Red Ken Joins the Race

Here are some poll numbers to strike fear into British Prime Minister Tony Blair's heart. In a recent survey by the Guardian newspaper, only 13% of those questioned said they would support former Health Secretary Frank Dobson in the election to be held May 4 for the newly created post of London mayor. Never mind that Dobson is the official Labour candidate and Blair's handpicked choice for the job. A resounding 68% said they would vote for Ken Livingstone, a popular politician who ran the Greater London Council (glc) until Margaret Thatcher abolished it during the 1980s, and a man who Blair said would be "a disaster" for London.

After failing to win the Labour nomination because of a selection process he claims was fixed, Livingstone decided last week to run as an independent, breaking a very public promise not to do so. "Londoners [should] determine who represents them ... not rigged electoral colleges," Livingstone fulminated. He was promptly suspended from the party he has served for 31 years, and launched an insurgent campaign with four staff, $32,000 in the bank and a tiny headquarters whose few phone lines are perpetually busy. The only good news Blair could salvage from the survey was that the Conservative candidate, Steven Norris, attracted just 11% of those polled. But even that was not exactly a victory. Some 48% of Conservatives said they would back, you guessed it, Ken Livingstone.

Farce has never been far from the London contest. The new mayoralty is part of Blair's effort to devolve power from Westminster, and follows the creation of assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In Wales, the innovation backfired when Blair insisted on an unpopular choice for the Assembly's First Secretary, Alun Michael, only to see Michael forced to resign last month. His replacement? Rhodri Morgan, the very man Blair didn't want to have the job in the first place. In London, Blair maneuvered to keep Livingstone out by seeming to skew the selection process against him and painting him as an addict of "gesture politics." The opposition Tories gleefully pepper Blair with accusations that he is a control freak. But they can't gloat too much. Their first candidate, Jeffrey Archer, had to quit the race because of his admission he had fabricated a false alibi for possible use in court.

Meanwhile, TV cameras flock to Livingstone like moths to a searchlight, and his charisma and mastery of the soundbite should help neutralize the party machinery and bigger war chests of his opponents. Dobson, angry that Livingstone broke his promise not to run on his own, says that "people who know Ken best trust him least." He wants to paint "Red Ken"--a monniker Livingstone earned as leader of the glc for such gestures as declaring London a nuclear-free zone and for advocating the removal of British troops from Northern Ireland--as an unreliable, gabby radical who won't have the trust of business or the police. But it's hard to blast Livingstone's ideology when Labour has been content to have him as a Member of Parliament since 1987, and when several unions, the traditional bedrock of Labour's support, are planning to send money to his campaign.

Ironically, Livingstone's popularity is partly the result of his support for policies--like keeping ownership of the London Underground in public hands--that the Labour Party now finds passe. The catch is that the new mayor, though directly elected by more voters than any other executive in Britain, will have limited powers. He or she (the Liberal Democrats have a female candidate, Susan Kramer, in the race) will depend mainly on money from the central government. The mayor will be entitled to appoint members to new bodies overseeing the police, transport and economic development but will not be directly in charge of those departments.

Livingstone's independent bid has boxed Blair in. If he starts throwing mud to help Dobson, as party officials whisper they are prepared to do, polls suggest that Londoners will take it as meanspirited and even worse, inept, since Livingstone is likely to win anyway. No matter what Blair does, Britain's capital could soon be in the hands of a politician who has every reason to resent the Prime Minister and could foster painful divisions between "old" and "new" Labour, just as Blair seeks to unite the party in the run-up to a general election expected next year. The mayoral contest will surely tighten. If Blair wants to regain some leverage in the tussle with Livingstone, he may need to try something counterintuitive--like ignoring him, or even a bear hug.

With reporting by Helen Gibson/London