Ken Livingstone: Difference between revisions
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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 that he was defeated in a contest to select the Labour party's candidate in the election of 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 2O00 he was elected Mayor of London. | |||
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It appears that Ken Livingstone did not think much of the Houses of Parliament. In 1988 he said "Parliament is worse than I thought it would be; it's like working in the Natural History Museum, except not all the exhibits are 'stuffed'." | |||
In 1989 Ken Livingstone said "Gerald Kaufman has crawled so far up the backside of NATO that only the soles of his feet are visible." | |||
Always to the left of the Labour Party, Livingstone announced in November 1999 that he would stand in a contest to be Labour's candidate for London mayor. | |||
Amid much controversy about how Labour Party HQ conducted their campaign in support of the Labour leadership's preferred candidate, Frank Dobson, Livingstone lost the selection battle in February 2000. Ken Livingstone actually won more votes than Dobson but was defeated in the complex electoral college system the Labour Party had adopted. | |||
In February 2006, a disciplinary tribunal found Livingstone guilty of bringing his position into disrepute by likening a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold from the Evening Standard, to a concentration camp guard, and the Adjudication Panel suspended him from his mayoral duties for a month. | |||
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|''"A person who calls for Gordon Brown to be sacked and whose economic politics do not stand up has a total disregard for sensible, mature politics. That person would be a disaster for Labour and a disaster for London." | |''"A person who calls for Gordon Brown to be sacked and whose economic politics do not stand up has a total disregard for sensible, mature politics. That person would be a disaster for Labour and a disaster for London." | ||
Revision as of 12:24, 28 October 2010
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 that he was defeated in a contest to select the Labour party's candidate in the election of 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 2O00 he was elected Mayor of London.