Ken Livingstone once wrote for our paper Socialist Organiser. In the 1970s he was a leftist. But in the 1980s - like many others, but more blatantly - he became an out-and-out careerist.
The pivotal argument was one within the Labour left in the early 1980s. "Hard leftists" had control of several Labour councils. We argued that they should use those council positions to mobilise for a fight against the Tories who were making big cuts in local government funding. Livingstone and others said that they should instead "win time" by raising rates (local property taxes, paid by tenants).
As leader of the Greater London Council in 1985, Livingstone engineered a budget that complied with Tory laws rather than fight along with the miners. Abandoned by the GLC, the fight in other councils collapsed.
Livingstone sacked the left-wing deputy GLC leader, John McDonnell, publicly distanced himself from the hard left and said he wanted reconciliation with Kinnock. In 1987 Livingstone won selection as the Labour parliamentary candidate in Brent East.
In 1990 he started writing a column for the union-bashing Sun, using it to attack the left. In June 2004 Livingstone intervened in a pay dispute on the London Underground saying members of the RMT union should cross picket lines. He actually urged people to scab!
