IT'S ME OR JEFFREY, FOLKS
Ken Livingstone says that he, not Tony Blair's poodle, is the only Labour candidate who can beat Archer
THERE has been a lot of gnashing of teeth since the Labour party NEC decided last week to select our candidate for mayor on the basis of an electoral college. I'm not surprised. The very people who are sup- porting this u-turn are the same 'mod- ernisers' who have spent the last ten years arguing that the electoral college was an old Labour monstrosity. These people fear that my support in the party will be broadly similar to that expressed in the opinion polls. So the deci- sion to opt for an electoral college for the mayoralty is intended to create an in-built majority for Frank Dobson. It assumes quite correctly — that the leadership candi- date will always be able to wield the over- whelming majority of votes among the 75 individuals in the MPs' section. Those who decided on the electoral college also hope that a number of trade-union executives Will come out for Frank. Combined, these two sections will be enough to prevent the Members making the actual decision.
This system is a disaster for Labour in London. If Frank Dobson is elected under this system without winning a majority among the membership, his candidacy may never get off the ground. Worse, if Frank is elected without a majority in either the Members' section or the trade unions, but wins because of the grossly inflated votes of the MPs, MEPs and GLA candidates, then his will be a dead-duck candidacy. It will cause deep and lasting resentment among the membership, and it will be rejected by Labour's core vote, which is saying in no uncertain terms that it wants to hammer Jeffrey Archer, not run him a close second.
When we elect our party leader, Labour '1 think everybody should be obscure for 15 minutes.' MPs have such a large share of the vote because the Parliamentary Labour Party is the wing of the party that the leader most directly works with. Every day the leader relies on the MPs, and in turn the Prime Minister must have the confidence of this group. But there is no such relationship between parliamentarians and the London mayor. It is a substantially weaker relation- ship than the mayor will have with London Labour councillors, who are excluded from this section of the electoral college. Once you abandon one member, one vote and go over to an electoral college, there is no logic for not allowing the councillors to participate in that section. Each member of this section — the 57 Labour MPs, 14 GLA candidates and the four MEPs — will wield a vote 1,000 times bigger than that of an ordinary party mem- ber. While most of the media are focusing on the activities of the trade unions, it is worth remembering that each MP, GLA candidate and MEP has a vote 5,000 times bigger than a London trade unionist.
The position of the Greater London Lab- our party, agreed at its conference last June, was for a one member, one vote ballot of the London membership. This motion was proposed by the unions and seconded by Poplar and Canning Town CLP.
When challenged on this question on the 4 May 1999 in the House of Commons by the Tories, Nick Raynsford said: 'As I understand it, all three major parties will ensure that they have a democratic process for the selection of their candidates. As my Honourable Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Mr Fitzpatrick) has pointed out, the Labour party will elect its candidate on the basis of one member, one vote. That is clear.' Nick Raynsford is Frank Dobson's campaign manager. What has happened in the intervening few months to change his mind on OMOV?
The electoral-college fix hit the rocks within 24 hours when first Unison, and then the TGWU and FBU (fire brigades' union), announced that they would ballot their members before casting their votes. For many years the role of the unions in the Labour party has been attacked by commentators who have condemned the 'smoke-filled rooms' image of trade-union fixers. Now, it is only the most right-wing trade unions, such as Sir Ken Jackson's AEEU, which look unlikely to trust their members.
There is of course a compelling reason for Sir Ken Jackson not to put the matter out to his members. The opinion polls show not only that Frank Dobson is trailing behind my candidacy, but also that at pre- sent he is behind Glenda Jackson too. This is a very unsatisfactory situation from the point of view of the Millbank Tendency, who ditched Glenda when they thought that she could not defeat me. In fact, Glen- da has consistently shown herself to be the second most popular Labour candidate, and her polling is just as likely to be reflect- ed in the unions and the party as it is among the electorate.
Last Friday, the Evening Standard pub- lished a poll which showed that I am the only Labour candidate who would beat Jef- frey Archer on• the first round. I am the preferred candidate of exactly half of all London Labour voters, with Glenda Jack- son on 16 per cent and Ken Jackson's can- didate on 15 per cent. The polls show that as the Labour candidate I would win a thumping 63 per cent of the total share of the vote, with Archer limping behind on 27 per cent. If Frank Dobson were the candi- date, however, he was found to be stuck on 46 per cent to Jeffrey Archer's 38 per cent, giving Jeffrey Archer an entirely unneces- sary boost.
Worse however was to come. Despite Frank's camp claiming that there was nowhere else for me to go but down after such a strong showing, the Mail on Sunday poll published two days later bore out the Evening Standard poll. It found that as the Labour candidate I would comfortably out- poll Archer on 62 per cent. But if Frank were our candidate, Jeffrey Archer would stand at 45 per cent and Frank on 41 per cent. This is Archer's best polling in three years.
For most Labour voters this is a risk too far. Fiddling around with the possibility of putting Archer into the mayor's headquar- ters is the politics of the playground and the quick fix. Since the Welsh Assembly elec- tions, when the electoral college was used to prevent Rhodri Morgan becoming Labour's leader in Wales, Welsh party boss- es have had plenty of time to repent at their leisure for such indulgences. Those MPs with a 1,000 votes sitting in their pockets might wonder whether it is such a good idea to join them, and whether they should con- sult their members before they cast their votes.
'I'm afraid the dogs have gone to the country.'
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