Harry’s Place

Ken is a tragic figure, in the true Shakespearean sense.

Well now we have Falstaff as Mayor.

But tragic? Livingstone is the most succesful socialist politician of my lifetime - if that is tragic then please define success!

One of those rare moments in politics when something magical happens.a RARE HAPPY MOMENT IN P

Did you write that Thursday? i’m wondering what good taking the friday off work might have done.

God, i fucking hate tories, public schoolboys and the evening standard.

If it wasn’t for Chelsea, I’d be out of here.

Coriolanus? Falstaff? I reckon it’s more like we’ve exchangd Prospero for Caliban.

Interesting appraisal of why Ken lost by Hugh Muir in the Guardian - see here http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/02/livingstone.london08

I didn’t really care that he was a bit of a bastard - everybody knew he didn’t have any real friends before he was elected the first time, which is why Labour didn’t want him to stand. But he proofed that he had learnt an managed to make a good job at running London overall.

The next four years will be a very important for London; it needed someone who has some policy experience at the helm, not a man of gimmicks that is legendary for his lack of interest in details.

What’s done is done now, of course, but in time I think people will regret it.

Also in the Guardian assessment:

Labour’s London campaign chiefs reported that the ethnic minority vote had turned out for Livingstone, but the white working class vote had been increasingly hostile to him.

Ian Hislop and Paul Merton have a lot to answer for…

I didn’t really care that he was a bit of a bastard - everybody knew he didn’t have any real friends before he was elected the first time, which is why Labour didn’t want him to stand. But he proved that he had learnt and managed to make a good job at running London overall.

The next four years will be a very important for London; it needed someone who has some policy experience at the helm, not a man of gimmicks that is legendary for his lack of interest in details.

What’s done is done now, of course, but in time I think people will regret it.

Ken must take his share of the blame though.

I presume that’s Livingstone’s eyes at the top of the page? It isn’t entirely clear.

Silly me about the day … I’ll change it.

I mean “tragic” in the Shakespearean sense: that he is a hero who has a flaw which ultimately is his undoing. I do think he’s a kind of Coriolanus figure.

“You see, the thing is, I have always really liked Ken. Yes, I know all about his dodgy past: how he came to power by way of a coup, his foolish association with the worst parts of the far Left, and all that. But he has star quality.”

One big collective “Oh, shut up!” for you… Again.

Well, David T, although I disagree with you about the approach to the election, I think your stance and reasons for not backing Ken was honourable (and that adjective is about the biggest compliment that I ever give).

And tis true that all political careers end in failure (and I don’t think I am being presumption to call this the end of Ken’s active political career).

Anyway, let’s hope Boris does a good job as Mayor, and surpasses all expectations that one may have of him.

At first people will give Boris a honeymoon and it will be claimed that he is much better than we thought he would be. However he will quickly become a walking disaster. It may take a year before people realise it.

He could save Brown the next general election.

I mean “tragic” in the Shakespearean sense: that he is a hero who has a flaw which ultimately is his undoing. I do think he’s a kind of Coriolanus figure.

I think you need to be “high born” to be tragic in the Shakespearean sense.

Looking on the bright side, Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro can stick it up their arses.

Thanks very much Ven.

Maybe Ken will learn from his mistakes again and there could be a “Ken 3″ in four years?

Now that Ken is out of office,I suspect he will be back on the TV shows in short order and will quickly get back his lost cheeky chappy image. He could be very popular.

I second what Ven said.

This is truly The End Of An Era. Discuss.

Tony Blair should be the Labour candidate for Mayor next time.

The fact of the matter is that Ken doesn’t represent the majority of Londoners any more, I mean, there are only so many Islamists and old skool socialists and cronies in town. He probably won the first two terms because he was the most recognisable face on the ticket. As soon as someone came along with a bigger brand, and, let’s face it, a much nicer personality, Ken was toast.

I for one welcome our foppish overlord.

“However he will quickly become a walking disaster. It may take a year before people realise it.”

Yeah, that makes sense. If you want to know what a disaster looks like, check out Gordon Brown. Only two more years of him thank god. Boris just doesn’t have enough rope to hang himself like Gordo has managed since him became PM. He should get some kind of medal.

“a hero who has a flaw which ultimately is his undoing”. Ken had lots of flaws, primarily the arrogance to think himself too popular for his bigotry to be noticed.

He could save Brown the next general election.

Regrettably I can’t see anything much saving Gordon Brown at the next election. We just need to pray for a heart attack or something to enable a change to be made before then.

Oh and before anyone slashes any vital arteries, they should check out the Assembly constituency results. Harrow is particularly nice.

The fact of the matter is that Ken doesn’t represent the majority of Londoners any more, I mean, there are only so many Islamists and old skool socialists and cronies in town.

1,028,966 of them to be exact (rather worrying that!) But the big thing for Labour is keeping Livingstone’s personal share of the vote, the ordinary Londoners who came out just to vote for him and would not bother with the usual colourless labour candidate..

How will the party keep those people onboard?

Tony Blair should be the Labour candidate for Mayor next time.

On the basis that this’ll see the Lib Dem candidate come second in the first round, and have a guaranteed victory over Boris in the second? I guess that’s one way to skin a cat.

But the big thing for Labour is keeping Livingstone’s personal share of the vote, the ordinary Londoners who came out just to vote for him and would not bother with the usual colourless labour candidate..

How will the party keep those people onboard?

I truly hate to argue with you but the Assembly results seem to prove you’re wrong. Labour actually gained a constituency, and I’d never heard of the candidate ’til the election…..

Boris just doesn’t have enough rope to hang himself like Gordo has managed since him became PM.

I wouldn’t bet on it.

He should get some kind of medal.

Absolutely. One the size of a millstone.

Here’s some intensely precious musings on the contents of my digestive tract. Hopefully that will distract everyone from the fact that I’m celebrating Boris Johnson’s victory, on the grounds that defeating fascists who exist solely within my own mind is a far higher priority than any events that take place in the reality beyond my own addled cranium.

Much shorter David T - I’m loaded, so I can afford this kind of vanity politics. How about you?

I truly hate to argue with you but the Assembly results seem to prove you’re wrong. Labour actually gained a constituency, and I’d never heard of the candidate ’til the election…..

But nobody comes out to vote for assembly members - they are there to vote for the Mayor and without a personality equivalent to Livingstone in stature they won’t come out at all!

See how many Labour assembly members get elected then!

Ahhh, poor David: ‘I wanted to support Ken. It is just that he didn’t want my support.’

Poor David, let down by a political representative. Let’s have a mutual fucking cry in. Or shall we just, erm, get over being let down.

Politics really isn’t religion - you seem to acknowledge that, yet, you’re simply to decent, or, how shall we put this, unwordly, to acknowledge that all living political representatives on earth may not meet your exacting standards. True, Ken’s been a twat - get-fucking-over-it, could be the expression.

Now, the sky’s not gonna cave in, the vast majority of the Mayor’s responsibility is transport, which is 90% secure from DfT grants (for investment) and fare income (for operating expenditure) - there’ll be some tinkering around the edges here, but nothing major.

But there’s a persistent morality that you, and, of course, Kamm, don’t possess, that of loyalty, or, to put it in terms you might understand, solidarity: i.e. don’t fuck with the Party or the Class. You might get a few more blog hits for your ‘bravery’, but Christ on a fucking stick, you start to come across as a shallow, self-absorbed, arse-head. Which probably isn’t that far off the mark?

Austin,
Did you show solidarity with Blair,three times elected Prime Minister?

Hello Tim

I did! Thanks to me and my ilk he was elected three times for PM. You’re obviously not suggesting that’s a bad thing, I presume?

good.
do you think replacing him with Brown was
a.wise
b.solid

Hmm…

a. not really
b. not really

Austin, you’re being too hard on David T. He could have made up a bunch of shit about supporting Ken just to stay PC, but instead he reveals his intertermoil on the issue and shares his experience with us.

You can’t say fairer than that.

This is truly The End Of An Era. Discuss.

I’ve heard that this is just another indication of a more broad shift to the right in Europe. If things were going so swimmingly under socialist/left leadership, How could this be happening?

Hi Mike

I know, he’s almost too good to us sometimes. To be frank, I’ve been itching to hear stories about bizarre salamander fetishes all day - however, I’m probably quite sated with that one.

As you say, it’s good of him - what next, David T’s guilt when he inadvertently doesn’t recycle the Heinz Baked Beans alluminium can? Now, that’s a post worth reading.

I think Boris is full of surprises. Don’t write him off yet. He has managed to run a decent campaign when nobody thought he would. Right now he is sitting at home though, thinking, OMG, what have I gone and done.

don’t fuck with the Party or the Class.

Commies. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em. :D

I’ll settle for watching them squirm as they’re defeated in election after election.

Oh and before anyone slashes any vital arteries, they should check out the Assembly constituency results.

Tories up to 11, BNP gains a seat. Can I proceede with slashing vital arteries now, or is there some more bad news?

as people have often said, elections are sometimes lost rather than won

Livingstone is the creator of his own misery, that lazy arrogance which pervaded the latter years of his administration showed how political power corrupts and with Ken’s flaws it certainly did.

I remember energetically voting for him on two other occasions, getting up early so the polling station would have just opened and yet this time I really wondered why?

I didn’t want him back but I didn’t want the Tories in either, so I voted with a heavy heart, and it looks as if I wasn’t the only one.

Livingstone can blame no one else but himself, he provided the media with more than enough material to use against him, the way he attacked one time allies was disgusting, almost nothing was too low for him and now we’re lumbered with the fucking Tories.

thanks Ken, you wanker!

Livingstone is the creator of his own misery, that lazy arrogance which pervaded the latter years of his administration showed how political power corrupts and with Ken’s flaws it certainly did.

This doesn’t quite explain how his overall vote is up on last time though does it?

Oh you bastards! You disallow smileys but you can’t allow preview?

Testing one two

Monkeys in Casinos

Mod, did you watch Ken’s speech? You must have felt a little bit sad for the guy.

Though Ken did, with much dignity, blame himself, we all know that’s not entirely fair given the national situation.

Graham,

monocausality? as David T wrote:

Just as Ken turns Labour supporters off, he energies us Tories

anyways don’t get me started, the fucking BNP got one in, bastards…
oh my blood pressure,..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3864098.ece

With apologies to MiskatonicUniversity over at CIF:

“Boris is the best in the world! He is best in the world! We have beaten King Newt at dirty pool!! It is completely unbelievable! We have beaten the Caliphate! Egypt, birthplace of giants. Sayyid Qutb, Abdullah Azzam, Abul Ala Maududi, Al Qaradawi, -we have beaten them all. We have beaten them all. Hasan El-Bana can you hear me?

Gordon Brown, I have a message to you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message to you: We have knocked Labour out of the this plane of existence. Gordon Broon, as they say in your language in drinking bars around Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!”

Austin, actually the Newt incident is rather interesting. I can well imagine Ken giving that answer and I can totally see how it would be a shock to someone who was a supporter and thought they were being polite.

Remember that before 2000, the media kept quiet about Ken’s rather sharp edged character and played up his cheeky chappy, friendly, image, as a way of attacking the all powerful New Labour establishment. At the time I remember telling people that Ken doesn’t even have any friends on the like minded campaign group on the Labour backbenchers, and falls out with people he agrees with at the drop of a hat, so how on earth do you expect him to work with so many different types of people whilst in charge of London?

All I got were blank looks.

As it happens, the whole process of being expelled from the Labour party, and desperately trying to get back in it, sparked a sense of pragmatism in him that wasn’t there before. If he hadn’t had that experience he wouldn’t have been as good a mayor as he turned out to be.

This is a very good post. I agree with your analysis, DT, but not with the conclusion you draw.

I didn’t help out either. Part of me now feels I should have done. Ken’s concession speech was actually pretty majestic. And possibly the most loyal moment of his political career.

“Here’s some intensely precious musings on the contents of my digestive tract. Hopefully that will distract everyone from the fact that I’m celebrating Boris Johnson’s victory”

This is profoundly unfair bollocks.

“Much shorter David T - I’m loaded, so I can afford this kind of vanity politics.”

Although this is a most unfair ad hominem, there is something in the basic principle. I suspect if I needed affordable housing (targets for which Boris is going to scrap), then I would have been out on the doorsteps for Ken in a way which in reality I wasn’t.

Just as Ken turns Labour supporters off, he energies us Tories

Could be. But with his vote up he has hardly (despite all the wishful thinking about his arrogance, anti-semitism or weird nastiness) “turned Labour supporters off” has he?

The sad and simple truth is that the Tories mobilised more people who live in the suburbs and hate paying congestion charges.

Arnie on Boris: “This guy is fumbling about all over the place”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSFLrCf3Qdk

The sad and simple truth is that the Tories mobilised more people who live in the suburbs and hate paying congestion charges.

The cozying up to Islamist maggots had nothing to do with Ken’s defeat?

Boris’s biggest vote was in Bromley, where they don’t even pay the congestion charge. In fact it’s not really part of London.

When the Tories set the boundaries for London elections in the early 80s they apparently made sure it included plenty of Tory areas on the edge of London. It’s really helped them tonight.

The cozying up to Islamist maggots had nothing to do with Ken’s defeat?

No I agree with David T this had little to do with it for most people, who probably hadn’t even heard of the cleric in question.

However I think the perception that he was wasting money on minority groups in general probably played apart - given the Standard campaign.

The cozying up to Islamist maggots had nothing to do with Ken’s defeat?

Since his vote is up on last time it seems doubtful his one meeting with Qaradawi even registered with voters. (Although that isn’t to say it shouldn’t have.)

There was some truth to that, so I woiuldn’t blame the Standard entirely. Ken definitely went overboard by allowing his friends like Jasper to spend hundreds of millions on projects.

Anyway most voters would appear to have seen right through the nasty and undemocratic campaign by that revolting right-wing rag The Standard.

Rumour has it that the Rothermere’s will now close the paper down - its last job having been a suicide mission on the reputation of Ken Livingstone.

Yes I’ve heard it’s been pretty bad. I don’t really buy it anymore so I haven’t seen it all. Gilligan was on the media tonight openly admitting he was politically motivated.

The irony is the Standard first supported Livingstone as a way of attacking the government, as Toynbee noted in her article attacking the Standard the other day.

Originally the Standard supported him to spite Labour; now it attacks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/29/london08.boris

Incidentally the editor of the Standard responded in the letters page:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/30/associatednewspapers.pressandpublishing

Fantastic result. A panderer to clerical fascism has been turfed out.

Fuck Labour.

Since his vote is up on last time it seems doubtful his one meeting with Qaradawi even registered with voters.

No, Livingstone’s vote % hardly moved, up just a half of one percent. What the results suggest is that Ken’s chumminess with radical clerics was more important for Muslim voters than non-Muslim. What shored up Livingston’s vote was the Islamist Respect vote moving to Labour (see how Lindsey German’s vote collapsed to almost nothing).
http://results.londonelects.org.uk/Results/CombinedMayoralResults.aspx

I wouldn’t be surprised either to discover that the Liberal Democrat vote of 2004 leaked much more to Labour than to the Tories given the left-wing credentials of the LD candidates. So why then didn’t Ken’s vote % rise? The loss of disillusioned Labour voters must have been significant. It is unlikely that these would prefer Boris to Ken on economic grounds, so Livingstone’s support for clerical bigots, his support for totalitarian regimes, and corrupt favouritism for certain special interest groups almost certainly played their part.

No I agree with David T this had little to do with it for most people, who probably hadn’t even heard of the cleric in question.

For some reason that’s what creeped me out the most about Ken. It stank to high heaven. I think David t made the right decision. And anyways, even if he’d voted for Ken it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. He really DID take a principled stand. You lemmings who put “party” and “class” before anything else can fuck right off into oblivion.

It was the Evening Sturmer wot won it.

Personally I was putting London first as I saw it.

Another Toynbee on Boris:

Boris the jester, toff, serial liar and sociopath for mayor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/17/comment.pressandpublishing

I suspect a third option. Johnson will neither bring back “doleful politics”, nor be a cuddly Tory. Instead, he will make some really stupid gaffe, bumble around and be out pretty quickly. People say he has racist views, or at the very least is not fit to really understand and run a city like London. This will soon be seen to be true, I reckon.

As for the post mortems: Ken suffered from the general anti-Labour swing, nothing to do with Muslim clerics or anything like that. It’s the economy, stupid. Plus the downside of a long incumbency.

I reckon if Ken had been an Independent he would have won.

Toynbee debated Boris every week for several years on the BBC’s now defunk Head to Head programme, so she knows him quite well. Talking about it the other day she said he was the most hopeless opponent she could have wished for; he never could remember a fact, statistic or a Tory policy, and regularly got things mixed up.

He wasn’t an independent and won easily last time, of course. If he’d suddenly become an independent again he would have split the vote with the Labour candidate and lost big. He probably wouldn’t have any money either - not that Labour have much.

A better argument to make would be that if Blair was still in power Ken might just have won. The polls show he was more popular personally, gave Labour a higher poll rating, and had got a higher percentage of vote in council elections just a year ago, despite the perception he was being forced out.

But I guess we’ll never know.

Some believe that if Steve Norris ran again as the Tory candidate he would have won by an even bigger margin than Boris has done, which is interesting. He certainly would have scared less Labour voters.

Instead, he will make some really stupid gaffe, bumble around and be out pretty quickly. People say he has racist views

You’ve been reading far too much MCB propaganda Benjamin. One may despise Johnson’s conservatism, but he is no fool, and neither does he seem to be the racist shamelessly constructed by Ken’s demagogues. In fact, the right of the Tory party loathe Johnson for his platitudes towards multiculturalism.

nothing to do with Muslim clerics or anything like that.

See my analysis above which shows why you are wrong. Those lower classes most affected by the credit crisis would be insane to vote for Johnson over Livingstone on economic grounds. Compare their housing policies for instance. Dislike of Labour, and a visceral dislike of Livingstone brought out a huge Tory vote in their London heartlands, a dislike compounded by his embrace of totalitarian communist regimes and the Islamist movement.

old Labour, agreed.

As I stated further up, first there will be the honeymoon, and the general surprise at how Boris hasn’t fucked everything up: “Oh, it turns out Boris isn’t so bad after all”, will be the clumsy sentiment. It may take a year or so before people realise how crap he really is. The mayor isn’t running our day to day lives in the same way as a national government, so these things take time.

I used to go around saying Ken would quickly fuck everything up when he first got the job. I was dead wrong.

David T’s tale of Labour apathy is a very broad one. This is true of Labour Party branches all over the country, trying to get people to canvass etc. Few are interested.

Ken implemented Labour policies, his policies were moderately social democratic, and the rest of it, such as Muslim clerics etc (although important to a small minority of Labour supporters) is just very thin gravy. Hopes and ideals? Ken has not betrayed them anymore than any other politician. Voting is not something to get so agonised about; we should all know the game now.

If middle of the road Ken really does represent such an epiphany for people here about politicians ways, I can only say this is a very late conversion to cynicism. I was disillisioned years ago. Join the club!

Where Ken’s campaign went wrong

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/02/london08.livingstone

I was disillisioned years ago

Yes, Blair didn’t do all those trendy liberal things you hoped when he was hanging out with Blurr so you predictably thought it wasn’t worth voting Labour anymore, along with millions of other twats.

I think that’s called being a pillock, not a synic.

You’ve been reading far too much MCB propaganda Benjamin.

I have not read anything by the MCB.

Dislike of Labour, and a visceral dislike of Livingstone brought out a huge Tory vote in their London heartlands, a dislike compounded by his embrace of totalitarian communist regimes and the Islamist movement.

Pity that’s not born out by the voting figures. The swing to the Tories in the mayoral election was less, or about the same, as the general swing to the Tories. I think, if anything, Livingstone slightly ameliorated the anti-Labour swing. As for the Muslim thing, it made little impact either way. As for totalitarian communist regimes, I presume you mean China. Yes, bad, but everyone’s at it unfortunately. Filthy lucre.

This is about the economy and incumbency. Economy’s going south, Livingstone’s been in 8 years, Labour 11.

“Fantastic result. A panderer to clerical fascism has been turfed out.

Fuck Labour.”

How terribly deep of you Drew. This is first class political analysis. I could say more, but… I feel it would be bad for my blood pressure.

Jesus, I’m good at making friends and influencing people at the moment, aren’t I?

At the risk of turning into a sub-Will-esque character, there is an awful lot of stupid reactionary bovine filth flying around here at the moment.

Benjamin, your analysis is correct. You are a prime example of the fact that “few are interested”, of course. I love the way you cheerily say “I was disillisioned years ago. Join the club!”. I could go on at length about this, but I’m actually not going to, because, despite the fact that you are a muppet, your posts exhibit far less muppetry than a large number of other comments on this thread and the thread two posts below. I mean, it is a genuinely interesting question. What is it that attracts creatures like Drew to actually read and comment here? I would *really* like to know.

No, Mike, I just find it genuinely amusing how anybody could get worked up about a politician as middle of the road as Ken. However, perhaps Johnson represents that post-politics thing. Perhaps he’s not really a politician at all. Blair wanted to get people like Richard Branson to run London. Now they have Johnson, who always seems to be playing someone else.

Ben, no, Benji doesn’t really know what to say so has latched onto a straw man about Islamists, despite David T already admitting that this probably did not play a significant role in the general vote against him. When people cite the Islamist thing, they are not claiming this is the reason for him going in any event - they just mean it’s good that he’d gone because of this.

The scandals and perception that Ken was wasting money on his mates did play apart, as did the issue of crime and tax. Labour focused all their resources on London, and there was a big turn out and lots of debates and coverage, so although the national and political situation played a part, we cannot pretend it was all down to that.

Personally I agree with the argument that the loss would have been even bigger for Ken had Norris ran again. Boris did scare out a lot of Labour voters.

Like some others here have mentioned, the BNP getting a seat in the Assembly is really depressing.

Benji, it’s just the silly point that you always make. Nobody is “worked up”. It’s call an election where one choeses to vote for a candidate. The result has just been announced a few hours ago, which is why it is being discussed. Why do you get “worked up” about Blair?

Silly billy.

Nobody is “worked up”.

Well, that’s a relief.

As it happened, the Mayoral election was the closest, the most exciting and most politically significant election, along with the local elections, since 1992 and 1995.

Ken Livingstone is a controversial maverick politician and always has been.

Beat it, kid.

You’re a bit out of the loop down there. The Olympic fever that’s sweeping Hong Kong must have distracted you.

I don’t know why I am talking to Benji. He hasn’t even made a point yet; he just rushed on to find something to disagree with David T on, upset at the idea he’s got wish on Livingstone.

Those of us that wanted Livingstone to win are all upset, Benji. Don’t take it out on HP.

Speaking of the Olympics, someone complained up thread about them being held in London 2012. Why is this a problem? It sounds like an opportunity to make a crapload of cash. :D

“When people cite the Islamist thing, they are not claiming this is the reason for him going in any event - they just mean it’s good that he’d gone because of this.”

Some of them are claiming this made an impact. I think this is empirically wrong. Though it is why I didn’t campaign for him. But I’m weird like that. It’s why a lot of the people I know had qualms about him, but that’s more of a statement about the kind of people I hang around with.

In any case, I have to say, this is in my view a pretty thin silver lining to a pretty fuck off enormous black storm cloud. I know you think similarly, Mike.

Quite a lot of people commenting here in the last 24 hours (and, really, for the length of this campaign) have gotten their priorities totally screwed up. Or they just have shit politics, and are using the Islamist thing as a progressive dressing for said politics.

It’s the glee that gets me, really. The sheer ugly glee.

So Benji is being his usual rubbish jocularly-cynical self, but I have to say that his New Benji incarnation is quite a lot less crap than some of the other nonsense that gets commented (not sure you can verb that, but whatever) in the comment boxes at the moment.

I shouldn’t really be picking on Benji I admit. It’s just after this 24 hour marathon of results (boy they have to find a quicker way to do it next time) from The May Day Massacre, the last thing one wants to see is his ugly mug.

Most people showing “glee” are not Labour supporters. You shouldn’t confuse the comments with the blog. David T has been very honourable and honest in his approach in my view, as this post shows.

David T has been very honourable and honest in his approach in my view, as this post shows.

Indeed he has. And it took extra guts on his part given that scumbag Livingstone is a member of David’s own party. Had there been a few people with David’s integrity in 1938, well.

I haven’t criticised DT at all. The post is very good. It’s actually a very balanced valediction. I agree with both his analysis of what happened, as well as the concerns he has (actually, it’s a bit wrenching, but I should I suppose now say “had”) re Ken. I think he is very wrong in the conclusion that the best thing to do was not to vote for him. (But, to be fair, I thought I wasn’t going to vote for Ken for a while.) I think that’s all there is for me to say on that.

I’m referring, rather, to the utterly stupid filth which seems to infect the comments boxes more and more over time, from more and more people who comment regularly, and which has gone into overdrive in this election period. I mean, it’s only a bloody blog, but you’ll remember that it wasn’t like this during the 2005 election. I really wonder why this is.

I think you should pick on Benji as much as you want. He certainly deserves it. And it’s quite fun. I myself just think there are more flagrant and rank examples of stupidity (and apalling politics) that deserve greater ridicule currently!

“Had there been a few people with David’s integrity in 1938, well.”

Look, I mean that’s just fucking stupid, isn’t it? So I’m a Nazi because I voted for the progressive party’s candidate? Jeeesus.

“It’s just after this 24 hour marathon of results (boy they have to find a quicker way to do it next time) from The May Day Massacre”

Oh, and yes, I am perfectly happy (though that’s not really the word) to admit that I am completely gutted. I feel rather shell-shocked by it all. Round after round of bad news on a rolling cycle.

What? Progressive parties can’t put forth intolerable assholes as candidates, Ben? And then you’re obligated to vote for them I suppose. Fuck that noise.

Had there been a few people with David’s integrity in 1938, well.

Cunt.

Yes. I should have said:

Had there been a few MORE people with David’s integrity in 1938, well.

Noise? Yes. That’s it. I am engaging in “noise”. I must try and shoehorn a bit of Godwin into my next emission of “noise”.

You’re American, aren’t you, Boogski? (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) Whilst I really have no personal animosity towards you at all, I wonder what your annual income is? I suspect it’s a rather good thing for you that you don’t live in London on a low income in shoddy rented accomodation and rely on public transport.

But I’m sure you’d take the hit, because it’s all about sticking it to the baddy Islamofascists isn’t it?

This is truly almost enough to turn me into a filthy stopper. The whole political climate on this blog is just fucking surreal at the moment.

Calm down, Ben. It’s just one of a million blogs. :D

I make $25K. That’s roughly minimum wage in the UK, correct?

So you see? I AM the so called downtrodden. Hell, I bet Graham makes more than me.

And let me share a quick anecdote about community ‘cohesion’.

Indians (from India) are all over my neighborhood. They own the convenience store on the corner (big surprise). So it’s my six year old niece’s birthday, right? The owner’s daughter reaches into the till and hands my niece $10! “Happy birthday!” she says. That would NEVER happen at Wal-Mart or Tesco’s.

Another piece on Livingstone’s demise.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/02/livingstone.london08

However he will quickly become a walking disaster.

Probably not as much of one as Brown is though.

Livingstone, after the 7/7 bombings:

Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

Goodbye to that Mayor. Goodbye to that London.

And yet he hugged someone who supported suicide bombing.

Are you suggesting that now Ken has gone the terrorists will win and that London will lose its “blitz spirit”?

Wasn’t most of the IRA’s bombing carried out when the conservatives were in power?

NEWSFLASH: The sky is not falling in and nor has the Thames barrier failed.

Heh. That doesn’t hold a candle to Prime Minister Blair’s address to the US Congress. Smokin’! :D

Of course, I should mention I hope the next Labour candidate wins it back from Boris.

Maybe if you’d written to him after the salamander slap down and explained you were not jibing him he’d have won yesterday.

I too met Ken first when I was young and full of socialist fire. At a GLC gig on the South Bank where he signed a fanzine I had bought because it featured my band on the cover. He didn’t take long but my my memory of it is of a man that took that time to stop and indulge a young impressionable supporter.

Now Boris has laid out his policies, it’s up to ask to take him to task on every single one of them at every opportunity we have. If policing makes no improvement, don’t let him squirm out of it. Likewise open spaces, transport etc etc. He’s there now and if he allows the exposure Ken did into the Mayor’s office by way of radio phone ins and so on, we’ll soon see the real Tory behind the pride thong. Now is a time to unite.

Ken accepting ‘the full blame for his election loss’ was not a grand gesture or the measure of the man, simply proof that he wants to be nominated as a Labour candidate for the next election, or alternatively, is looking for Gordon to appoint him to some sinecure.
He’s nothing if not the canny politician.

Well, cool!

Now unemployed Livingstone might the do the full monty and get a job in Egypt, writing anti-Zionist propaganda at the Muslim Brotherhood main office.

He’s nothing if not the canny politician.

…And he just got canned!

:D

Oh crap! I meant to say

Binned!

:D

“When people cite the Islamist thing, they are not claiming this is the reason for him going in any event - they just mean it’s good that he’d gone because of this.”

My own story, albeit a drop in the ocean, is worth telling in this regard. I was broadly pro-Ken - although with reservations - and voted for him until he lost the plot: the Fiengold incident; the Qaradawi invitation; and the demented ‘BNP’ attack on Trevor Phillips. The realisation that Ken had become such an arrogant and cynical twerp motivated me to help get him out because I’m a great believer in turfing out an incumbent who screws up.

Boris is clearly *not* the pantomime racist villain/dribbling thicko of Guardian demonology. Nor is there some fundamental ideological divide between Labour and Tory at the moment. I simply don’t buy the shrill warnings that the poor will suffer significantly more under the Conservatives. That’s why I volunteered for his campaign, worked in the Hammersmith Conservative HQ (despite not being a Tory) and raised a delighted glass of celebration last night.

Now we move on to the next objective: removing the utterly gruesome Gordon Brown; a Prime Minister who has no mandate and no point. As long as he leads his party then I can only repeat what I said last night.

Fuck Labour.

Drew,

Good points about Brown not even being elected. I think that is what I find most odious about Brown; knowing that he could not now win an election to save his life, he is going to stay to the very bitter. In the only opportunity for the public to make their feelings known he is trounced across the board in the local and London elections.

Surely he would get the fucking hint? If Labour have any decency they will oust him because otherwise the next general election will be a walk for Cameron.

Just a moment. Labour must have done something right or they wouldn’t have been in power for so long. Ken Livingstone is the labour party’s reverend Wright. Galloway too.

Yes, Boogski. Labour did do something right. Do you remember 1997? The wretched Major administration had to be removed and Tony Blair made Labour fit for that purpose - something Kinnock could never do. Since then it’s been mostly crap, but less crap than the likes of IDS would have delivered.

I voted for Labour three times but at the next election - barring an almost unimaginable transformation - I will vote Tory. Brown or Cameron? It’s a complete no-brainer.

I like my British friends, Drew. But that motherfucker hung out with some unsavoury types. No matter. He’s gone.

What is the reaction of folks here to Paddick’s disclosure that he gave his second preference vote to Left List. I personally am dismayed.

Drew’s right; it’s about being fit for purpose but also having some personal appeal at the leadership level. Gordo has absolutely zero appeal and the last few months have demonstrated that he’s not fit for purpose. As I’m not a Labour fanboy, I was delighted when the backstabbing self-serving (ha!) Labour MPs ditched Blair because it guaranteed a Labour GE loss. Whilst *they* may not have liked Blair’s dictatorial style of leadership, the public liked him. Even when he ballsed it up big time, like Iraq. The middle classes - who are the biggest section of the UK population - will desert Labour in droves.

Is it that I have either not being paying attention or am very naive? I didn’t know Paddick was that way inclined.

No, Livingstone’s vote % hardly moved, up just a half of one percent.

So in other words it was up then. Livingstone’s core vote turned out and voted for him not bothered by aby of the nonsense invented by the Standard and its cronies.

What shored up Livingston’s vote was the Islamist Respect vote moving to Labour (see how Lindsey German’s vote collapsed to almost nothing).

Respect’s vote last time was 61,000, this time 17,000. Even if 44,000 voters moved to Livingstone from respect (rather than as more likely in the real world) this is a flimsy attempt at suggesting Islamists shored up Livingstone’s vote!

More nonsense in other words.

What is the reaction of folks here to Paddick’s disclosure that he gave his second preference vote to Left List. I personally am dismayed.

I wasn’t at all surprised that he eventually revealed himself to be the truly “weird and nasty” candidate.

“Eventually”? The Newsnight ‘debate’ showed that side of Paddick pretty well quite a while ago.

I’ve got to give Ken credit for his acknowledgement that if he failed to get re-elected the fault was entirely his own, after eight years of being mayor. No shuffling, no excuses, blaming the media or what have you.

Don’t worry Londoners, your city has gone through plague, fire, cholera and the blitz and will no doubt survive a tory administration.

If you saw the late night interview on BBC last night, you will realise that Paddick was joking about his second choice vote. He said he was not interested in working for Johnson, at present, as he wants to be free to speak his mind for the time being (cue book launch in the summer) but he hinted he might try to stand as a Lib Dem candidate somewhere in due course. Of course 9f no offer is forthcoming, he might also change his mind and work for Bojo in the autumn.

If you saw the late night interview on BBC last night, you will realise that Paddick was joking about his second choice vote.

Yeah like Hitler was joking about invading Poland.

If you live in the outer London boroughs of say, Bexley or Bromley, you are just as entitled to vote for the Mayor as if you live in inner London in Tower Hamlets or Brent. One of Boris’s campaign successes was to get these outer London voters, who are his natural supporters, to vote for him, disappointing as that may be to some of his opponents.

In my part of West London, which is Lib Dem territory, nobody campaigned AT ALL. I was particularly surprised that we didn’t see or hear anything from Paddick but I gather his funding was chiefly supplied by Elton John and David Furnish. I imagine his Lib Dem HQ support was limited as the Lib Dems were out in force concentrating on local elections around the country.

After all the Lib Dems needed to raise the profile of their leadership - who even knows what Nick Clegg looks like? I certainly wouldn’t recognise him in the street.

Just spoke to a mate. Not that interested in politics. Voted Ken the last two times but voted Boris this time

His reasons were:

1. Transport policy: no provision for bikes, too much concentration on bendy buses, which he hates.

2. Had been in too long, and had become tired and lax, with too much corruption and cronyism.

3. Boris is clever, funny, and nice.

Thought you’d be interested

DREW: no mandate, not even elected etc. Nor had Harold Macmillan when he took over from Eden, nor Alec Douglas-Home when he took over from Macmillan, nor Jim Callaghan when Wilson handed him the Premiership.
I wouldn’t vote for Livingstone because he endorsed misogyny and antisemitism. (corruption and cronyism also affected my decision.) I didn’t vote for Johnson, of course.

Well, clearly I was either not being paying attention (being focused on Borris & Ken) or am very naive, but I didn’t know Paddick was that way inclined. Someone who heard him on Question Time the other night said he came across as bitter and nasty. I only heard the audio of the Left List disclosure which didn’t sound like he was joking- maybe on TV he was smiling.

I think your friend is naive about Boris, David T.

I am suspicious of “nice”, clever Tories campaigning on negotiating away the right to strike, a fundamental and precious right.

Whatever incremental social democratic items were on Ken agenda, such as the London Living Wage, will simply not have the same commitment from Boris. Nor will the environmental agenda. These are important, quality of life issues that Ken had the experience and acumen to push through.

Look, come on, guys. The is basic stuff. You don’t trust “nice” Old Etonian Tories on these issues.

Just spoke to a man in his eighties who said it was the first time in his life he had not voted Labour (except when he was in the armed forces and his mother by mistake voted Conservative with his proxy vote.)
Yesterday the car park attendant at M & S asked me eagerly how the vote was going- he said Ken was stuffing his cronies’ pockets so although not sure Borris would deliver, had decided to give him a chance. I mention he is black only because of the race card used against Borris- and he is not the first anti Ken view voiced by a black person in this area I have heard.

I wonder how many BNP votes were a reaction to the communalist stance of the Livingstone-Galloway axis?

I mention he is black only because of the race card used against Borris- and he is not the first anti Ken view voiced by a black person in this area I have heard.

Plenty of black and asians are conservative or right wing, plenty read Daily Mail, Express, Sun, Daily Telegraph. It would be very interesting to get an ethnic breakdown of newspaper readership. White left-liberals always assume that an asian or black person will agree with their spiel. And if they don’t they must be a self-hating BNP supporter, like Trevor Philips…

The black mayoral candidate Winston seems very right wing.

http://www.mckenzie4mayor.co.uk/

*should say many white-left liberals. Some of them aren’t arrogant and seem quite nice people, I find!

Whatever incremental social democratic items were on Ken agenda, such as the London Living Wage, will simply not have the same commitment from Boris. Nor will the environmental agenda. These are important, quality of life issues that Ken had the experience and acumen to push through.

They won’t exist with Boris. It will be back to West london getting all the breaks and East London all the ill-paid work, pollution and grime. It will be interesting to see what the increased numbers of middle-classes who have moved into the inner cities make of the kind of urban depression and neglect that we are going to see.

the pundits will argue over the election for ages, some academics may even make a career of analysing the various motives of the electorate and clearly there were a multitude of reasons why people didn’t vote for Livingston in sufficient numbers, you pays your money and can take your pick

I think Benji’s arguments of incumbency and economy have some weight, certainly a Tory revival helps to explain part of it, the harsh media coverage of Livingstone is another element, general disenchantment with politicians is another, etc

but whatever the reason or reasons, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Livingstone turned off the voters and in particular annoyed the activists

Ken may well have increased his vote, but that doesn’t indicate the sentiment of the voter, I voted for him and have come to loath him, I’ll bet that I’m not the only one.

According to the Guardian:

Labour’s London campaign chiefs reported that the ethnic minority vote had turned out for Livingstone, but the white working class vote had been increasingly hostile to him.

Clearly the message about what Ken was doing for the latter group did not get across successfully.

“When I was a boy, I had a salamander as a pet. A European fire salamander, to be precise. The very same species that Ken Livingstone, famously, had also taken care of. It was doubly infuriating to hear the jibes about Ken and his newts: first, because they were not newts, and secondly because the jokes implied that those of us who cherished these unusual, but delightful creatures were in some way weird.

After Ken spoke, I went up to him. I started to ask him a question about amphibian husbandry. He turned to me and said:”

Shouldn’t there be another paragraph to link these two paragraphs? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get the shift in the post.

Sorry, but I can’t be arsed to sift through the other 137 comments to see if the same observation has already been made.

Where do the white working-class live then?

As a point of information about Boris’s environmental agenda:

Mirror 27 March 2008:

Replying to Livingstone’s own environment manifesto published on Tuesday, Johnson also said he would spend six million pounds to improve green spaces, oppose further expansion of Heathrow airport and give incentives for home insulation.

“I will take action to make London the greenest city in the world,” he said. “Areas that have pleasant, clean, open spaces are less likely to suffer from crime. It is time we had a new approach in London. That is why we need the improvement of our open spaces as a top priority on the environmental agenda.”

The key to his plans is an innovative recycling scheme based on an American model to pay people to recycle their domestic waste and cut the quantity sent for landfill.

Johnson said the RecycleBank scheme now operating in more than 200 towns and cities in the United States had tripled household waste recycling in the past three years.

“Increasing recycling may appear to be a small gesture but will actually improve the lives of thousands of Londoners. I want to work with London boroughs to make that a reality,” he said.

Johnson, a keen cyclist, also said he wanted to make the streets of the city genuinely bicycle-friendly.

He said he would adhere to Labour Mayor Livingstone’s plan to cut London’s emissions of climate-changing carbon gases by 60 percent by 2025 — twice as fast as the government’s plan to hit the same target by 2050.

“I will take action to make London the greenest city in the world,” he said.

he means that there will be a lot more open spaces as people leave London to avoid his incompetant administration.

Well done to James Cleverly for winning Bexley and Bromley. Must be confusing to all those imbeciles who believe the Tories are racist.

I don’t know how Labour Campaign HQ got their information, Focus Groups probably, but I don’t know where or how the information was obtained, I am only reporting what it said in the Guardian.

It will be interesting to see what the increased numbers of middle-classes who have moved into the inner cities make of the kind of urban depression and neglect that we are going to see

Rural depression is fine, though. Let’s hope you eat your hat Mr Graham.

Rural depression is fine, though.

Are you having a laugh? We are talking about the Mayor of London - not the price of goats in Ambridge!

Heh. Well you know what I mean :P

Non-urban then!

Funniest thing of all for those who thought Ken weird and nasty is that apparently Boris has offered him a job!

(Allows himself a little titter.)

he means that there will be a lot more open spaces as people leave London to avoid his incompetant administration.

Good lord!

The people have spoken ( in the nick of time) and Boris is not exactly Stalin.

Boris is not exactly Stalin.

He isn’t exactly a leader of any kind.

The great nonentity will now lead a city hall full of nonentities.

If you will allow me to borrow Disraeli’s assessment of another Tory:

The Arch-Mediocrity who presided, rather than ruled, over this Cabinet of Mediocrities … had himself some glimmering traditions of political science… In a subordinate position his meagre diligence and his frigid method might not have been without value; but the qualities that he possessed were misplaced; nor can any character be conceived less invested with the happy properties of a leader. In the conduct of public affairs his disposition was exactly the reverse of that which is the characteristic of great men. He was peremptory in little questions, and great ones he left open.

He isn’t exactly a leader of any kind.

Well, if you could just give the guy a month or two to prove his mettle, you’d have a much clearer portrait of his leadership skills.

Boris was democratically elected and surely the more than a million people who voted for him can’t all be daft.

What ever happened to that good old british penchant for fair play?

Give him a chance.

Johnson’s victory represents a refreshing change of generations…something Vivianne Westwood could take note of …between shots of geritol.

One other thing; a third Livingstone victory would have been a godsend for the BNP, you know.

About the 10p tax rate that Brown handled so badly and cost Labour a lot of votes.

Well, why wasn’t Brown given any credit when he brought in this 10p rate in the first place?

There’s so many things that Labour have done for the poor that are just taken for granted, and only when they are taken away do people notice them.

I suggest if there was a Tory government a hell of a lot more of these things would suddenly be noticed.

Funniest thing of all for those who thought Ken weird and nasty is that apparently Boris has offered him a job!

I sense a return for Livingstone on the Coypu control committee, or perhaps as restaurant reviewer for the Evening Standard. Johnson has a good sense of humour.

I can’t see ken accepting Boris’ job offer. It would be like taking a post on the Titanic!

http://results.londonelects.org.uk/Results/MayoralTechnicalTurnout.aspx

Looking at the turnout data for the Conservative areas, you can see where the campaign to get the vote out in Outer London made a difference. The biggest rises in turnout were in solidly Conservative Outer London areas:

– In Barnet the turnout rose from 38% in 2004 to 48% in 2008 (Livingstone did not do one event in Barnet throughout the campaign) (There was a big campaign in the Jewish Community to stop the BNP getting seats; also Livingstone’s antipathy to Israel is well-known).This rise in turnout alone was worth an extra 37,000 voters.

– In Bexley it rose from 41% to 50%

– In Croydon it rose from 37.7% to 49.1%

– In West Central (= Chelsea, Westminster; 343,000 voters) it rose from 35.3% to 48.6% - the biggest rise of any of the areas

Now look at one area where a majority voted for Livingstone first pref, Brent: the turnout rose, but only from 38% to 43.1%

Interestingly Livingstone won a higher share of the first pref vote than he did in 2004 (36.4% vs 35.7%)

But Boris won 42.5% vs 28.2% for Steve Norris in 2004

Assuming most of the additional voters in West Central and Barnet voted for Johnson, the rise in turnout in those two areas alone accounted for nearing half of Johnson’s matgin over Livingstone of about 150,000.

BBC has a handy map of where the votes for each came from.

I’m glad to say Greenwich and Lewisham remained proudly Labour.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7381999.stm

I’m glad to say Greenwich and Lewisham remained proudly Labour.

Lambeth and Southwark, too. And we got Val Shawcross back on the assembly - fuck you, Lib Dems.

I have no idea what Ken did for working class white people. I bet most of them don’t either. The BNP are the only party that appear interested in them.

NuLab is fundamentally a middle class party (had to become one to become electable) that sometimes gives the impression that they will rather help anyone other than the white working class.

Good point ag. That most hated, vilified section of the population (ie the overwhelming majority…yes) could potentially be the ones that save the Left from complete annihilation, if only they would recognise that fact. (The Left, that is.)

David T.

you have clearly never read, nor seen, Coriolanus.

Happy now, David, Brett? You fucking mooks?

While the enthronement of a Tory mayor might have few deleterious effects for encroachingly corpulent corporate lawyers it might, just, be bad news for single mums on the North Peckham. Your distaste for some of Ken’s more outlandish escapades matters little for the people who were positively affected by his policies.

What you have helped to achieve will make it that bit harder for those of us who will be knocking on doors in 09/10 (and yes, Celia Barlow’s a tit, but she’s a Labour tit) so I hope that, if either of you have Labour Party memberships, you’ll be handing in your cards and cancelling you direct debits; having campaigned, through this website, for the Conservative Party.

This event does have a slightly Ronald Reagan feel about it. Boris Johnson?!! Mayor?!!

However, that also means that it is premature to say that he won’t be around long.

For the less tribal amongst us, it has become obvious in any election that as soon as you announce a voting intention then you become politically irrelevant, since the parties have no interest in expending effort on known quantities. Where I live, only the Lib Dem’s asked for my vote an that was via an amusing elctoral communication that was set up to look like a free newspaper. They even had the chutzpah to put ‘30p where sold’ on the cover. I will leave it as an exercise for the student to figure out how how this affected my voting intentions.

I’ve noticed, and may be accused of sexism for saying this, that women are less likely than men to express their political allegiances or voting intentions. They may have been vital to the election of Boris, but will we ever know ?

Boogski - “What ever happened to that good old british penchant for fair play?”

Ehrm. Lessons in democracy. Just because one side wins it doesn’t mean the other side has to stop bitching about them.

Aside from that - people who have never had to worry about where their next meal is coming from have a mandate to demean tribal politics. Those of us who have had that worry know on which side our bread is buttered. People who care about the poor and disadvantaged don’t join the conservative party in the first place - that’s sufficient reason to keep them out of power in my book.

You - David T. You will probably never understand how btrayed by you I feel. You present yourselves as leftists yet you campaign for a Tory. You fools, you ingenues. Your central concerns are whether you can go swimming on a weekend morning, not whether you can afford to get your child to school. You’re a wanker of the lowest order.

David, that story about your 13 year old encounter with Livingstone absolutely sums up one of the core reasons why he lost; supreme arrogance and relish in putting the finger up to anyone he deemed to be not of his chosen constituency, let alone a political opponent.

Reminds me also of that brilliant line in Duane Eddy’s “Summertime Blues”:I’d like to help you son, but you’re too young to vote….” Ironically, if you’d been in a wheelchair, he’d probably have stopped to make sure someone took a photo of him chatting to you.

Tim Sewell’s comment and those of several others of the tribal Labour persuasion shows there’s going to be long way to go if Labour are ever to be in a position to win the next election. Yesterday, when I listed some of the many reasons why I was glad Livingstone appeared to have lost, I promptly got a response saying I had wanted a Bullingdon-member toff to be elected. For the record, I split my ticket and voted Labour for my constituency and for the London assembly. Political slaggings-off like Sewells and Graham’s will do nothing to persuade me to repeat that next time round.

And also for the record, the man who does odd jobs and bits of gardening for me and several neighbours, also voted for Boris. He’s a lifelong Labour voter, never voted Tory before, used to be a tube train driver, Irish working class and now a pensioner who depends on odd jobbing to sustain a very modest lifetyle–should have absolutely been a core Livingstone supporter. “There is a God, after all”, he said, talking of his feelings about getting rid of Livingstone. I had had thoughts not unlike that, but I was surprised to see how vehement his feelings were. It does show how very strongly people who are lifelong, core Labour constituency had come to feel after years of Livingstone’s in-your-face contempt and arrogance.

So please bear that in mind, those of you who are into insulting people who fail to agree with your political prescriptivism. Dog whistles work fine with dogs; they just don’t register with real people.

Not true “as soon as you announce a voting intention then you become politically irrelevant”

and not true “women are less likely than men to express their political allegiances or voting intentions.”

take it from somebody who has done much voter id that both aof these statements are untrue.

Political slaggings-off like Sewells and Graham’s will do nothing to persuade me to repeat that next time round.

Well, sad as it is I am far more worried about how many people have been turned off voting completely by seeing a mayor who went to a Comprehensive school voted out than by what people who employ gardeners think.

I’m funny that way.

Graham: You are surely not suggesting that no one who went to Comprehensive school should ever be voted out, for fear of turning off people from voting altogether? Are the electorate then morally obliged to vote for such person indefinitely unless and until said Comprehensive graduate has served the maximum permitted terms or chooses to retire?

If so, you would be funny that way.

Graham,
Lots of thugs went to the comprehensive school I attended, as well as plently of people to admire.
Where someone went to school is neither sufficient nor necessary reason to determine whether someone is voted in or voted out.

There’s supposedly a Romanian saying that “A change of leader is the joy of fools”. In my view that says more about the tragedies of Romanian history than it does about British politics. Also, whatever you say about the London election, I still think its better than ‘Mugabe or Mugabe’ any day.

If you genuinely think that this election was decided by ‘what people who employ gardeners think’ then you are in danger of deceiving yourself in the same way that the Labour party of the early 1980’s deceived itself. All the Labour party has to do is do better.

Ami yes I remember the crap Stoppers argument for getting rid of Oona King. It was simplisitic shite from them and it is also simplistic shite secondhand from you.

I merely think people who have become Tories should have the courage to admit they have become tories and leave the rest of us (who must deal with the fallout from politicians all being Oxford via Eton) to get on with traditional left-wing concerns.

We know there is very little hope of anyone from the wrong background getting into a position of power in this country but you could at least let us believe that tjhe Labour party still cares about the poor and has not been taken over by a middle-class clique which has no direct experience of poverty or struggle.

Surely that is not too much to ask?

Where someone went to school is neither sufficient nor necessary reason to determine whether someone is voted in or voted out.

Really? Tell that to the Old Etonians!

If you genuinely think that this election was decided by ‘what people who employ gardeners think’

I don’t actually - I am merely worried they are creating a situation for themselves where they both believe it is decided by such people and they are doubly pissing on the poor by thinking that they still constitute some kind of “socialist alternative.”

Graham: You are surely not suggesting that no one who went to Comprehensive school should ever be voted out, for fear of turning off people from voting altogether?

Not quite - but I am suggesting that ANYBODY who got into a position of elected power and did not “come up the right way” would be subject to the kind of shrill vilification that Livingstone got.

It will take an awful lot of convincing to prove to me I am wrong. I am asking myself how a suffragette would have felt in the same situation when she was being told “we can’t have females voting this year - some of them once met a muslim cleric.”

ag and Johnny UK

Good points

Judy missed the point.

And you will continue to do so if you acccuse people of tribal (this means classs more than football fandom doesn’t it?) loyalties.

Two broad electoral democraphic/ socio-political trends were taking place last night nationally.

In fact the pattern is exactly the same though far more marked as that at the last General Election.

The old Tory younger and lower middling middle class who had voted new Labour in its big tent Middle England centrism have increasingly echoed the traditional Tory support of their parents and grandparents.

Though most of the political commentariat class scratched their heads and finally decided that core voters were giving a ‘protest’ vote, they became very concerned about the wavering middle Englanders, to whom they had devoted most of their social and economic policies.

If we care to look a little beyond the M25 to the North and Wales we see a total rupture of the base constituency of labours bedrock (of which the 10p tax rate abolition was iconic).

Honestly people, try reading about the regions and the nations votes and read of the despair of the contempt that working people feel directed at them from a managerialist government that doesn’t manage any of the things they use on a daily basis very well.

The centre-right’s vote in this country has for a while hovered over new Labour and its modern ethos of conspicuous consumption untainted by guilt.

The Tories lost so much of their core electorate by being incompetent and nasty, these people have not turned against labour because they feel poor yet (oh but they will) its just that the Tories seem nice again and they promise to be just as nice but tax them less.

Tim Sewell I feel angry too but I am not directing it against David T but against the shameful communalist left who have dittched any pretence of being concerned about inequality and its widening division of society.

Their diversity agenda has been welcomed and appropriated by the New Right.

David Cameron can go and see ‘Brokeback Mountain’ because he knows that as long as its only the poor that he fucks up the ass without even spit for lube, noone will question his pluralist credentials.

Honestly people, try reading about the regions and the nations votes and read of the despair of the contempt that working people feel directed at them from a managerialist government that doesn’t manage any of the things they use on a daily basis very well.

Hear hear. We have even reached the point where when people raise concerns that whole groups are being excluded from the political process by stealth, that the supporters of oppression justify themselves with arguments used against everyone from the catholics and nonconformists of the 18th century to the chartists to the suffragettes - ie that politics belongs to them and although theoretically everybody can stand for positions of power it will be made plain to them that they do not belong there if they did not attend the right schools.

What absurd nonsense! And we (who do not even belong to the Labour party for the very reason that it appears to have been taken over by charlatans - sorry to genuine Labour types) are accused of “tribalism!”

It would be funny if it wasn’t so grotesque.

I am merely worried they are creating a situation for themselves where they both believe it is decided by such people and they are doubly pissing on the poor by thinking that they still constitute some kind of “socialist alternative.”

But the same ’socialist’ outfits exhorting people to vote Livingstone are the same people who’ve pissed on the unionised and non-unionised poor for years now

The mainstream Left is preoccupied with identity politics and has taken working people entirely for granted over the past 20 to 25 years. They do nothing more these days than manage budget cutbacks and waves of downsizings, when they’re not decrying the outsourcing of millions of jobs.

Yers, I’m sure they feel our pain.

The proof? Your new mayor, as conservative and ambitious as he may well be, was elected ( at least partly) on the wave of an albeit timid, but nonetheless perceptible, proletarian protest.

There is definately a need, particularly with regards to white working people, that is not being met by mainstream parties, and this at all levels of gov’t.

Boris represents the upper crust and is certainly no socialist alternative. Blue-collar people may have been dumb to vote for him, but voting for Ken would have been an even more futile move.

Why?

Voting Boris won’t win you a pay raise, improve your standard of living, or help elminiate your debts, but it DOES give SOME peeved-off labour consitutents a fleeting sense of revenge.

When there’s nothing else, there is at least that.

Labour should really get back to basics and engage in some painful introspection before they end up as irrelevant and as marginalised as Canada’s ’socialist’ NDP.

There are plenty of working class MPs in the Labour party who have ministerial jobs, so I don’t recognise this idea that they can’t succeed.

Until fairly recently, Boris Johnson’s toffness would have counted against him. That’s another worrying sign about these elections. From the early 90s till the middle part of this decade, toffs were very unfashionable, and everything about our popular culture was being a regularly bloke. Labour cashed in on this mood to some degree, and that’s why Tony Blair used to put on a “mockney” accent and talk about football all the time. The BBC went through period of culling people with posh accents.

But since cool Dave Cameron has come along to show us that toffs can be human to a degree, combined with a general cultural nostalgia for these increasingly rare breed of people that are toffs, toffs are coming back into vogue.

This is bad news for Labour. If the public start to like the pin stripe brigade again, as they did out of deference decades before, but this time as a novelty, then the game is up.

The proof? Your new mayor, as conservative and ambitious as he may well be, was elected ( at least partly) on the wave of an albeit timid, but nonetheless perceptible, proletarian protest.

This would be the “proles” of Bexley, Bromley and Camden would it?

There are plenty of working class MPs in the Labour party who have ministerial jobs, so I don’t recognise this idea that they can’t succeed.

All that proves is that whoever they are (and I can only think of one) they have not been targetted by those who turned against Livingstone yet.

I begin to think (as many students in the wilds of Kent and South London have been informing me for a while) that the Labour party is not for the likes of me any more - perhaps it should be left to those who employ gardeners and throw hissy fits when it is pointed out to them that they have succeeded only in installing a mayor from the Bullingdon club (it is their natural born “right” to be “progressive” you see - the riches just won’t do on their own any more!)

In the 90s, former second hand car dealer, Steve Norris, was the only person the Tories could find that was down to earth enough to be their candidate for Mayor of London. The idea that an Old Etonian could have won would have been patently ridiculous back then.

There’s definitely been a shift in attitude as a new generation of toffs, who are a bit more hip and in touch with the kids, like Prince Harry, have come on the scene.

Steve Norris who attended Oxford?

There are countless ministers from mining areas and such like, as way as plenty from the south.

I begin to think (as many students in the wilds of Kent and South London have been informing me for a while) that the Labour party is not for the likes of me any more

You’re not a member anyway. :)

Steve Norris who attended Oxford?

If he was clever enough to get to Oxford, good luck to him.

I won’t be joining either the way things are going - I’ll just be persuading people like Judy not to vote for you “next time around!”

Anyway who are these “countless ministers” who went to comprehensives?

name some - I’m all ears.

The point is, he didn’t seem like a guy that had been to Oxford.

If he was clever enough to get to Oxford, good luck to him.

Ah yes but the “second-hand car dealer” who went to Oxford isn’t quite so “down to earth” is he?

The point is, he didn’t seem like a guy that had been to Oxford.

Well that is definately the way forward. Find people who went to Oxford and can pretend they didn’t.

Alternatively you could return to labour values

Alan Johnson went to a comprehensive. He is a cabinet minister and will be in the next leadership race.

There are plenty more; that guy who keeps critricising Brown in the News of the world and was on the media today.

The list is endless.

John Reid. Prescot.

Wrong. Alan Johnson went to Sloane Grammar School in Chelsea

Try again…

Reid and Prescott are retired.

I went to a comprehensive. I am a senior Labour figure.

I must admit that I thought Johnson was a comprehensive school boy - another one I will have to write off when asked if anybody has ever made it as a politician from the background of those I teach…

A lot of working class people made it by going through grammer schools in the old days. We can’t change that.

A lot of us didn’t - where are our role models?

Dianne Abbort can be your role model.

Get back to me when you can offer a minister or Mayor from a comprehensive school background and hold your priveliged attack dogs off destroying them.

I promise to deliver you hundreds of votes.

Do you mean Dianne Abbot who attended Harrow County Grammar School for Girls?

getting silly now isn’t it? :-)

The guy who died who Labour were going to put up against Ken the last time? What’s his face?

Was the sports minister for awhile.

Tony Banks.

You mean they killed him?

Bit sad really isn’t it? A party which believes totally in comprehensive education but which excludes or destroys anyone who experienced it!

I don’t know what school Tony Banks went to, but you can hardly say he was not working class, or that New Labour didn’t like him. They tried to get him to be the Labour mayor, but Ken’s friends rigged the vote so Nicky Gavron got it instead.

Ah yes Tony banks (Baron Stratford). He went to Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School in Kennington (which, incidentally was the grammar school I would have gone into had anyone spotted my abilities!)

I haven’t heard of this position of writing off all working class people who went to grammer school as somehow not real working class people. It’s a new one on me.

Oh come on don’t change the terms of the debate (which was, let me remind you, “who are these “countless ministers” who went to comprehensives?”)

I don’t write off anyone who went to any school - I’d just like to see representatives from all schools in a Labour cabinet - especially as the party pays lip service to how wonderful comprehensives are!

If you passed your 11 plus you could have been Prime Minister today.

Ken livingstone went to a Comprehensive of course.

They didn’t have an 11 plus in my 11th year (1973) - they just guessed who was thick and who wasn’t.

Usually the debate is about private schools, not state schools.

Working class people used to succeed through grammer schools. That;s why the system needed to be made better so people can succeed without this, but what on earth has this got to with anything?

Are you seriously saying Livingstone wasn’t liked because he didn’t go to a grammer school?

I’m sure there are countless ministers who went to comprehensives, but I’d have to know there names. I’m not very good with names.

Are you seriously saying Livingstone wasn’t liked because he didn’t go to a grammer school?

I think that was certainly one reason.

What has the fact that you cannot name one Labour MP who went to a Comp got to do with anything?

Hahahahahahaha!

It’s nonsense and I’m sure you know it.

I did name Prescot. You didn’t debunk that one, did you?

Well let us know which MP did then?

You see I have many students who ask me whether it is possible to get into politics from their background - I used to tell them Livingstone did- why not give me an alternative like?

Tell them Prescot was deputy PM for ten years.

Even Prescott (who is retired) did not go to a Comp…

Sorry - not good enough. People want current examples of successful politicians who have broken free of the stigma of their education.

Surely in 2008 there must be some no?

Yes he did.

Deputy head of the country for ten years blows up your argument.

Nice try anyway.

No he didn’t - he went to a secondary modern…

Next?

Prove to me that all the ministers in the government in 2008 did not go to a comprehensive?

Come on there must be ONE Labour politician who went to a comp?

I’d like to see this as a silly internet argument but its kind of a little more serious when you are dealing with real people who you need to motivate to even vote (and lets face it why should they if politics excludes their sort?)

secondary modern

What’s the difference?

Prove to me that all the ministers in the government in 2008 did not go to a comprehensive?

Why would I do that? I remain hopeful that hidden away in some department that there is one who can be used to give hope to those who once saw ken Livingstone as a reason to think they might have some stake in the country.

What? You don’t know the difference between a secondary modern and a comprhensive?

Hahahaha this is gettinf really silly now!

I pity the kids who go to City Academies today. In 30 years up time up will pop someone like Graham to say they are no role for them.

If a working class kid does good, there are still people willing to deminish their achievements.

In my area we were too poor and underpriviledged to know the different types of schools. We have faced prejudice for this ever since.

Will there be any kids from city academies in the Labour cabinet in 30 years time?

Not much point in thinking you can inspire those kids unless you are willing to let them move upwards.

And then it will be the fault of those of us who question why there are no MP’s from comprehensive schools!

Shoot the messenger! Orwell’s Napoleon certainly is in charge now!

Why would I do that? I remain hopeful that hidden away in some department that there is one who can be used to give hope to those who once saw ken Livingstone as a reason to think they might have some stake in the country.

Nobody knows what school Ken Livingstone is from, just as nobody knows what school all the former trade union officials that are now Labour MPs are from. It’s only you.

Right I’m off to bed having comprehensively (sic) demonstrated why everybody is wrong except me.

Goodnight.

And then it will be the fault of those of us who question why there are no MP’s from comprehensive schools!

You haven’t been able to prove that all ministers didn’t go to a comprehensive.

Nobody knows what school Ken Livingstone is from

What a weird argument!

It’s true. People may look at someone’s class, they may even wonder about the private school thing, but they don’t obsess about which type of state school they went to as a child.

They do if they went to a Comp themselves and are wondering how they fit into society (most Labour politicians worth their salt for the last three decades would have known that by instinct.)

You of course are not used to meeting anybody who went to a Comp and can argue - pity that!

If you are good enough to by a Labour MP and impress the local party, then you can be an MP. Most local Labour parties are not going to obsess about what school you went to.

Right - ever heard the phrase “actions speak louder than words?”

They are more likely to look down their nose at you if you went to private school, unfortunately.

Yes Fettes wasn’t it?

I somehow doubt any teacher at a private school has pupils asking whether anyone from their background has ever got into politics - but there you go!

Precisely. They never really forgave Blair for being a public school boy.

Still if we were reassuring private school boys we could point to the last two leaders of the party couldn’t we?

Now what could we do for those who went to comps?

I somehow doubt any teacher at a private school has pupils asking whether anyone from their background has ever got into politics - but there you go!

They better tone down their accent and get into football if they want to be on the left.

You get these angry far left types who never let them forget it. I’m not into that.

ahh poor old Mike, give it up, Graham has run rings around you!

Graham makes an excellent point, people should be candid about their views and if they’ve gone from Labour to Tory, then they should say so

as for the Labour Party, I think Dave Ostler expresses it very well:

“The paradox of Blairism is that, despite three successive majority Labour governments, the base of the party is utterly emaciated. A degree of community entrenchment that took generations to build has been eviscerated.

Many activists are motivated primarily by career considerations.

Today’s cadre are full-time councillors, parliamentary researchers and trade union officials, augmented by fresh-faced barristers and disconcertingly eager young PR women with irritating high-pitched giggles and a firm eye on a safe constituency in a former mining area. ”

http://www.davidosler.com/2008/05/the_strange_death_of_new_labou.html

As I said earlier on, prejudice against toffs was quite high until recently. You can’t imagine Boris winning in London a few years back.

Modernity is the same person who cheerily said “fuck Ken” last night, just after that touching and dignified speech from Livingstone.

If Mod agrees with Graham then he is admitting that he didn’t like Ken because he went to a comprehensive.

Well you must be right then Graham. I’m susprised that Mod thinks this way; maybe there are more like him afterall.

Anyone else?

Mod admits to being a Tory as well. As I say, I am surprised.

Alan Johnson went to a comprehensive. He is a cabinet minister and will be in the next leadership race.

Oh, he really won’t be.

Are you seriously saying Livingstone wasn’t liked because he didn’t go to a grammer school?

That was a part of why he was so particularly hated, at least in the 80s. The very idea that someone who went to a Comprehensive could somehow clamber to the top of the greasy pole, even in regional government, was offensive to certain people.

Incidentally, the answer to Graham’s question, name a Minister who went to a comprehensive school. The answers are: Hilary Benn, David Miliband and Ed Miliband. And at least one of them *will* be in the next leadership contest.

The Tories didn’t want some working class oik, as they saw it, running London, but I cannot believe they cared whether this working class person went to a grammer school or not. It was a class thing, not a grammer school thing.

Hilary Benn, David Miliband and Ed Miliband, huh? Well that certainly does blow up Graham’s point.

Thank god for that!

Mike,

for all of your education you would do well to read posts with greater care

I have little time for Livingstone, and in general I don’t like politicians, I like people that achieve worthwhile goals, Livingstone annoys me but I voted for him because I despise the Tories and Boris winning could allow Cameron to win a general election.

please bear in mind that I voted for Ken twice and even shook his hand, but I didn’t like the way he conducted business.

that might be a bit complex for you, but please try to digest it.

PS: what I wrote was:

“Livingstone can blame no one else but himself, he provided the media with more than enough material to use against him, the way he attacked one time allies was disgusting, almost nothing was too low for him and now we’re lumbered with the fucking Tories.

thanks Ken, you wanker!”

Hilary Benn? son of a professional politician, Millibands? offspring of a professional Marxist and academic

it would be nice if people in the Labour Party had, at one time, worked in a real job

like real people do, that’s mostly past nowadays

Aren’t you going to explain that you hadn’t understood the discussion between me and Graham?

Mike,

you really should try to stop reading Lenin’s tomb, you are beginning to take on a rather nasty manifestations of Lenny’s pals

I was having a friendly knock about discussion with Graham, then you pile in to tell me I must be a lunatic for thinking the reason peop;e don’t like Ken is because he went to a comprehensive. Obviously I’m not going to like that, coming from someone like yourself who had little time for Livingstone.

Are you really agreeing with Graham’s late night (ahem) claims that this was the reason for Ken’s down fall, despite the fact the Labour party is filled with other working class types who have done well?

They tried to get Tony Banks to run for Mayor. Prescot was deputy leader for ten years. Alan Johnson was a postman, and now we discover in the cabinet alone there are several people who went to a comp.

I speak as someone who went to a comp.

Jesus went to a comp.

How is it Tory to disagree with a non-Labour party member who is smearing the Labour party by saying they are prejudice against people who went to comps?

I suggest that is lenin’s tomb behaviour from yourself, Mod.

for all of your education you would do well to read posts with greater care

I was expelled from school at 14 so I don’t have much academic education.

Did anyone click this one?

Newt Survey & Mitigation
Licencing, project managment, mitigation design & implementation.

Mike wrote:

I was having a friendly knock about discussion with Graham, then you pile in to tell me I must be a lunatic for thinking the reason peop;e don’t like Ken is because he went to a comprehensive.

I KNOW, I read it

so please keep your lower middle class mannerism to your self, they are not funny, profound or thoughtful, and you might, rather than so literalistic, try to address Graham’s over points:

“We know there is very little hope of anyone from the wrong background getting into a position of power in this country but you could at least let us believe that tjhe Labour party still cares about the poor and has not been taken over by a middle-class clique which has no direct experience of poverty or struggle.”

“I begin to think (as many students in the wilds of Kent and South London have been informing me for a while) that the Labour party is not for the likes of me any more - perhaps it should be left to those who employ gardeners and throw hissy fits when it is pointed out to them that they have succeeded only in installing a mayor from the Bullingdon club (it is their natural born “right” to be “progressive” you see - the riches just won’t do on their own any more!)”

I haven’t said which class I am - I am not into that - so I would prefer you not to make assertions.

I have answered Graham’s point. Clearly I think it’s bollocks.

Why do you agree with it?

Mike,

were you ever in the SWP?? I don’t mean to be insulting but your level of argumentation seems very resemblant of them

Graham made a general point about the Labour Party’s distance from the working class

you have latched on to the issue of comprehensives and managed to show a smattering of individuals who went to a comp, who strangely enough, haven’t had a proper job in their lives and are the offspring of professional politicians

which puts them into a very small minority overall

that does not distract from Graham’s overall point

No, unlike Graham, I was never in the SWP. What do you take me for? Some type of nut!

Clearly you have misunderstood the thread, which is why I expected you to admit you had got it wrong after quickly checking. I did do one post on the general question of toffs and the London election, but it was GRAHAM who quickly changed it to talking about comps after it was clear there were many working class people in the Labour party. There are dozens of posts from Graham arguing this specific point, despite attempts from me to broaden out the discussion to one about class.

Now you can see why I thought you were being a tit. The idea that the Labour party don’t like Ken because he went to a comp is ridiculous. Graham is wrong to focus in on this.

You have gotten precisely the wrong end of the stick, which is always irritating when someone does that.

I was having a friendly knock about discussion with Graham, then you pile in to tell me I must be a lunatic for thinking the reason peop;e don’t like Ken is because he went to a comprehensive.

Piling in is good, Mike. That’s the object of a blog.

Yes, but not piling and getting it wrong.

Graham was the one who focused in on the Comp thing. Not me!
Graham’s point is that, despite the many working class people that have succeeded in the Labour party, because most of those working class MPs went to grammer schools - how working class people succeeded in the old days - they have it in for anyone who went to a comp like Livingstone. That was his point to me, and I disagreed with it.

Remember, this is seperate to the issue of whether New Labour is in touch with working class voters. Graham’s point was about role models and the chances of succeeding in the Labour party itself. I have never disputed that Labour has a job to do with the working class.

At the beginning, on another slightly separate issue, I did a post on toffs, saying they are no longer out of fashion in London, which is worrying for Labour. We can no longer cash in on the public’s dislike of toffs like we did in the 90s which lead to the Tories scrambling around to get someone like Steve Norris - the only down to earth Tory at that time. The idea that someone with an accent like Boris could have won back this would have been absurd. There’s been a cultural change where, perhaps due to new generation of toffs being a bit more hip like Prince Harry, and the fact there are far less of them around and thus have become a novelty, they are no longer hated by the public.

This one’s proof read:

Yes, but not piling in and getting it wrong.

Graham was the one who focused in on the Comp thing. Not me!
Graham’s point is that, despite the many working class people that have succeeded in the Labour party, because most of those working class MPs went to grammer schools - how working class people succeeded in the old days - they have it in for anyone who went to a comp like Livingstone. That was his point to me, and I disagreed with it.

Remember, this is separate to the issue of whether New Labour is in touch with working class voters. Graham’s point was about role models and the chances of succeeding in the Labour party itself. I have never disputed that Labour has a job to do with the working class.

At the beginning, on another slightly separate issue, I did a post on toffs, saying they are no longer out of fashion in London, which is worrying for Labour. We can no longer cash in on the public’s dislike of toffs like we did in the 90s which led to the Tories scrambling around to get someone like Steve Norris - the only down to earth Tory at that time. The idea that someone with an accent like Boris could have won back then would have been absurd. There’s been a cultural change where, perhaps due to new generation of toffs being a bit more hip like Prince Harry, and the fact there are far less of them around and thus have become a novelty, they are no longer hated by the public.

Tony Blair wouldn’t have to put on his mockney accent and talk about football these days, I think.

There you go, everyone’s happy.

Where’s Benji!

“the shrill warnings that the poor will suffer”

Well they will. That’s just the way things are. I suspect you don’t give a shit.

David T, you’ve been pretty restrained up to now.

“Just spoke to a mate. Not that interested in politics. Voted Ken the last two times but voted Boris this time

His reasons were:

1. Transport policy: no provision for bikes, too much concentration on bendy buses, which he hates.

2. Had been in too long, and had become tired and lax, with too much corruption and cronyism.

3. Boris is clever, funny, and nice.

Thought you’d be interested”

Why did you think this would be interesting, in the context? Do you not think that, for once, you ought to close your erudite gob and shut the fuck up?

Perhaps a short (very short, and then you can get back to being incisive and sharp and right) period of purdah from you might be appropriate, in the circumstances? A little bit of acknowledgement of the difficulties of the situation? The fact that most people who actually agree with you (as opposed to random internet Republicans) are pretty gutted?

I mean, I don’t actually think you should feel any shame, because I entirely understand your view. But you are being a bit smug. And, as someone who really appreciates your incisive commentary, I think you should leave clear on this issue for a bit, now its decided.

I mean, you could basically write me off as a ChrisC sort of character, David. But you would know that that was entirely inaccurate.

Graham, don’t despair of the party. We are not all smug right wing cunts. Really. This site over-states the sociopathic Islamo-fixated element. I know at least one person who has decided to join for the first time because of all this horror.

This evening I met up with a bunch of people. A few of us took the view that we would get more involved in trying to save it all rather than less. Because the real world isn’t the same as reading post after post of filthy bilge from utter scum.

In the real world, people try to save good and decent things.

This blog seems to have become a haven for idiots. Well done, HP. I really thought I was the sort of person who was a stalwart supporter. Perhaps people like me just need the finger. Perhaps a bunch of right wing interweb libertarians is what you’re looking for.

Because that’s the commenter profile. Really fucking well done.

Ben, don’t be an emotional moralising twat.

Yes Paul. That is it. I think I’ve already said (on a previous thread) that I may be a hectoring moralist, but that comments here indicate that there are by far worse things to be.

I suggest you fuck off up your own arse - I’m not sure you’ve made enough constructive comments to suggest that there are worse places to be. And I do want you to go to the very worst place.

William Hague definitely went to a comp. And I think Liam Fox did too.

I have never disputed that Labour has a job to do with the working class.

You couldn’t make this sort of thing up!

Actually my point was that I wanted to find a Labour minister who had gone to a comp so that I could tell people from that background that it was possible to become a Labour minister (so thanks to Gregg for the Millibands and Benn, it is at least something.)

It wasn’t all about Mike but his immediate desire to “spin” really does show more than I think anybody needed to see about the distance between some members of the party and reality.

How is it Tory to disagree with a non-Labour party member who is smearing the Labour party by saying they are prejudice against people who went to comps?

Jesus Christ! I am arguing with him that the vast majority of the British people feel disconnected and excluded with politics and from that he can deduce only that I am smearing his beloved party!

Give us a call when you get back to earth!

Ben - you are a tosser. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when “This evening I met up with a bunch of people. A few of us took the view that we would get more involved in trying to save it all rather than less”

Save what? You and your ‘concerned’ mates are obviously getting off on the Boris victory by working each other up into a frenzy of fear and indignation about what he’ll do to the downtrodden of the earth. What a load of hysterical shite. And who will save the poor from the nasty Tories? Step forward Ben and his socially-concerned crew of pompous muppets.

Go and buy Grand Theft Auto IV - it’s more believable than your Spartist virtual reality.

If Boris haters do leave London then so much the better.
It is far too crowded already.
But - as Alan Bennett says - “they won’t, will they?”

Oi, you shower of English wankers, remember what I wrote in my classic book In Place of Fear: it doesn’t matter where you come from, but where you’re going. And I’d remind Graham (who surely to goodness knows it already) that the most left-wing government in British history, the government that created the NHS (among other things), was stuffed with the products of public schools and Oxbridge (apart from me, Manny Shinwell and some others who just don’t matter). Being from a comp is no guarantee of being left-wing, any more than being from a public school (as you English wankers still call them 48 bloody years after my death) is any guarantee of being right-wing. Boris Johnson would have been an arse even if he’d been in one of Graham’s classes. And people use to accuse *me* of being tribalist? Well, bugger them!
By the way, lads, whatever happened to Michael Foot? And what the fuck is that monument to me in Blaenau Gwent supposed to represent?

And I’d remind Graham (who surely to goodness knows it already) that the most left-wing government in British history, the government that created the NHS (among other things), was stuffed with the products of public schools and Oxbridge

I know. But that wasn’t really my point (which was that 60 years after said government where are the people from the Comprehensives who have risen to high places?)

I have nothing against Public school leaders of the Labour party (I campaigned as strongly for Blair as for Livingstone because I believed them both to be the best leaders available.) I merely think that it would be nice to have role models who went to Comprehensives in order to persuade that vast majority of folks that voting changes anything. Trying to confuse issues by blurring the distinctions and suggesting that I am saying we should get rid of all public and grammar school educated Labour members or that everybody from a comp is going to be naturally more left wing than otherwise is just more spin.

If Boris haters do leave London then so much the better.
It is far too crowded already.
But - as Alan Bennett says - “they won’t, will they?”

If this locality gets as grim and depressed and nasty as Thatcher made it then I will certainly be leaving London. There is no way I am sticking around to experience such things for a second time.

Local grimness, depression and nastiness tends to be a function of local borough efficiency - or otherwise - rather than anything very much to do with the mayor.
Just take one step from the City into Islington…

Well as things are not grim now we will test your theory after Boris has been blundering away for a few weeks.

Fair enough?

A few weeks?
OK

Though this kind of hyperbole is quite lunatic.

London is not as wonderful (or otherwise) as it is now because of the reign of King Ken. Nor will Boris make that much difference.

London would have boomed without Ken.
And any further booming or busting won’t have that much to do with Boris.

I think there actually is a reason that there are few if any people educated in comprehensives have reached high level in politics today. From what I can see (and I haven’t carried out any kind of analysis of this) most senior politicians went to university. Given that most of today’s senior politicos are in their 40s, 50s and 60s this means that they would have gone to university in the 60s, 70s and early 80s when it was much less likely that a comprehensive student would move into further education.

..and then take even half a step from Islington into Hackney…

I fear London will not see the likes of Livingstone again in our lifeti mes. Whatever faults he had, he was one of a kind, and he devoted his life to the city and those who live there. Those who campaigned against him, implicitly or explicitly, and even with the most noble of intentions, were profoundly misguided, and just plain wrong, and selfish.

Bugger the suburbs. It’s time to cut them off administratively from the metropolis and add them back to the surround being counties. Let them have their petty-minded materialist Tories. Let them wallow in their hatreds and obsessions and Daily Mail worldviews. Barricades to be constructed around the outer boundary of zone 2.

Though I would rather construct another one around the boundary of zone one or, better, the circle line.
More than happy to have “London” restricted to the City, Westminster and K&C.
Perfect for me.

Those who campaigned against him, implicitly or explicitly, and even with the most noble of intentions, were profoundly misguided, and just plain wrong, and selfish.

Oh for goodness sake…

This blog seems to have become a haven for idiots.

Oh, the irony.

Comments of the sort, “this blog has really going down hill … ” have been going on for years. It’s just some people find it difficult to debate with a full spectrum of people. People who don’t toe the party line, or just simply disagree. People like you Ben. I think you need to read the This is HP link aboved

“To friends and foes alike, I can only say that Harry’s Place would not be Harry’s Place if there were limits on the debate here or if there were attempts to imprison bloggers within the framework of some ideological uniformity. After all, we chose our motto for a reason and we are right to be fiercely protective about upholding the essence of liberty which it proclaims.”

London is not as wonderful (or otherwise) as it is now because of the reign of King Ken. Nor will Boris make that much difference.

Sounds like you are beginning to worry about what your man might do already!

And how typical of a Tory not to be able to think outside the box of economics!

You don’t even begin to comprehend what Livingstone knew by instinct do you?

Funny – but about to be very tragic for the poor unfortunately…

Wondering why Marvin is trying to silence ben?

Let them have their petty-minded materialist Tories. Let them wallow in their hatreds and obsessions and Daily Mail worldviews

But this is a world where (apparently completely without irony) The Daily Mail is giving away free UB40 CD’s…

most senior politicians went to university.

And that’s another reason right there why Livingstone was hated by the priveliged and loved by the poor.

Perhaps “loved” is the wrong word - Had the capacity to inspire the poor and less traditionally educated would be better

The fact of the matter is that NuLabour has spent the last ten years destroying the Labour Party, because they could not control it absolutely, and now they are paying the price. No one to do the legwork, no one to argue their politics in the workplace, no democratically agreed policies that have committment from members. No democratic control over politicians. Someone who is a maverick, like Ken, will forge alliances with questionable groups because there is no counterweight. I’m afraid NuLabour only have themselves to blame.

loved by the poor

LOL!

How much further OTT can you go?

That reminds me immediately of:

Robin Hood Robin Hood
Riding through the glen
Robin Hood Robin Hood
With his band of men
Feared by the bad
Loved by the good
Robin Hood Robin Hood Robin Hood

I am not worried about what “my man” will do, if only because his powers are limited.
As Ken’s were.

Though I am prepared to bet that his advisers will turn out to be substantially higher quality than Ken’s Socialist Action cronies.

How much further OTT can you go?

Liberty is the right etc.

Perhaps it is only “OTT” to the likes of yourself?

Though I am prepared to bet that his advisers will turn out to be substantially higher quality than Ken’s Socialist Action cronies.

I bet Taki can’t wait :-)

“And how typical of a Tory not to be able to think outside the box of economics!”.

When considering a maths problem, it makes sense to think within the “box” of mathmatics. When considering economics problems, it makes sense to think within the box of economics.

“You don’t even begin to comprehend what Livingstone knew by instinct do you?”.

I’d rather leave divine revelations to the mystics. I think people deserve more from political representatives.

“Wondering why Marvin is trying to silence ben?”
Oh come off it. He wasn’t calling for him to be silenced. He just disagreed with something the guy said.

“And that’s another reason right there why Livingstone was hated by the priveliged and loved by the poor.”

Do you really believe that fairy tale? Most poor people don’t give a shit about Ken and plenty of them loathe him as a user and an ideologue. And, of course, there are lots of priveliged people who love him because they share his wanky left-wing prejudices.

And, of course, there are lots of priveliged people who love him because they share his wanky left-wing prejudices.

Yes.

That wonderful letter in the Guardian probably marked the turning point for Boris.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/526661/boriss-most-brilliant-wheeze-to-date-was-the-letter-to-the-guardian-attacking-him.thtml

When considering economics problems, it makes sense to think within the box of economics.

But who said that this was an economics problem? You will have to do far better than that.

I’d rather leave divine revelations to the mystics. I think people deserve more from political representatives.

You think the instincts of a politician are “divine revalations?” God alone knows what you Tories are going to do to London then!

Oh come off it. He wasn’t calling for him to be silenced.

he was creatively interpreting things Harry said and choosing quotations out of context. David Irving would be proud.

Do you really believe that fairy tale?

I think it is only a fairy tale amongst those who think that the poor themselves are a “fairy tale.” But do keep repeating your right-wing wank fantasies using all your different names…

Those who campaigned against him, implicitly or explicitly, and even with the most noble of intentions, were profoundly misguided, and just plain wrong, and selfish.

Oh please. Spare me the self-righteous bullshit.

Because fighting cronyism is selfish whereas giving a nasty piece of work a free-ride because he’s a red is altruistic, right? Do you not see what damage people like Ken do to the Left?

He could have avoided this mess if
(1) He had listened to criticism and made a point of doing so in public;
(2) He had dealt with accusations of cronyism better than brushing them off as racist attacks;
(3) He had stood down and let someone else stand, thus uniting the entire Left vote and ensuring Boris didn’t get in.
(4) That’ll do for starters…

Bugger the suburbs. It’s time to cut them off administratively from the metropolis and add them back to the surround being counties. Let them have their petty-minded materialist Tories. Let them wallow in their hatreds and obsessions and Daily Mail worldviews. Barricades to be constructed around the outer boundary of zone 2.

Yeah. That’ll work. If you don’t get the result you want fiddle the boundaries, even though “suburbs” like Enfield and Haringey returned Ken with a steady Labour vote, whilst places like Westminster, Kensington, Chelsea and Notting Hill, all within your Zone 2 boundary are as blue as Jim Davison and full of nasty cunts.

It’s this kind of attitude from Ken supporters that turned even Labour voters off him this time and has wrecked Labour’s grass roots suppport. Blaming David T, the Evening Standard, moaning about suburban voters (even though many of those voters would happily live in Zones 1-2 if they could afford it), complaining about people not toeing the party line, etc, etc. Basically blaming everyone but themselves and their man.

Does Venichka honestly think hectoring voters from “the suburbs” as if they’re not real Londoners is going to be a productive way to regenerate support for Labour? Or does he think perhaps it might appear a little pompous and smack of sour grapes?

Anyway the fact is that a politician who did not himself go to University was a rarity and an inspiration - how hard is that to get pat the frazzled minds of dogmatic Tories?

Anyway the fact is that a politician who did not himself go to University was a rarity and an inspiration - how hard is that to get pat the frazzled minds of dogmatic Tories?

Probably not that hard given that (eg) Norman Tebbit left school at 16.

Tebbit, like Prescott and Reid is long retired. (I fear I am about to start arguing with the Conservative version of “Mike” now!)