3 MARCH 2007, Page 10

As Livingstone reverts to type, the Tories look at London with justified ambition

Say what you like about Ken Livingstone, you can’t accuse him of failing to spot a political opportunity. When the position of mayor of London was created in 2000, other possible contenders turned up their noses, saying its powers, finances and staff were so limited it was a ‘non-job’. But Livingstone — please don’t call him Ken, it turns him into a folk icon — realised it was just a starting point. He realised that if the London mayor — who has the largest directly electoral mandate of any politician in Britain — behaves himself, then it would be impossible for MPs in that English gothic palace a mile or so down the Thames from City Hall to resist giving him new powers.

And on Tuesday night, his strategy bore fruit. The New Livingstone, still a man of the people but now also a man of reason, got within grasping distance of a range of new powers over planning, waste, health, culture, housing and tackling climate change when the embattled Greater London Authority Bill was finally passed by the House of Commons. The only obstacle now is the House of Lords.

Far from being the modest, emasculated mayoralty envisioned by Tony Blair, Livingstone’s mayoralty has expanded into an empire that has not only seen budgets and staff triple, but which quite literally spans the globe with a foreign policy and embassies as far-flung as China and India. As his entourage grows, staff costs at City Hall have gone up from £12 million in 2000–01 to £33 million last year. The government claimed that the office of the mayor would cost Londoners only 3p a week each, but next year it will add £300 to the average household’s council tax bill. His opponents claim he now spends £100 million a year on marketing his achievements across the capital.

But as Livingstone and his tight-knit coterie of socialist advisers have slowly assembled their empire, so the power has, apparently, gone to their heads. The triumph of New Livingstone has emboldened Old Livingstone, the socialist champion of the underdog. Almost every month, the mayor does something — embraces a religious fascist or signs a trade deal with a socialist dictator — to illustrate just how Old Livingstone is coming out of the shadows. So far, he has got away with it, not just because he is an engaging and uncommonly canny politician, softening opposition to his left-wing outrages by coating them in left-wing populism, but also because much of the nation’s media has turned a blind eye to the happenings in the capital, seeing it as just a local story. But with the mayoral elections coming up next year the Conservatives are due to announce their candidate this summer — the comeback of Livingstone’s looniness is certain again to become a national story. Even dyed-in-thewool left-wingers are starting to renounce him, making the return of Old Livingstone the Tory’s biggest electoral asset.

Mayor Livingstone deserves praise for the plenty of good things he has done. He has turned Trafalgar Square from a hell of pooping pigeons and tumultuous traffic to a café-strewn pedestrians’ paradise. The buses may not run on time — and the iconic Routemaster may have been killed off — but they are far better than they were. His Congestion Charge may not have done much to reduce congestion, but it failed to turn into the fiasco that so many gleefully predicted.

But even the Congestion Charge, New Livingstone’s greatest triumph, has been marred by the intervention of Old Livingstone. The extension to the affluent Conservativevoting Kensington and Chelsea rather than poorer Labour-voting east London had far more to do with bashing the rich than saving the planet. His punitive £25 daily tax for using 4x4s is pure old Livingstone.

But it is in his rapidly emerging foreign policy, which seems to be fuelled by antiAmericanism more than anything else, that Livingstone has really dived off the deep end. He is using his perch as leader of the world’s only truly world city to spread his tentacles across the globe. Since 2004, he has travelled overseas 20 times — most notoriously during his vain attempts to see Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, the socialist dictator of Venezuela. He has visited America, but most of his effort has gone into making links with the developing world. London’s closest links are with New York, but Livingstone has embassies in Brussels, Beijing and Shanghai, and is setting them up in Mumbai and New Delhi in India.

Last month, in a vintage Livingstone move, he signed an oil-for-advice deal with Venezuela. The impoverished South American country will give cheap oil to pay for discounted bus fares for London’s poor, while Livingstone loans his experts in how to run successful cities. The Left sees Hugo Chávez as a pin-up because he stands up to America, hates capitalism and pledges to help the poor. But don’t be fooled by the redwash. Chávez is a new form of dictator, but a dictator nonetheless. Last month, his cowed parliament unanimously voted to give him powers to rule by absolute decree, including to make changes to the constitution and enabling him to become president for life. Human Rights Watch said in its report last month that Chávez has ‘sought to consolidate power by undermining the independence of the judiciary and the press, institutions that are essential for promoting the protection of human rights’.

Amnesty International warned recently that ‘the majority of human rights violations committed by the security forces, including ill treatment and torture, followed by death and judicial executions, are not investigated with due diligence, much less punished and the victims compensated’. Chávez has also lurched into anti-Semitic rants, blaming Jews for dominating the world’s wealth.

London’s unilateral deal with Venezuela is only the first of many. Livingstone has already held talks with Lula da Silva, the leftwing President of Brazil, and his staff are working on relations with China, India and Russia. Not, you might notice, America.

Livingstone also has — how shall we put this? — controversial views on relations with Muslim extremists. His notorious embrace of the Qatar-based, anti-Semitic, homophobic, totalitarian, Islamic extremist imam Yusuf alQaradawi, spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been roundly condemned. It wasn’t only a naked appeal for the Muslim vote but was also driven by the principle that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. Livingstone sees al-Qaradawi as a natural ally because they both hate America. Now, more fun is in store: Livingstone is planning a festival, reportedly costing £2 million, to celebrate President Castro’s achievements in Cuba.

When the Greater London Authority Bill was going through Parliament, Conservative MPs tried to put a stop on Livingstone’s foreign antics, inserting an amendment limiting him to domestic affairs. But the government came to Livingstone’s rescue, overturning the amendment, insisting it was up to voters to decide on Livingstone’s foreign policy. Voters will have that chance next year. Livingstone might appear to be a mayor for life, but the more Old Livingstone eclipses New Livingstone, the greater the chances the Tories have.

Anthony Browne is chief political correspondent of the Times.