Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone is a left-wing member of the United Kingdom's Labour Party, and a former Member of Parliament. He was Mayor of London from 2000 to 2008 and is a prospective candidate in 2012. He is a colourful and outspoken politician, known for his sharp wit and for his willingness to speak openly on controversial issues. He was a vigorous opponent of the policies of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and of many of those of Tony Blair, especially of the war in Iraq. He also has a long history of campaigning against racism. His willingness to openly express his opposition to Labour Party policies have made him often unpopular with senior figures within the Party, but has won him considerable support from "grassroots" Party members and also from an electorate attracted to the idea of an independent-minded leader.

Ken Livingstone first came to attention as leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1981; the Labour Party of that time had been out of government for a decade, and was regarded by many as too left-wing to be electable. As a strong supporter of the recognition of gay rights and of measures to address the inequalities faced by women and ethnic minorities, and as a supporter of dialogue with Sinn Fein and the IRA, he became a frequent focus of attacks from tabloid newspapers. Yet Ken Livingstone's left-wing, confrontational approach to the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher proved popular within London, and his power there ended only when the Thatcher Government abolished the GLC.

Ken Livingstone joined the Labour Party in 1969 and became secretary of the Norwood Young Socialists. He was elected to Lambeth Council in 1971, and to the Greater London Council in 1973. In 1985 he was elected to Parliament as Labour member for Brent East, and in the 1987 general election he retained the constituency for Labour. In November 1999, he was defeated in a contest to select the Labour party's candidate in the election for the newly-created post of Mayor of London by Frank Dobson, the candidate favoured by Tony Blair. He responded by leaving the Labour Party and standing as an independent, and in May 2000 he was elected Mayor of London, a post that he held until 2008, when he was defeated by Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party's candidate. He is again the Labour Party candidate for Mayor in the next election, to be held in 2012.

His previous performance as Mayor was generally regarded as satisfactory, although his introduction of congestion charges has had a mixed reception. However, in matters other than his conduct as Mayor of London, he has been a controversial figure. He has been a supporter of the communist regime in Cuba and the strongly socialist government of Venezuela, an opponent of New Labour, and of Gordon Brown's economic policies (having said in 1998 that "Gordon is not up to his job... Britain is now heading towards a recession entirely of Gordon's making".) In a 2007 interview, he partly defended the Islamic cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is banned from entering the USA and UK. He criticised Israel's 2009 actions against the Hamas organisation in the Gaza Strip, and received a four-week suspension from office for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.