Ken Livingstone

Woeful London Elections

Over on Stroppyblog, Janine warns of a gloomy result in the London elections and picks apart how we got into this state; and looks at the Left List's response .

Vote left, not Livingstone no.1!

No, readers of Solidarity should not vote no.1 for Ken Livingstone for mayor of London. Despite all the frantic appeals to us to vote for him as a "lesser evil" than Boris Johnson, he deserves no credit or endorsement from working-class people. Because of the vestigial links New Labour may still have with the trade unions, we'll vote Livingstone no.2. But for our no.1 vote we'd rather be with the left-wingers and activists who will vote for the Left List (despite the terrible weakness of that list, on which more later). The same principle holds for the other local government elections on 1 May...

Tubeworker 18/4/08: Mayor election - Who speaks for us?

The new issue of Tubeworker assesses the contest between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone for London Mayor. It also reports on a cleaning company clamping down on immigration papers, the forthcoming strike on Metronet, the way forward after the recent casualisation dispute on LUL and much more. Click on the file name below to view, download and/or print it. Click here to read Tubeworker 's weblog.

NUT left abstain on homophobia

For the first time in its history, the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers debated a motion submitted by LGBT teachers from their own conference. The motion, entitled “International Homophobia and Transphobia” condemned the current levels of anti-LGBT bigotry in Britain and the rising tide of militant right-wing attacks on LGBT people and Pride demonstrations around the world. Poland, Russia, Israel and Iran were among the places singled out for mention. Tim Lucas and Claire Jenkins from the NUT LGBT Working Party proposed and seconded the motion and a number of delegates...

Workers’ Power back Livingstone

Particularly since it expelled the bulk of its founders and trade union activists in 2006, the Workers’ Power group has been notable for combining rhetorical ultra-leftism with opportunism and wild political zig zags. Now the r-r-revolutionaries have surprised even the most jaded sectarian-watchers by supporting a first preference vote for Ken Livingstone, rather than Lindsey German of the SWP/Respect, in the upcoming London mayoral elections. Workers’ Liberty is advocating a first preference vote for German and a second preference for Livingstone. While the threat posed by Boris Johnson is...

Vote Lindsey German no. 1

“Red” Ken Livingstone’s campaign for re-election is being supported with a high profile statement signed by... trade union militants? left activists? anti-cuts campaigners? No, instead we have a statement of the great and good, launched by that oh so radical organisation Compass. Its signatories include Sir Jeremy Beecham of the Local Government Association, former Unison gen sec/sell-out Rodney Bickerstaffe, NUS president/sell-out Gemma Tumelty, NUS president/sell-out-in-waiting Wes Streeting, various Blairite MPs and the head of the Cooperative Party. To be fair, it does include a few trade...

SWP-Respect to challenge Livingstone

Let’s look on the bright side first. SWP-Respect is reaffirming the need for a left challenge to Livingstone as London mayor. George Galloway and his Respect-Renewal are now backing “Red Ken”, and appealing for a vaguely-left “Progressive List” for the Assembly. SWP-Respect says it will run candidates in the London mayor and assembly elections (May 2008) to respond to the needs of “working people” and present a “positive alternative”. SWP-Respect is emphatic — has to be, I guess, following the split-away of Galloway and most of the Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets — about the need to win...

Open Ken's books, but don't back Boris!

The knives are out for Ken Livingstone. He is targetted by the main London paper, the Evening Standard. He is the subject of a sustained smear campaign — he’s a drunk, a secret “Trotskyite”. Some of his advisors run a careerist mafia, which for god knows what reason calls itself Socialist Action. We in Solidarity are no friends of Livingstone, but a lot of this is like the Tory candidate of whose election campaign this assault is meant to serve — ridiculous! Now Channel Four has done a hatchet job on the future Lord Ken of Newt Hall. But “The Court of Ken”, Martin Bright’s Dispatches film on...

Socialist Action - "the greatest defeats"

Questions from a friend: "How stupid are these people? How wrong can they be?" These notes are an analysis of the magazine of the Socialist Action group over the period 1989-93 and deal with the collapse of Eastern European "Communism", the Stalinist coup attempt in Russia of August 1991 and the 1990-91 Gulf war. The period begins with the final withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan at the beginning of 1989 ("Defeat in Afghanistan" - SA no.2, March-April 1989) and ends with SA justifying Russian nationalism. See also: "The strange history of Socialist Action" Along the way SA make a...

Letter to Guardian on Ken Livingstone

I sent this letter to the Guardian , but unfortunately they didn't publish it. Among the many depressing aspects of the Livingstone furore for the left, there are two which do not seem to be widely appreciated. Firstly, the repeated but incorrect description of his courtiers in the Socialist Action group as Trotskyist and revolutionary socialist, when they are in fact a deeply Stalinist organisation committed not only to support for Cuba, China, North Korea etc, but to a strategy of bureaucratic control from above in British politics as well. Secondly, that the loudest criticism of Livingstone...

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