My latest constituency profile is of City and East, currently held for Labour by John Biggs. The previous week- whilst on holiday, I'll have you know - I completed a piece about West Central, featuring the Tories' certain winner, Kit Malthouse.
My round-up of the week.
At times you’d have thought peace had broken out. On Tuesday morning Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone, Brian Paddick, Sian Berry and others gathered in Vauxhall, south London, for the launch of Operation Black Vote’s poster campaign against the BNP. The message is that the higher the turnout, the lower the chances of some sad, unpleasant menace planting his backside on a London Assembly seat from May 2nd.
He was in Deepest Hackney today.
Together on Islington Green during an anti-war walkabout this lunchtime.
Also present: Emily Thornberry MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Jennette Arnold AM.
This was a nostalgic event for me. Islington was the first borough I got to know after moving to London in 1979. Though I first lived in a tiny bedsit in Portobello Road, my friends in the smoke lived off Blackstock Road. I later lived in short-life housing in the borough and in the early 1980s worked at City Limits magazine whose office was on Upper Street a few hundred yards from where this gathering took place. I remember Livingstone, then leader of the GLC, dropping in one day. Upper Street was core Ken territory back then: scruffy and bohemian, dotted with left-wing and feminist bookshops, heaving with punks and peaceniks, vegetarians and gays. Those were the days.
As you'll gather from THIS SHORT INTERVIEW with him, I'd assumed he was there to scare up his old core vote although he didn't see it quite that way:
"London never stops changing, that's what's amazing. When I was a kid you worried about coming over to Islington because it was a bit rough...now you worry about coming over because you can't afford a cup of coffee in a restaurant."
Even so, he pressed the old "Islington trendy" buttons without apology. In the first bit of the interview file you'll me and my daughter Dolores eavesdropped on him talking to (I think) BBC London, claiming 7/7 was a "direct result" of the war in Iraq and saying, "I don't want Britain caught up in any more American adventures," and that "a world in which we just stagger from war to war isn't one in which London will prosper." No wonder Gordon's keeping his distance these days.
As for Tony Benn, he greatly endeared himself to me. First, he chatted to Dolores without a trace of condescension, telling her all about meeting Ghandi when he was six years old and how her generation will be the one to change the world. Then, as Livingstone gladhanded his way through Camden Passage antique market, he told the day's best joke. One shop window showcased a ship in a bottle. As we peered it at, Benn said, "I once met a man who made those. He said the hardest part of the job was getting out of the bottle again after he'd finished."
P.S. The Tory Troll was there too.
Via Stop Boris I learn that BBC London will host a debate between the three leading contenders on Monday 14th April - to be broadcast on BBC 1 the following day - and that the same candidates will be together on Question Time on the 24th.
My rather manic end-of-week roundup:
Times have changed, and for the better. Back in the dim, dark Tory days of John Major and Mrs T, politicians’ careers were ruined by revelations about drug use and “secret” children. Can’t see that happening to Boris or Ken. The Blond has told Janet Street-Porter - about doing dope ‘n’ coke when in his teens, which should bring in few more votes. And I’m with those in Michael White’s straw poll in believing that the news about Livingstone’s so–called “secret” lesser-known children might do him some good too, so long as none of them or their mums pops up in a tabloid crying “Cad!” He handled his BBC interview extremely well. If granting it was a planned, pre-emptive move, as some inevitably suspect, that just proves he isn’t stupid. It makes no difference, anyway - he must have been rehearsing it for years.
The scene outside University of London Union at around 6.15 yesterday evening. A whole squad of Boris-fanciers was handing out letters to people as they went in to the Time Out hustings. It read:
"Dear Time Out Hustings Attendee,You may have heard some media reports about tonight's Time Out Hustings. Running for mayor I have attended a number of hustings this year and was disappointed that Time Out changed the date of their event, which made it impossible to hear from you this evening.
Instead I am due to speak to a group of local newspaper editors - an event I am unable to cancel.
I am sorry that the mayor has missed so many husting this year, such as addressing young people in Islington about gun and knife crime, attending the Damilola Taylor Centre, and an important small business hustings with the FSB.
Londoners are starting to ask - 'Where is Ken?'."
I believe this is known as "instant rebuttal."
The Guardian's columnist has some advice for Team Ken as their man faces "the fight of his life."
1) He should debate more. Quite right. Livingstone has looked the man with the knowledge all along. You'd expect that to some extent as he's been in the job so long, but the contrast with Johnson is nonetheless striking. Boris comes across as a man who's done plenty of cramming - and credit to him for that - but you can tell he doesn't know his subject anything like as well as the incumbent. The fact that he can't or won't name his team of advisers in advance makes this look still more worrying. The other interesting point is that Jonathan has joined those claiming that Boris is hiding from awkward questions. Look out, Team Boris - this idea is catching on.
2). He should promise that this will be his final term. Agreed. What's more, he should make clear that its tone will be consensual, humble and gracious rather than confrontational. You can do that without admitting error.
3). Offer to hire your opponent. He means Paddick - offering to put him in charge of policing. Yes, I've been thinking that too. But there's a problem. Livingstone has pledged to bring back Lee Jasper as his advisor on policing and equalities if an independent investigation clears him of wrong-doing over loans. What's more, Jasper's work with Operation Trident has been praised even by his enemies. And whilst Jasper has his critics among London's black communities, he still commands a credibility that Livingstone gains from. Paddick, ex-boss in Lambeth, can claim that credibility too, but can he do so to the same degree? And there's another problem with trying to cosy-up to Lib Dems - they have a tendency to run the other way.
4) Get out your vote. Jonathan thinks "something more is needed" to entice the white working-class to the polling stations. What might that be? Perhaps the answer lies in...
5) Be your (old) self. Absolutely right. That's why the Mail has read the fallout from the video outtake wrong, and why the Standard's headline following their debate on Monday may help Livingstone more than hinder him. "Rattled Ken: I Will Steal Boris's Idea" it howled. But saying that doesn't show he's rattled. It shows he's being the old Ken. Indeed, he's been making that joke about stealing opponents' ideas for weeks, including telling his opponents on the Assembly that he'd steal theirs if only they'd stop bleating about Lee Jasper and come up with a few worth stealing.
The more Livingstone plays the Artful Dodger, the more he disconnects himself from unpopular "new" Labour and the more he can reconnect with the disillusioned Labour core vote. To achieve this his campaign needs to talk less about Johnson being a nasty, 19th century right-winger in clown's clothing. Instead, it needs to take the piss.
The Guardian suspects he is.
Tom Freeman is concerned.
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