Ken Livingstone

Am I an MI5 agent? An open letter in reply to Ken Livingstone (1998)

Mr Livingstone, Marx once rightly said:”To leave error uncorrected is to encourage intellectual immorality.” But that has little to do with what I’m engaged in now! Dealing with an irresponsible old gobshite, unserious in everything political except self advancement, is no matter of an exchange of ideas and views with another socialist or of comradely “correction” and counter-correction. It is work akin to what sanitation workers do – unpleasant but necessary. Three Workers’ Liberty people report that from the platform at a meeting of 30 or 40 students at Birkbeck College, London, last July...

The left assesses 6 May

A round-up. Charlie Kimber, the new editor of Socialist Worker, was the main speaker at the SWP's Central London "after the election" meeting on 13 May. His speech sounded like part of a campaign by the SWP leadership to re-educate their membership away from the "Rage against Labour" orientation which they were pushing as recently as September 2009. Kimber emphasised that the surprisingly buoyant Labour vote on 6 May was a class vote. People now rallying to Labour. Labour will talk a different language from when in office. Another leading SWPer, Candy Udwin, followed up from the floor by...

London Labour left meeting calls for restoration of Labour Party democracy

On 11 May former London mayor Ken Livingstone told the Daily Express that the coming Labour leadership contest would offer "a clear choice between left and right", and classified Ed Miliband and Ed Balls as the possible "left" candidates. Speaking at a "Next Steps for Labour" meeting on 17 May in London, however, Livingstone spent much of his time rubbishing the younger Miliband. He pointed out that Ed Miliband's story about New Labour having "lost its way" glossed over the toxic suppression of Labour Party democracy and aggressive disdain for the unions in the early Blair years after 1994...

The City Hall office road to socialism?

Redmond O’Neill, a leader of the Socialist Action group, has died aged 55 of cancer. Because O’Neill was an official in Ken Livingstone’s London mayoral administration, his death has received wide attention, for instance in the Guardian. Ken Livingstone’s obituary describes him as a “lifelong revolutionary socialist and leading figure on the left for three decades”. In fact, for many years it has been an abuse of language to call O’Neill and his organisation socialist, or even really part of the left. It was not just their grim support for Stalinist and other “progressive” authoritarian...

Redmond O'Neill, Socialist Action and "respect for the dead"

Redmond O’Neill, a leader of the Socialist Action group, has died aged 55 of cancer. Because O’Neill was an official in Ken Livingstone’s London mayoral administration, his death has received wide attention, for instance in the Guardian . Ken Livingstone’s obituary describes him as a “lifelong revolutionary socialist and leading figure on the left for three decades”. In fact, for many years it has been an abuse of language to call O’Neill and his organisation socialist, or even really part of the left. It was not just their grim support for Stalinist and other ‘progressive’ authoritarian...

Ken Livingstone and Robert Kennedy

There is a Radio Four programme, Great Lives, in which prominent people nominate their “hero” and then discuss the hero with an “expert” — usually the hero’s biographer — with the one-time Tory MP Matthew Parris chairing the discussion. Last week Ken Livingstone — former Mayor and future Lord Red Ken — nominated his hero. Guess who? Livingstone once contributed an introduction to a hagiography of Gerry Healy, the “Trotskyist” who sold himself and the organisation he controlled, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, to Arab governments. Here was a chance to bring the good sides and the good...

Popular Front, London-style

Ken Livingstone has launched an organisation called “Progressive London” ( http://www.progressivelondon.org.uk ), backed by a “broad alliance of individuals, campaigns, communities, artists, trade unions, environmentalists, political parties and groups”. It is for “all those who believe in social justice, environmental protection, good community relations, cultural innovation and the many other areas in which London has made a contribution recognised throughout the world.” The CWU, GMB, Unison and Unite — or at least senior figures from these unions — seem to be backing this “campaign”, and it...

Don't support "Progressive London"!

Ken Livingstone has launched an organisation called "Progressive London" , backed by a "broad alliance of individuals, campaigns, communities, artists, trade unions, environmentalists, political parties and groups". It is for "all those who believe in social justice, environmental protection, good community relations, cultural innovation and the many other areas in which London has made a contribution recognised throughout the world." The CWU, GMB, Unison and Unite - or at least senior figures from these unions - seem to be backing this "campaign", and it is starting to be raised in trade...

Socialist Action lashes out

These are bad times for the Socialist Action group. Not only did the defeat of Ken Livingstone mean the loss of their sinecures at City Hall, their front group “Student Broad Left” has now almost disappeared. In an attempt to shore up their position, SA have hit out at their erstwhile allies in the SWP. Ruqayyah Collector, the outgoing NUS Black Students' Officer who embarrassed herself as the self-appointed “left unity” candidate for NUS president, is probably not a member of Socialist Action — she isn't even notionally a socialist, more of a populist, semi-Islamist liberal. However, she has...

Livingstone boasts of support from big business

Articles in the 8 and 9 May editions of the Guardian provided yet more evidence of how left-wing Ken Livingstone and his coterie are not. The 8 May edition reported of former Livingstone adviser Lee Jasper, who has floated a potential challenge to replace maverick right-wing Labour MP Kate Hoey in Vauxhall, south London: "Last night, for £10, members of the public were invited to experience 'An Evening with Lee Jasper' at a private members' club in London's West End, where the man himself was due to give a speech on 'Money, Power and the Route to Success'. "The event promised to be full of...

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