One of the great slogans of the Blitz years in World War II was \u201cLondon can take it.\u201d London has taken a great many things in its time. But there is some doubt as to how much more it can take of the man who has been its mayor for the past two years, Ken Livingstone.<\/p>\n
Odd though it may seem, until Labour came to power in 1997 London had got by without a mayor. Its individual boroughs had mayors, and the City of London (the square mile or so where the medieval city once stood) had a Lord Mayor, but no one figure presided over the conurbation as a whole. For Tony Blair, this was an anomaly which cried out to be put right. His government instituted a new municipal system, and almost at once he fell victim to the law of unintended consequences.<\/p>\n
It had been taken for granted that Labour had the mayoral election in the bag. Then Livingstone, a veteran of the far left, made an unexpected bid to be the Labour candidate. The leadership took fright at his strong showing, and did everything (including bending the rules) to make sure of thwarting him. He retaliated by standing as an unofficial candidate instead, and despite being expelled from the party he came in an easy first in the election.<\/p>\n
Two principal reasons were put forward for his success. It was interpreted as a slap against Blair, a protest which didn\u2019t entail having to vote for one of the opposition parties. And it was also seen as a tribute to his personal popularity. He was a character. He had the common touch. People liked his combination of street-smart toughness and \u201clittle man\u201d perkiness. The media treated him with indulgence.<\/p>\n
At the same time he was hardly an unknown quantity. In 1981 he had seized control of the city\u2019s governing body, the Greater London Council, ousting his predecessor\u2014a respected moderate\u2014in a brutal putsch. His time as leader of the council was marked by inefficiency and waste, and a non-stop display of hard-left gesture politics. IRA supporters, for example, were invited to fly black balloons from the roof of the council headquarters.<\/p>\n
His subsequent spell as an MP (after Margaret Thatcher had abolished the council) held out little hope that he had changed his spots. Neither did his more recent statements in support of anti-globalization protesters.<\/p>\n
The best thing that can be said about his term as mayor so far is that it could have been worse. He began by making a number of controversial appointments. Unknown cronies were propelled into senior posts; an abrasive black activist became his chief liaison officer with the police. Then, for a time, he lay respectively low, and inaction is still one of the more prominent features of his regime. He has done little, even symbolically, to combat London\u2019s problems in such fields as health and housing. The rise in crime seems to have largely passed him by.<\/p>\n
It is true that his powers, though considerable, are far less than those of a mayor of New York. So are the funds at his disposal. But that hasn\u2019t prevented him from making a stir when he chooses to. The civic bureaucracy has expanded rapidly under his command (with extra taxes clamped on the boroughs to help pay for it). Advisors and task forces have proliferated, politically correct initiatives abound, and a new City Hall has just opened for business\u2014an elliptical glass palace designed by Norman Foster. The official line is that it embodies the spirit of political transparency, though with the humour which some find engaging Livingstone himself calls it \u201cthe glass testicle. \u201d<\/p>\n
M<\/font>eanwhile, there is one form of public service which he can\u2019t be said to have neglected\u2014alas. Travel and transport in London are a disaster, and while he isn\u2019t the only one at fault he bears a heavy share of the responsibility. Badly planned roadworks, inexplicable one-way systems, roads narrowed to make cycle-lanes for bikes which are nowhere to be seen\u2014these are only part of the story. Recent additions to the list of punishments include crippling increases in taxi-fares after eight at night, and a rescheduling of traffic lights so that the red lights last much longer for vehicles than they do for pedestrians.<\/p>\n The ultimate aim seems to be to force motor traffic out of central London (and to do it without waiting for the provision of adequate substitutes). A major step in tis direction is due to be taken next February, when Livingstone plans to introduce a \u201ccongestion charge\u201d\u2014a toll of 5 a day to be paid by drivers entering the heart of the city. Between them, the difficulties of implementing such a scheme, the problems created on the edge of the restricted area and the dislocation of economic life promise to produce a nightmare.<\/p>\n And there is more to come. Some of the local road-schemes in hand defy belief: the north side of Trafalgar Square is shortly due to be closed, for instance, with traffic re-routed round the south side of the square. Anyone who knows London will know that this is rather like permanently sealing a couple of blocks on a major cross-town street in Manhattan\u2014except that, given the higgledy-piggledy lay-out of London streets, the effect may well be worse.<\/p>\n Faced with such irrational policies, it is hard not to feel that we are in the presence of ideological compulsion. One of Livingstone\u2019s more memorable pronouncements is that \u201ccapitalism has killed more people than Hitler.\u201d Perhaps, in a post-Communist world, the internal combustion engine is his symbolic substitute for the bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n What is not in doubt is that he is causing Londoners a good deal of pain. Yet though you hear more grumbles than you used to, his popularity is taking a long time to erode. Few things about contemporary Britain are more depressing than the fact that millions of people find \u201cCitizen Ken\u201d attractive\u2014that they take pleasure in his nasal whine, his devious manner, his fake matiness, his small-minded gibes. To those who haven\u2019t succumbed to his spell, on the other hand, he is like something out of Dickens\u2014and we are not talking about Mr. Pickwick. One of the insinuating Dickensian con men would be more like it: Montague Tiff from Martin Chuzzlewit<\/i>, say \u201cvery bold and very mean.\u201d<\/p>\n This June Livingstone\u2019s admirers were given a chance to learn a bit more about him. He had been attending a party in north London and had lain down to sleep off the effects of alcohol. Some of what happened next is in dispute, but the main facts seem clear. When he woke up he found that his girlfriend, who is pregnant, was smoking. He started pushing her around, a man came to her rescue, there was a tussle, and the man fell over a wall onto a floor ten feet below. The police and an ambulance were called, but before they arrived Livingstone slipped away. He later attempted to hush up the incident; meanwhile the man had been hospitalized with head, neck and hip injuries.<\/p>\n Whether the incident will do Livingstone any political harm remains to be seen, but meanwhile he is pushing dauntlessly ahead. He has announced a plan\u2014still at the visionary stage\u2014for building clumps of skyscrapers across London. (Estimated cost: \u00a3100 billion.) He is playing host to an anti-racist poetry festival. The initiatives and self-promoting press releases pour out of his office, and while transport may yet be his undoing, his opponents would be unwise to assume that London won\u2019t be saddled with him for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Ken Livingston\u2019s disastrous performance as Mayor of 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