Charles Brown
Tue, 7 Mar 2000 08:52:08 -0800
If this guy passes Hugh's test, he ain't no sellout.
CB
>>> Hugh Rodwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/06/00 07:47PM >>>
Chris B informs us that
>Ken Livingstone has taken the plunge, broken his word, and announced he is
>standing for the new post of Mayor of London, against the official Labour
>candidate Frank Dobson.
Very briefly cos I'm absolutely whacked...
While Livingstone has indeed gone back on what he said earlier to the party
machine, he now argues that the monstrous perversion of democracy in the
Labour selection process gives him no option but to run independently so
that the people of London have the chance to make their wishes felt. If
breaking his word is a crime, he says, then manipulating the selection race
the way the New Labour leadership and party apparatus did was a far worse
crime, and now it is up to the people of London to demonstrate by their
votes which crime they think is worse.
Two things to watch for:
1) A campaign of personal vilification of Livingstone unparallelled in
recent political history, certainly in Britain and probably in most
imperialist countries (it'll quite possibly approach Malaysia in its
viciousness, though whether Blair will be able to find an excuse to beat
Livingstone up and get him thrown in jail is unclear -- mind you, an
administration that can find the chirpy Pinochet to be so decrepit and on
his last legs that he's not fit to stand trial but only to be sent on a
transcontinental flight home will probably be able to invent something. And
Straw has shown he has the character and inclination to do so...)
2) A campaign of red-baiting (given the certainty that most of the left
will come out and fight actively for Livingstone as mayor) that will
probably beat anything since the miners' strike and probably even that and
much that went before it. Blair and his crew will probably leave Maggie
herself gasping at their brazen disregard for truth and their mind-numbing
humbug, and that takes some doing considering that the old witch holds the
Guinness world record in that department (mind you, Uncle Joe is the
all-time unparallelled master in the discipline, but he is hors de
concours).
G'nite, sleep tight,
Hugh
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