This May, for the first time, London will be electing a mayor. The post shouldn’t be confused with that of the Lord Mayor—the one with the golden coach, the one whose office goes back to medieval times. The Lord Mayor’s jurisdiction is confined to “the City,” the ancient square-mile core of London, and in practice his role is almost exclusively ceremonial. The new mayor will be presiding over the whole metropolis— the richest city in Europe. His powers will be more limited than his title might suggest, but they will still be very extensive; and he will have a budget to match.

The mayoral scheme was cooked up by the Blair government, in much the same spirit that it has promoted devolution in Scotland and Wales. Whether it is a good idea is something which can be argued over (and has been). What is not in doubt is that in pursuing it Blair has created a rod for his own back.

London is Labour territory, especially in the current climate, and it can hardly have failed to enter into Blair’s calculations that the city seemed bound to elect a Labour mayor. What he didn’t reckon on, however, was that the most popular contender for Labour candidate should have turned out to be Ken Livingstone—now an MP, formerly (and disastrously) leader of the old Greater London Council, which was abolished by the Thatcher government in the 1980s.

Livingstone’s general position is sufficiently indicated by his nickname