Last stand or comeback? Livingstone fights for London

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) - Derided as "Red Ken" by his opponents on the right but loved by many Londoners after decades of activism in their city, Ken Livingstone may be fighting his last great political battle as he campaigns to regain control of the British capital in its Olympic year.

Livingstone, 66, is one of two British politicians known nationally by their first names. The other is Boris Johnson, 47, the Conservative who beat Livingstone in London's 2008 mayoral election, ending the Labour veteran's eight-year tenure.

Livingstone will try to take City Hall back from Johnson on Thursday in an electoral contest of big personalities.

"Boris is a very formidable campaigner," Livingstone told Reuters after a speech at a campaign rally that ranged from granular detail on housing policy to a grandiose claim that this election was "about changing the direction of all humankind".

Johnson could well return the compliment to Livingstone, a great political survivor who first rose to fame in the early 1980s when as leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) he did battle with then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In one memorable tactic, he taunted Thatcher with a giant banner showing the rising number of unemployed people in London. The banner was stuck to the front of County Hall, then home to the GLC, which sits across the Thames from parliament.

Thatcher scrapped the GLC in 1986, but the conflict gave Livingstone lasting kudos with many Londoners.

He confounded his critics by winning office as a member of parliament (three terms from 1987 to 2001) and as London mayor (two terms from 2000 to 2008), despite their best efforts to write him off as a left-wing extremist from a bygone era.

Asked at his rally whether the "Red Ken" label irks him, Livingstone was indifferent.

"I really don't care how my enemies define me. My concern is, can we get another thousand buses on the streets of London over the next four years? If that defines me as some Stalinist, that's fine," he told Reuters.

NEWTS

As well as his political longevity, Livingstone's colourful personality has ensured that he has made a mark in public life.

He has been teased for a lifelong love of amphibians, especially newts, but far from letting this rile him he has written with pride and emotion of this hobby.

"I've never forgotten that day in 1958 as I watched my first newt gracefully swim around the tank, and so I've dug a large pond where hundreds of them congregate to breed every spring," he wrote in a 2010 article in the Guardian newspaper.

In 1990, a comedy TV programme entitled "GLC: The Carnage Continues" revisited the battle of County Hall as an action movie. Kate Bush recorded a song entitled "Ken" for the occasion, with lyrics including "Who's the man we all need? Ken! Who's a funky sex machine? Ken!"

Despite his popular appeal, he became persona non grata in the Labour Party after Tony Blair was elected leader in 1994 and moved the party to the centre ground, branding it "New Labour".

Blair became prime minister in 1997 and one of his early moves was to introduce an elected mayor and assembly for London. Livingstone wanted the job but Blair did not want him as Labour candidate because, in Blair's eyes, he represented "Old Labour".

The party chose another candidate and expelled Livingstone for running as an independent. Livingstone trounced his official Labour rival and won the election. The party sheepishly re-admitted him in time for the following election, in 2004.

In office as mayor, Livingstone introduced a congestion charge that reduced traffic jams in central London and raised funds for public transport. He also oversaw the roll-out of the blue plastic Oyster card, which has replaced paper tickets for most public transport users and eased the flow of passengers at rush hour.

Livingstone also won praise for his statesmanlike response to the July 2005 bombings on London public transport.

More controversially, he struck a deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to swap cheap oil for advice on planning.

Livingstone narrowly lost the 2008 election to Johnson. But with the London Olympics coming up in July 2012, offering whoever will be mayor a chance to shine on the world stage, Livingstone was ready for a re-match on May 3.

"TAX-DODGING"

But the omens are not looking good for him. The polls have consistently given Johnson a lead even though on the national level Labour has taken a massive lead over the Conservatives, who are unpopular after a series of government blunders.

Livingstone shrugs off the polls to focus on practical matters. His campaign pledge, "Ken's Fare Deal", is to cut transport fares by 7 percent this year and keep them in check after that. Johnson has attacked the plan as unaffordable.

Livingstone's other pledges to Londoners include raising police numbers, offering grants to poor families to help pay for childcare, and restoring an educational allowance for poor teenagers that was scrapped at national level by the Conservative-led coalition government.

Johnson dismisses this as a reckless programme of big spending rises during a painful squeeze on the public purse.

But the confusing claims and counter-claims have failed to engage many voters. Instead, coverage of the campaign has focused on the character of the two main contenders, and particularly on Livingstone's weak spots including his sometimes troubled relationship with London's Jewish community.

It is a theme that has run through his career since a confrontation in 2005 with a Jewish journalist whom he compared to a German concentration camp guard, causing a furore.

He has also offended Jewish and other voters by doing some work for the Iranian state's Press TV channel, and for hosting Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is accused of justifying attacks on Israeli civilians.

In a new row, Livingstone was reported in March as telling a group of Jewish Labour supporters that as the Jewish community was rich it wouldn't vote for him. He later wrote a conciliatory column in the Jewish Chronicle newspaper in which he acknowledged that Jewish voters were not a homogeneous block.

His reputation took another knock in the mayoral campaign when it emerged he was engaged in legal tax avoidance. He defended himself by saying that nobody pays more tax than they have to, but he stands accused of hypocrisy after criticising tax avoidance by rich people on numerous occasions.

Johnson has made hay from the issue, calling Livingstone a "semi-reformed Troskyist, car-hating, Hugo Chavez-idolising, newt-fancying, tax-dodging, bank-bashing hypocrite".

Livingstone has hit back by portraying Johnson as a part-time mayor too busy writing columns to do the job. He has also accused him of spending lavish sums on vanity projects such as the giant steel "Orbit" observation tower in the Olympic park.

Labelling it "an erection", Livingstone said that if elected he would re-name it "the Johnson".

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)