UK

Ken and his critics

January 25, 2008
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The most thoughtful and even-handed response to Martin Bright's Dispatches investigation into Ken Livingstone's alleged cronyism and shady working practices—which we all missed cos we were working into the wee hours putting the February edition to bed—seems to me to be Paul Anderson's column in Tribune.

Anderson agrees that it is slightly odd, if hardly chilling, that Ken has surrounded himself in City Hall with so many of his old Trot mates; and, more importantly, that this is a legitimate subject for journalistic inquiry—Ken's attempts to get the programme pulled at the last-minute were absurd and clumsy. On the other hand, if you look at Ken's record—more buses, the congestion charge, the Olympics—it hardly looks like the early shoots of worldwide proletarian revolution.

I have been very sceptical of Ken, particularly after he reneged on his promise not to stand as an independent candidate in the mayoral elections were he not to get the Labour nomination. But his record speaks for itself, and I was very impressed by the command of policy detail he displayed in his interview with Prospect last year.

UK