Ken Livingstone says he lost the London mayoral election because of racism in a Socialist Unity interview today. Boris Johnson may have apologised for his infamous references to “picaninnies” and “watermelon smiles”, but Ken claims:
All that stuff played very well with the latent bigot. And the six percent difference between me and Boris is more than explained by the fact that the BNP, UKIP and the English Democrats got almost ten percent of the vote. So they had somewhere to go, I think that’s certainly the case.
There is something in that.
I have seen some opinion polling data, which I hope to report on soon, which suggests that, unusually for a close election between a Labour and a Conservative candidate, there was little class differential in voting behaviour. What there was was the reverse of the usual pattern, in that the working classes tended slightly to prefer Boris while the middle class marginally favoured Ken.
What was most marked, however, was an ethnic divide. The result was that the white working class was the most heavily skewed in Boris's favour.
It's not an excuse for Ken's defeat, and to be fair he does not suggest that it is. But the Labour candidate in 2012 will need to deal with it. Perhaps Jon Cruddas, foe of the BNP in east London and recent refuser of a ministerial job in the Brown Government, will be available?
Poor old ken, so the white working classes are all racists now are they?
Or maybe Ken is the instigator of his own defeat. As well as not getting satire, ken and his chums dug up an old article of Boris' and then publicised it.....
.....which he now blames for his defeat.
karma or what.
Posted by: ninjabob | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 02:20 PM
Message for Ken: get over it, you lost.
Posted by: Londoner20 | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 02:22 PM
Please do stop bracketing non-racist parties such as UKIP with the BNP. In the mayoral election, the UKIP candidate (whose wife incidentally is from an ethnic minority), urged his supporters to give their second vote to any party other than the BNP.
Does the Labour Party still have black sections in its organisation ? Apartheid is wrong, full stop.
Posted by: Jehu | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 02:43 PM
Ken has already declared himself available for 2012 and seems very likely to run. How would he address the problem you identify?
Posted by: Dave Hill | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 02:45 PM
Leaving aside the tired old trick of lumping UKIP in with the BNP to suggest that they're much the same thing, this argument makes no sense. Why does the availability of openly racist parties to vote for mean that racist voters would have gone for Boris? Surely it suggests exactly the opposite.
Posted by: Roger Mortimer | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 03:17 PM
Hmm, well I watched the campaign closely as a voter and the thing I remember most strongly from it was the constant attempts to paint Boris as a racist by the Ken lobby. Given that certain media continuely pushed that line on radio, TV and through the press its hardly suprising that some 'not so bright' black and white voters might have believed the slurs, and so voted against, or with Boris. John Rentouls post is just a continuation of the dirty Ken campaign which backfired, and a not very subtle continuation at that.
Posted by: Tristan Palmer | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 04:30 PM
Trafalgar Square Pigeon Post
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Doris Was In Sunny Trafalgar Square Today On an Olympic Hopefuls* Auntie Maud In britishculturevision Wind-Up Mission
Doris Proudly Praised The Praiseworthy Teambritain INIT
Medal Holders
Doris Said Theirs had Been The Greatest AquaMarine british victory Since Trafalgar Day
*
*
*
*
*
Doris Will Be In Whithall On Remembrance Sunday To Refresh His Memory
And His Self
Doris Is Going To Get Supersized By Those Who Remember
The Contempt In The Familiarity of His Triviality Is Utterly Profound
Posted by: Jolly Jack Tar | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 06:59 PM
Ken to contest the 2012 eections? is he sure the last time i saw him he looked half dead, so can the old chap make it. Good luck ken but i think its time for you to put your feet up.Stupid Boy.
Posted by: george deighton | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 07:35 PM
Mr Livingstone Communism is dead. Go tend your newts and leave modern day politics to Boris.
Posted by: Nick Barfoot | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 07:40 PM
@Jehu
I had the pleasure in 2005 of sitting in a train carriage with a delegation returning from the UKIP conference in Bristol. A short-ish Asian man was leaning back in the aisle, holding court. Another gentleman, a confident speaker, I took to be a senior figure in the party. I don't remember every word but the following things stick in my mind: A woman demonstrating her grasp of physical geography by explaining that Britain was not part of Europe - "look on a map, it's *separate*, it's not Europe", and somebody mentioning the "twelve tribes of Israel", which elicited a conspiratorial chuckle and a nervous "Er, ho ho, we don't like to go there" from the second gentleman described above.
It's just a shame I didn't get a glimpse of the Asian guy's face when this happened. So, anyway, I am personally happy to lump UKIP in with the BNP and what-have-you, yes.
Posted by: Choco | Thursday, 16 October 2008 at 09:33 PM
Please don't stop reminding everyone that UKIP is a nasty far right party, based on a racism and xenophobia which is contrary to everything decent about Britishness.
While we're at it, don't stop reminding Ken that he lost and should get over it.
Posted by: Chris | Friday, 17 October 2008 at 05:43 AM
"Please don't stop reminding everyone that UKIP is a nasty far right party, based on a racism and xenophobia which is contrary to everything decent about Britishness."
Yawn! UKIP is not a far right racist party, as you would well know if you knew anything at all about them, which you clearly do not.
It is the job of national governments, and those that aspire to form them, to protect and further the national interest. Doing so is not xenophobia, and neither is it seen as such in every other country on the planet.
You really should broaden your horizons and stop taking everything that the BBC and Gurniad say as gospel, it raely is.
The biggest attack on "everything decent about Britishness" has come from NuLabour its misguided supporters and its army of politically correct commissars.
Ken Livinstone lost the mayoral election to Boris because he is a spiteful, megalomaniac, political dinosaur and the people of London were sick to the back teeth of his far left nonsense.
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Friday, 17 October 2008 at 12:19 PM
Put the newts back in the pond wierdo (what sort of 'hooby' is that!). Amazingly Boris has turned out to be a sound geezer so far - increasing the minimum wage substantially for council workers, and also the righteous action regarding racism in the Met, and Blair. All this has left Ken defending an insitutional racist, i.e. on the wrong side of the issue.
Just shos how wrong you can be! (being worried pre election about Boris getting the job)
..at least on these issues. Maybe he is just the sort to create a huge fuss and blow the game if he spots something sick and evil, rather than going with the devil type thing, or merely deluding himself due to ego. I recall at school when my best friend brought in a Nation Front (precursor BNP) newspaper, just grabbing it and ripping it up. He mite just be playing political games on that one, but I suspect it mite be something more. I.e. despite the bullshit, deep down hes ok. (and not a racist but the kinda naive type that goes mental when faced by actual evil of the sort that Blair and friends have been doing to non whites at the Met..and out in the community of course).
Posted by: Jim | Saturday, 18 October 2008 at 10:26 AM
"Yawn! UKIP is not a far right racist party, as you would well know if you knew anything at all about them, which you clearly do not."
Thanks Keith Lonsdale! Given today's news about UKIP and the BNP (which I am too lazy to link to, look it up yourself) it looks like I knew more than even I thought!
Posted by: Choco | Monday, 03 November 2008 at 11:14 PM
Thanks Keith Lonsdale! Given today's news about UKIP and the BNP (which I am too lazy to link to, look it up yourself) it looks like I knew more than even I thought!
You're obviously also too lazy to scrutinise the story.
You know nothing.
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Thursday, 13 November 2008 at 12:33 AM