IF NEW Labour really does see celebrity status as the only requisite qualification for running the greatest city in the world, it might as well just cut to the chase and check out whether or not any or all of Girls Aloud would be up for the job. Better that than a man whose background and value system are antithetical to every last damn thing for which the labour movement used to stand.

Yet it seems that senior Labour figures have approached Alan Sugar to ask if he would consider standing against Boris Johnson as the party’s candidate for London mayor in 2012. Andrew Gilligan reports in today’s Evening Lebedev:

Ken Clark, Labour’s London director, has telephoned Sir Alan for what Labour sources said was an “exploratory conversation” about him standing.

Sir Alan did not commit himself. However, he is considered by some in the Labour Party to be the only potential candidate in the field so far with the combination of experience and name recognition to take on the Tory Mayor …

and now for the real reason, of course

… and prevent another election attempt by Mr Livingstone.

That’s right, the same Alan Sugar who – in explaining his decision to back Tony Blair in 1997 – admitted: ‘I did very well out of the Tory years. I was proud to be considered one of Margaret Thatcher’s favourite businessmen’. And although I can’t source the quote, didn’t he once admit that he would have no qualms about selling briefcase-sized nuclear bombs, provided only that the trade was legal? Nice.

Poor Livingstone. Look at how he is being treated, after everything he tried to do from 2000 onwards to distance himself from his radical past and ingratiate himself with New Labour and City big shots. Nevertheless, he still enjoys critical support from some sections of the left, and I was on balance happy to back him critically in 2008.

Yet one of the most striking features of last year’s election was the way that it was pitched in terms of a choice between ‘Ken’ and ‘Boris’. Substantive policy differences on anything other than the desirability of bendy buses were minimal. It was almost as if the electorate was being asked to decide which of the two might make more congenial company for an evening in the pub.

Don’t forget, either, the attempt to talk up Greg Dyke as a joint Conservative/Liberal candidate. Even a couple of small beer DJs saw the contest was a chance to boost their flagging careers, with Mike Read seeking the Tory nomination, and some minor league talk radio shock jock whose name I forget also in the running in the early stages. Doesn’t anyone take these elections seriously?

Now, given the figurehead nature of the role, strong candidates must necessarily evince a certain degree of charisma. City Hall is not the place for some timeserving dullard who actually bothers to read subcommittee background papers.

But I have to question the wisdom of Labour opting for a hardline Thatcherite best known for his propensity to sack people on the spot. Voters are going to be losing their jobs in sufficient numbers of the next few years to make that trait seem unattractive indeed.

If this mad plan to run Sir Alan comes off, Londoners will be reduced to a run-off between two de facto Tories, with Boris the slightly less rightwing pick. Londoners deserve better than a lab test of the old maxim that politics is simply showbiz for ugly people.