of funding for public transport [13]. It is claimed that were it not for revenue raised via late-payment fines (which would be alleviated by a fairer or more efficient collection system), the scheme would actually run at a loss. Meanwhile, congestion and pollution levels on already-inadequate roads outside the zone have increased dramatically.

Environment

Ken Livingstone has been called “an environmentalist, a leftist, a lover of newts, but he 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 . The Mayor’s Energy Strategy, “green light to clean power,” commits London to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent, relative to the 1990 level, by 2010. However, he does support a £450m motorway-scale bridge in East London that the 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.” Also, Livingstone recently went back on his promise to help 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."

2004 election

Livingstone attends the 2007 St Patrick's Day celebrations in London

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. 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 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%.

Bush comments

In November 2003, Livingstone was named 'Politician of the Year' by the left-wing Political Studies Association, which cited his implementation of what the association called a '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 before his 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. Continuing to offer national figures advice on how to deal with President Bush, in July 2007 Livingstone suggested that Prime Minister Gordon Brown needed to explain to him "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."

Minorities

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Livingstone at a City Hall reception for Hanukkah

In 2001 Livingstone revived the free Anti-racism Music festival now called Rise: London United. He claims that this, along with other anti-racist policies are the reason why London has seen a 35% decrease in racist attacks.

In 2001 Livingstone set up Britain's first register for gay couples; while falling short of legal marriage rights, the register was seen as a "step towards" that equality. Legal status was later passed by the government thorough the Civil Partnership Act 2004.

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." He was highly critical of the Planning and City Development Committee of Westminster City Council who refused planning permission.

Livingstone hosted a Jewish Hanukkah ceremony at City Hall in December 2005. He said he intended this to be an annual occurrence. On March 17, 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. On October 28, 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.

Apology for London's role in the transatlantic slave trade

Livingstone's emotional apology for London's role in the transatlantic slave trade.

On August 23rd 2007, at 12pm, 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 23rd August to be named as a national day for remembrance in the UK for the "horrific crime against humanity or 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 23rd 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 emphasized 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."

The event included a speech from keynote speaker Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr, who offered the following words.

"If we get pushed to the floor, we get up. We get up time and time again, because the floor is no place for a champion. If you never repent, you never have to repair. So what does it mean to us today, that, when the slave trade ended, that the slave traffickers got compensation? No matter how hard life may be in Brixton, or Harlem, what do we owe them (our ancestors)? One, we owe them to not self-destruct between liquior and drugs and violence, we owe to them, do not self destruct. We owe to them, do not self degrade. We must not call ourselves names that are degrading, and hustle them for profit and call it culture. We must not self degrade. We all know, we have Royal blood. We are not niggers, and bitches and hoes, we are people of God. We are survivors. We must not self degrade. We must now use our vote, to make a new Brixton, and a new Europe, and a new World. We must use our ways of leverage. Our boards and our directors seats, our share of jobs, our share of economic opportunity. We have to use our intellectual power to think beyond our skin colour."

Reaction to 7 July 2005 London bombings

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

After the 7 July, 2005 London bombings, Livingstone from the 117th IOC Session in Singapore where it had recently been announced London would host the 2012 Olympic Games, delivered a speech.

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.

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.

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

Maiden speech

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 MI6 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 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 leveled at Harold Wilson, part of the what became known as the "Wilson plot".

Cronyism

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."

Involvement in fight at party

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

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 allegation made by the Standard, and owing to incomplete witness statements by parties involved and on the balance of probabilities the board issued a finding that there was insufficient evidence that Livingstone breached the Code of Conduct.

Various comments

Livingstone has sparked controversy with his words on numerous other occasions. In 2004 he said he looked forward to seeing the Saudi Royal Family "swinging from lamp posts", and he referred to US President George W. Bush as "the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties". 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.

Routemaster

"Only some ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster" (2001). By December 2005 he had had them all phased out.

Remarks to Oliver Finegold

Ken Livingstone was publicly 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 anti-Semitism. Finegold had an audio recorder running. The Evening Standard decided not to run the story at first but the following transcript of the conversation was published by The Guardian:

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?

Livingstone: Have you thought of having treatment?

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

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?

Livingstone: Ah 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?

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.

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 owners, the Daily Mail and General Trust, which endorsed Oswald Mosley's Fascists in 1934 and supported Nazism until 1939. Livingstone also claimed the Standard was guilty of "harassment of a predominantly lesbian and gay event". Peter Tatchell suggested that this explanation "came across as patronising. Gay people don't need the Mayor's protection to fend off a journalist asking simple questions."

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." 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." 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 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". 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.

The decision was later quashed by the High Court of Justice when on October 5, Mr Justice Collins overturned the suspension, regardless the outcome of Livingstone's appeal concerning the breach of standards. The final judgment 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.

Controversial Remarks Regarding the Reuben Brothers

Livingstone was again the object of criticism following a 21 March 2006 press conference at which Livingstone is alleged to have said of David and Simon Reuben — two Indian-born British 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". 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". Livingstone refused calls for him to apologize 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." He also accused Coleman of behaving like the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels. The Reuben brothers were born in Mumbai, India and are of Iraqi ancestry, rather than Iranian, but have carried out work in Iran. The Standards Board referred the comments to the GLA's monitoring officer, whose investigation exonerated the mayor.

Dispute with US Embassy over payment of Congestion Charge

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. Tuttle lived in California and worked in the private sector when the charge was first instituted. Germany stopped paying the charge in 2005, Japan followed, 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. 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". The Standards Board for England chose not to investigate this. When Japan stopped paying, Livingstone replied on radio by talking about "Japanese war crimes," raising another controversy over inappropriate remarks.

Support for Islamic Cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi

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". Livingstone defended the invite 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.

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."

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". 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.

Grants paid to Livingstone's advisers

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 is involved. It is alleged that some of these grants were paid directly by the mayor's office. The accusations involve inadequate accounting, grants paid with no quid pro quo, rental money paid to organisations already based in London Development Agency premises, and even threats of violence by grant recipients.

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 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
• A left-wing critique of Livingstone, by Charlie Kimber, published in International Socialism journal
• 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
• London mayor outrages Jewish leaders
• Livingstone aid put £2.5m of public money into organisations 'run by him and his friends'