Livingstone, a long-standing Member of Parliament (MP), made the move after Frank Dobson refused to step aside as the Labour candidate. Dobson had been handpicked by Blair, who imposed him on the party despite overwhelming support for Livingstone. When announcing his campaign, Livingstone said he was running to uphold the "democratic rights" of the people of London following "blatant ballot rigging" during the Labour Party selection process.

The voting will take place May 4 in what is the first election for a mayor of London. A new London assembly will also be elected. The former Greater London Council (GLC) was abolished under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.

Dobson was announced as the Labour can-didate February 20, after winning 51.5 per-cent of the vote in a rigged electoral college. Livingstone received 48.5 percent. A Fi-nancial Times editorial February 21 declared the result, "a dismal outcome" which "looks more like a defeat for Tony Blair."

Following his formal announcement, Livingstone was immediately suspended from the Labour Party and moves have been made to expel him from its ranks. Livingstone said he didn't think "there is any risk that this will split the party," and urged his supporters to stay in the party. He encouraged a "second preference" vote for Dobson, as part of a procedure used if no candidate wins a clear majority vote.  
 

Overwhelming vote for Livingstone

Livingstone estimates that 80,000 people voted for him and 25,000 for Dobson in the balloting to choose the Labour candidate. Voting was organized in a three-part electoral college, which gave the 75 London MPs and Members of the European Parliament one-third of the vote. The MPs voted heavily for Dobson, while individual Labour Party members voted 60 percent and London members of trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party voted 72 percent in favour of Livingstone. Where unions balloted their members the Livingstone vote was higher. For example, the Transport and General Workers Union, one of the biggest in the United Kingdom, gave Livingstone 85 percent of votes cast in a relatively high turnout. Officials of another major union, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, cast the union block vote for Dobson without a ballot of union members.

Before the vote the big business media devoted substantial time to vilify "Red Ken," the name Livingstone gained in the early 1980s when he was leader of the GLC. In the context of rising struggles against the Thatcher government, including the 1984-85 miners strike, which drew behind it a real social movement, Livingstone adopted a policy of low transport fares and invited Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to the County Hall, the seat of the GLC. Today Livingstone stresses his agreement with Blair on all but the transport issue.

For two weeks after Dobson's win, debate in the big-business media focused on whether Livingstone should stand as an independent and risk expulsion from the Labour Party. An editorial in the right-leaning Evening Standard stated: "This newspaper has never wavered in its conviction that Mr. Livingstone is an unsuitable mayor....Yet even many Londoners who reject the old and discredited policies of Mr Livingstone rally to his cause as a maverick, the loner, an underdog, the one-man awkward squad against the New Labour machine."

A headline of a column in the Evening Standard by columnist Simon Jenkins read, "Stand, Ken and deliver us from this rotten system." The right-wing Daily Mail columnist Leo McKinstry stated, "I would not vote for him if he was the only name on the ballot paper," but added, "Leaders might find them an irritant, but independents and mavericks are vital to political freedom." The liberal Observer ran an editorial headlined "Run, Ken, run for the good of everyone." The Financial Times and The Economist caution against Livingstone standing.

Within the labor movement support for Livingstone against the official Blair candidate reflected anger over dashed hopes that a Labour government, with trade union links, would offer a different course. The Labour Party won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election after 18 years of Conservative rule. It pledged to reverse falling expenditures on public National Health Service (NHS) and on education. But a London School of Econ-omics study published last August revealed that the Labour government was on course to bring public spending as a proportion of national income to its lowest level in 40 years.

Chancellor Gordon Brown insists on keeping a tight reign on public spending. New year media headlines were dominated by the collapse in the NHS, which was unable to cope with a seasonal increase in influenza. Long waiting lists, lack of beds, cancelled operations, and a shortage of nurses plague the system.  
 

Labor resistance

On February 29 Prime Minister Blair denied the NHS crisis, blaming "alarmists" in the media for the public outcry. The main pro-Labour tabloid The Mirror, responded, "The press didn't invent this nightmare... the NHS is dying." In recent months there have been strikes by London train drivers and bus workers over hours and pay, student demonstrations against Labour government-imposed university fees, action by members of the Fire Brigades Union against forced overtime, and angry protests by family farmers against Labour farm policy.

Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, resistance continues in Ireland to London's refusal to sever ties of colonial rule. The Blair government's desire to keep devolution for Scotland and Wales under Westminster control in order to maintain the UK has been a bumpy road as well. The Scottish parliament has challenged Westminster on student fees, and asylum laws. Alun Michael, Blair's choice for first secretary of the Welsh assembly, was forced to resign February 9 after a vote of no confidence by the body. He was replaced by MP Rhodri Morgan, the candidate favoured by Labour Party members in Wales in the original election.  
 

Debate on public transport system

A hotly debated issue in the London mayoral election is the funding of the crumbling, publicly run transport system. The official government line favors a joint partnership between public and private sectors. Livingstone advocates keeping the London Underground public but raising funds for investment from big business bond holders and from special taxes on motorists.

A con-flict over the selection of the Conservative Party candidate for mayor reflects the deep-ening crises of the party. Jeffrey Archer, originally selected and backed by party leader William Hague, re-signed following a public perjury scandal. Family values rhetoric almost scuppered the selection of the only credible Conservative contestant Steven Norris, who supports liberal reforms on gay rights and was sub-jected to a media frenzy over his private life. Underlying this crisis is a decline of the Conservative party, which is now openly divided on Britain's EU relations.

Celia Pugh is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union in London.  
 
 
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