Or “Thornett slams Newman in furious row”. Not really. Alan has replied to Andy as part of the ongoing discussion on the London mayoral elections and I thought I’d lure in the gullible with a sensationalist headline.
Rejoinder to Andy Newman on Ken Livingstone
Alan Thornett
Andy is quite wrong to suggest that I have failed raised my views on Ken Livingstone inside Respect Renewal (RR) until “the 11th hour”. The only thing discussed recently inside RR on this subject has been whether to stand a RR candidate for mayor or not on this occasion. The decision was no, and I agree with it. All other discussion has been around the issue of standing a list for the Assembly, not about the mayoral election. I support the decision not to stand for mayor, not because it would be wrong in principle but because RR is not in a position to stand effectively on this occasion. If there is a discussion who RR should support for mayor on this occasion I will certainly express my views.
In fact I have always held the view, from the time Respect was launched, that it is perfectly legitimate to stand against Ken Livingstone. I have never argued anything else. Nor did anyone else as far as far as I can remember, not on the National Council (NC) itself. Several members of the NC expressed this informally. Lindsey German was selected unanimously at a meeting of London members with no alternative view being put.
The only thing which has changed now is that the Tories have found a right-wing populist buffoon as a candidate, and the Evening Standard is waging a witch hunt against Ken Livingstone. Livingstone has not changed at all. In fact in a number of important aspects his politics are worse now than they were in 2004. The witch hunt and the Tories do have to be taken into account, but as I have argued previously, that is not difficult under the alternative vote system.
Andy is also wrong to say that it is a matter of being either for Livingstone or against him. That is simply not the case. Respect’s campaign in 2004 was never conceived as an anti-Livingstone campaign and as far as I can remember it was not. In fact it was specifically agreed that it would not be anti-Livingstone. It was organised as a positive campaign around what Respect stood for in order to provide the left alternative the election and with a second vote for Livingstone. The Respect mayoral booklet in 2004 does not mention Livingstone, nor as far as I can remember did any of the other material. Of course it depends how important you think it is to offer a left alternative in elections where every you can.
It may well be that not enough emphasis was given in the 2004 campaign to cast a second vote for Livingstone though as Andy says there was a letter in the Guardian and various other things were done to make this policy clear. But there was a different balance of forces in that election. Although it was right to cast a second anti-Tory vote the practical need to defend Livingstone against Steve Norris was not very great. Whether Steve Norris was as actually as benign as Andy suggests or not, few people though he was in with a chance. That was certainly my view. As I remember it even Livingstone himself made it clear that he had no problem with left candidates standing against him, providing they advocated a second vote against the Tories.
Vote transfers
It is true that only a minority of Respect first preference voters ended up casting their second vote for Livingstone. But this may not have for either of the reasons Andy suggests: i.e. that the inadequacies of this as part of the campaign or voter confusion. It is more likely to be that the votes being picked up by Respect were votes which would not have gone to Livingstone anyway first or second preference. It reflects that fact that there is in fact a much wider left critique of Livingstone than Andy is prepared to accept – and this is the natural constituency for a left candidacy. This is certainly the case in the unions where a statement to the effect that “the unions will all be supporting Livingstone” need to be heavily qualified. It is likely that many of those who voted Respect in 2004 would not have voted at all without a left alternative to vote for. Nor is there any evidence that most second preference voters for Respect would have voted for KL if Respect had not been there. They more than likely voted Respect precisely because they were not prepared to vote KL.
Andy claims that the weakest point in my argument is transport. And there is a grain of truth in this, particularly if you choose to compare London busses with busses in other expensive cities rather than comparing Livingstone’s overall transport policy today with his approach during years at the GLC. I think Andy’s weakest point, however, is on the police. Andy does not even mention the shooting Jean Charles De Menezes, and I don’t blame him. If I was trying to scrape together a case for a first preference vote for Livingstone I would be sorely tempted to avoid it as well. But it is crucial. Livingstone’s attitude to this shooting is so grotesque that, personally, I would not give him a first preference vote on these grounds of this alone.
I was rather shocked that Andy thinks that the class bias of the police is something only recognised by the far left! Its not true. You simply don’t have to have been a miner whacked over the head at Orgreave to draw the conclusion that the police are on the other side of a class divide. When I was an active trade unionist it was hard to find anyone who though that the police were anything other than biased against working class people. I would be amazed if that was not the wide spread view in many trade unions today. It would certainly be the view of many of those subjected to stop and search by the MET today think that there is not a class bias involved as well as a racist motivation. Young, black, working class people are simply the main targets of the police in this.
Andy says that: “Ken Livingstone may be imperfect, but remains a left social democrat with a broadly progressive administration”. This assessment is dubious to say the least. Livingstone may be a left social democrat – of sorts: i.e. one with a huge discrepancy between theory and practice, but he is not running a “broadly progressive administration”. What is broadly progressive about it?
True Livingstone is not simply a new Labour politician. No new Labour politician would have done such the cheap oil deal with Hugo Chavez though one or two of them opposed the war. But this does not get us very far. There is a long tradition of radicalism concerning far away places combining with conservatism at home. The fact is that his administration is indistinguishable from new Labour on a range of absolutely crucial issues. On the city of London and finance capital he has a big business agenda. On housing policy, planning and development he has a big business agenda. In fact he is repeated backing the big developers against local people when office development conflicts with local housing. The same applies to the privatisation of public assets under his control. Livingstone is far to the right of Attlee on all this, if Andy wants to go back that far to justify his actions.
Mixed economy
On transport policy (dare I say) and the Olympic games h
is actions are also in line with new Labour as he is the case with the police and “security”. And where is the difference in terms of his attitude to trade unions (which Andy minimises); at least as far as trade unions organising within his jurisdiction are concerned? How does all this add up to a progressive agenda? I can’t agree with Andy when he say that “as Mayor of London there is a certain rationality in pursuing finance capital”. We are talking here of the city of London, a major powerhouse of global capital and all its consequences. This is a big concession to make.
It is very difficult to ague with all this in mind that Livingstone is a defender of a mixed economy. To be a defender of a mixed economy today you would have to defend what is left of the public sector. It is also very hard to argue that his support for a multi-cultural society (even if you ignore where this fits into his support for the MET over Stockwell out of the equation) overrides all this.
And you just have to ask new Labour themselves what they think about it. They are completely happy. When KL was first elected mayor new Labour were horrified, because they remembered the Red Ken of the GLC. They changed completely when they realised what he was actually doing in office and their new positive evaluation of him has never looked back. He is certainly their first choice now.
Liam redux 
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