Ken Livingstone and Oona King: pisshead versus airhead
Posted on Monday 12 July, 2010
Filed Under Labour Left, New Labour
IF THE choice is between Ken Livingstone and Oona King, then this blog here and now absolutely endorses Livingstone as Labour candidate for mayor of London.
I only pause to ask how come the available alternatives reduce down to an over the hill former leftist given to medicinal whisky breakfasts on the one hand and some two-bob Blair babe shockingly devoid of any discernible political substance whatsoever on the other.
King’s big selling point, according to her supporters, is that she is ‘a house-music-loving young black woman … more in tune with modern London than the old guard of the 80s Labour left’.
Wicked, or whatever the kids say these days. Kewl. But a propensity to dance round a handbag hardly constitutes a serious policy platform, does it? This woman had two terms in the House of Commons, and is chiefly remembered only for contriving to lose a rock solid Labour seat to George Galloway.
The world has still yet to hear what King would do if she made it to City Hall, and her time at Westminster provides few clues. Her tenure was distinguished chiefly by dogged adherence to a brand of no think New Labourism with a degree of robotic obedience few could match.
She did what she was told to do, and thought what she was told to think, and still somehow she never made it off the backbenches. Go figure.
I’m not sure what makes it onto the CD deck chez Livingstone, and at least he nobody can claim that he has been reluctant to speak his mind over the last three decades.
It is worth noting that the former incumbent was elected as an independent, and was possibly the only public figure in Britain at the time who could have secured victory against the major parties.
A unique combination of south of the river native Londoner standing and the widespread admiration built up as a result of willingness to defy first Thatcher and then Blair should have meant that the job was his for as long as he wanted it.
But his track record as a mayor was mixed, at best. Sure, he did much that was progressive, not least in the areas of anti-racism and gay rights, and he deserves the attendant credit. That alone gives him the edge over King. Vote Ken, people.
Unfortunately it remains difficult to forget his fawning to the City, his direct incitement to RMT members to cross picket lines, his offensive remarks to doorstepping Evening Standard hack Oliver Finegold, the platform he provided to Yusuf al Qaradawi, and the bullying he tolerated throughout his administration.
The next contest is still two years away, and if the coalition proves as unpopular as I expect it will prove, it is likely that any viable Labour candidate has excellent chances of topping the poll.
And yes, I will be campaigning for that viable Labour candidate. I just wish I could be a little more convinced myself before I go out and try to convince others to back them.
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20 Responses to “Ken Livingstone and Oona King: pisshead versus airhead”
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Errr ? Dave, I endorse most of your comments on Livingstone but your ” his offensive remarks to doorstepping Evening Standard hack Oliver Finegold” should read ” his offensive but highly accurate remarks to doorstepping Evening Standard hack Oliver Finegold”
“Highly accurate” is not quite the case, since however much of a dick any reporter or their publication is (and I, being too sensitive to live, would probably cry my own lungs out if I had had a fraction of the unpleasantness Ken has had from the Standard, so I’m not knocking him for being upset or anything), it still doesn’t really come close to being “like a concentration camp guard”. That kind of thing does rather cheapen the suffering that went on under the Nazis.
Saw Oona King on Andrew Marr’s sunday morning programme a few weeks ago. She was like a dog with two tails, she didn’t knowwhich one to wag. For the sneering, cultural snobs she slagged off the world cup and then five minutes later made a point of saying that she would be watching it. (That might have been Diane Abbott, now I think about it…)
Actualy, pretty sure it was Oona King, she was doing the review of the Sunday papers.
Bang on. I don’t think there’s really much to say on the subject of the London Mayoral contest, for the Left. If it comes to Livingstone vs. Oona King, Livingstone will win out every time, no matter how legion his broken promises and backsliding.
Sewer,
If you are struggling Abbott wears glasses.
It was Hazel Blars nw I think about it.
Never mind the whisky bottle.
Why doesn’t wild-eyed John Ross and the rest of Ken’s merry band of loony lefties figure in the plot?
The British people do not need the London ASSEMBLY or Welsh or Scottish or NI TALKING SHOPS. THEY ARE RAKING IN TAXPAYERS MONEY. WHAT PROGRESSIVE POLICIES HAVE ANY OF THEM PRODUSED.
“Wicked, or whatever the kids say these days. Kewl.”
I actually laughed out loud. This blog has it share of great one liners, I think this might just be my favorite yet.
On a more serious note, of course I’ll be voting Ken.
But can somebody tell me where all the charismatic, electable under 50 (no offense) socialists are? Let’s say about 2% of the country’s far left, so make that 1 million 2 hundred thousand out and out socialists in the UK. Let’s be ultra pessimistic here and say that 10% of this lot are in their late 30s-40s = 120 thousand of people the right age to be a young “energetic” politician. Surely within that there must be a character or two who looks good on TV and can explain socialist principals in a way which doesn’t make people nod off?
Think what you will about the Green party, they had by leaps and bounds the furthest left manifesto of any party which got an MP elected. Caroline Lucas is a fantastic leader because she can explain policies which are far outside the range of mainstream ideology without seeming extremist. I can see Brightonites who voted for Thatcher and Blair having voted for her.
The far left really need a figure who can appeal outside of the converted. While New Labour lost the plot with their appeal to ‘Middle class aspiration’ – covert for ‘no tax rises’, I do think theirs a place in far left politics to appeal to ‘middle class guilt’, if you excuse the terminology, there’s certainly a market for it.
What I’m trying to say in regards to this post is that we shouldn’t snear at King for being ‘a house-music-loving young black woman … more in tune with modern London than the old guard of the 80s Labour left’, hell, it’s an indictment of the Left that we can’t find a ‘house-loving young black woman, in tune with modern London and able to communicate to it a vision of the 2010s (Labour) Left”.
If the Left are going to reject the ‘impossiblist’ path and actually play the game of running candidates in elections, then we have to play the game well. This means running candidates outside of the established middle aged white men category. It means imagining the majority of people don’t care about socialism, and we’re too bad at communicating, too bad at web and poster design for people to listen even when we talk about ‘protecting public services’ or other popular-fronts which could be a wedge into people’s political consciousness.
Jimmy Glesga – The congestion charge? The clean air zone? The London living wage? Same sex domestic registration (before the national government)? Investment in public transport?
@ScurvyDom
“But can somebody tell me where all the charismatic, electable under 50 (no offense) socialists are?”
There aren’t any. The British Left’s one unqualified success has been putting generations of young people off organised socialist politics. Poll tax protesters, road protesters, anti-war protesters, anti-capitalists, left-liberals, right-on students, hunt sabs – all put off by the People’s Front of Judea antics and long, boring and largely irrelevant lectures on theory from patrician bores. Young people who show an interest are seen as little more than potential paper sellers. It’s pretty galling, when degree-educated and working as a temp, to get a lecture on the state of the workforce in the UK from a fiftysomething union timeserver who walked into his job straight from school.
The last meeting I was at, I was shouted down when I suggested that the Soviet Flag the organisers had pinned to the wall wasn’t perhaps viewed with the same reverence by the general public as it was by those present. Good luck winning over Polish builders with that one.
1930s socialists didn’t rigidly stick to what was done in the 1890s, so why should today’s younger generation venerate some ageing culty Trots or pipe-smoking old “I’m Alright Jack” types?
Either the left takes on a new generation *and their ideas* or stays ideologically pure and turns into something akin to the Sealed Knot society.
I didn’t think Livingstone’s remarks to Oliver Finegold were that offensive. To be sure they weren’t accurate either. But they were no different from “give a man a uniform and he thinks he’s Hitler” and people used to say that all the time. The only reason the remark got the publicity and criticism it did was because of Ken’s criticisms of Israel. What I noticed about the whole thing was that Finegold was doorstepping Ken after a gay event and whilst the nazis were as bad to gays as to Jews no one complained about Ken’s insensitivity to gays.
Ken’s a very brave and principled man, he clearly had long standing issues with the Evening Standard that justified his anti-semitic remarks, but what is of more importance is that for several years whilst out of professional politics he was able to put them aside for the good of his bank balance and take the Standard’s shilling by working for them as a food critic. That shows he’s the bigger man!
Ken is a tiresome look-at-me ninny
Oona is a tiresome look-at-me ninny
Ken enjoys the company of genuine enemies of civilisation even when he has been told all about who they are and what they stand for
Oona was cajoled into supporting the Iraq war. Moreover, her supporters put out an election leaflet in Bengali saying how delighted she was that Labour was facilitating “family reunions” and reversing Tory de facto immigration policy
Ken excites no sexual desire at all
Oona immediately excites sexual desire among many men and probably many women too
The foregoing is all that need be said
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here is what the late Charles James Haughey [Peace Be Upon Him] called a GUBU – grotesque, unique, bizarre and unprecedented …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1294093/Mourners-set-shrine-outside-home-killer-Raoul-Moat.html
SAINT RAOUL,
PRAY FOR US NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATHS
AMEN
McG hits the nail on the head. ScurvyDom makes some good points, but 1.2million people on the far left? Seriously?
ScurvyDom. All that legislation could have been done at Westminster. Tens of millions could be saved by getting rid of the hingers oan. In the good old days we had Parliament and the local Toon Cooncil. It worked. We are being milked in the name of so called democracy. I would bulldoze the Scottish Parliament and the London crash helmet.
If there was an English parliament I’d for once agree with Jimmy – there is really no justification for elected tiers of local govt above district/borough level.
Seriously were we that worse off during the decade in which there was no GLC?
And mayors are a particularly insidious piece of Blairite managerialism.
Dave,
It is a pity that the version of “democratic centralism” implemented in the modern Labour Party requires you to pledge your allegiance to whatever candidate is selected… a bit unthinking eh?