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Cuddly Ken is not a joke Charles Moore on the lamentable Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone:
This man is the Mayor of our greatest city. He condemns the bombing of that city (because it was an attack on “working-class Londoners”, not on “the mighty and the powerful”). But he is friends with our enemies. New York had Mayor Giuliani at its darkest moment. We have Mayor Livingstone. We are in trouble.
We are. The time has long gone when Livingstone and all that he represents could be dismissed as fringe Moonbattery. But he remains in power because he is such a cheeky chappy. Well, I am not laughing.
Thanks to regular commenter Julian Taylor for pointing out the Moore article. Read it all.
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Quite frankly I am amazed that Red Ken has allowed the Battle of Britain memorial to be raised, given his obligatory socialist opposition to anything being seen as even remotely patriotic.
While London is what London is (a city with a young, largely exogenous population) you will always tend to get Leftist despots clawing their way to the top of the bloody pile of bodies, promising the earth and delivering nothing.
That Livingstone is a nasty, duplicitous little creep should come as no surprise to anyone – but it’s enjoyable to watch those who turned a blind eye to his nature, finally waking up to reality (the “gay and lesbian community” sic for example). Not so keen on cuddly Ken now he’s allied to those who’d rather like to push walls down on you? Then what a pity you helped the bastard get elected in the first place!
We won’t solve the problem of London by getting rid of Livingstone. What we need to do is get rid of the office, which is a ready-made platform for any Stalinist popinjay to strut along, spending other people’s money for his own political ends.
I must admit that I find Livingstone so obnoxious it is difficult for me to give him a fair hearing. However, I agree it is a big mistake to ascribe his success to his “cheeky chappie” persona, or to assume that if only we on the right could get our message across Londoners would reject Ken’s peculiar form of traitorous socialism.
I have faced two defining moments over the last few years. The first was when Ken, even with the congestion charge and his love affair with Islamofascists to his credit, was re-elected mayor. The second was the re-election of Blair in May. Few voters could have been in any doubt that Livingstone and Blair are rather nasty individuals, and I think it is a mistake to assume that people somehow mistakenly voted for these people. Livingstone and Blair were re-elected because a majority of the electorate saw that it was in their financial interests. Full stop. They couldn’t care less about Iraq, law and order, immigration, Europe etc., just their short term financial kickbacks.
What I learned from these observations was that the support for social democracy is guaranteed as long as this creed continues to offer redistribution from the minority (successful, hard working individuals) to the majority (welfare, state employees, lower paid, and tax credit recipients). Livingstone and Blair will only be unseated when things turn sour. Inflation and recession, not argument and persuasion, is all that will get rid of them.
John East writes:
” Inflation and recession, not argument and persuasion, is all that will get rid of them.”
Agreed. And I don’t think we’ll have long to wait. The economy is in far more of a mess than many seem to realise.
If there’s any justice, it should come collapsing round his ears, just as the son of the manse clambers onto the throne.
Livingstone is Mayor because Blair and New Labor put him there, ostensibly to shut him up.
He is an embarrassment to this country and may well not survive once Blair leaves the PM position, certainly we’ll never hear of him again if the Tories get into power.
John East and G Cooper – agreed. I have said for years that people who are dependents of the state should not have a vote in how the state deploys other people’s money (I exempt pensioners, obviously). This means they should have no say in who is elected to office to guard/deploy the public purse.
The short-term unemployed would be exempt, but anyone unemployed for six weeks or longer should not be able to vote. Neither should people on disability pensions, single mothers and similar, who are going to vote themselves raises from other people’s wallets.
There may be a chance of someone bringing this in at some point, with a radical leader.
I would also like to disqualify all public servants (save the armed forces), including those who work for “the largest employer in Europe”, teachers, outreach thingies, counsellors, Urdu translators/interpreters/explicateurs, etc. No chance of ever getting that through, though.
Verity, Madison had this to say about the dilemma over 200 years ago.
“Speech in the Constitutional Convention on voting rights – James Madison – August 7, 1787
Viewing the subject in its merits alone, the freeholders [that is, landowners] of the country would be the safest depositories of republican liberty. In future times the great majority of the people will not only be without landed, but any other sort of property. These will either combine under the influence of their common situation, in which case the rights of property and the public liberty will not be secure in their hands; or, which is more probable, they will become the tools of opulence and ambition, in which case there will be equal danger on another side. “
OT,But has anyone got figures for the cost to businesses of “Newties” congestion charge? Are there also figures for how much of the revenue raised has been invested in public transport?
The whole scheme has gone very quiet.
Midwesterner – Hot damn! America has had – and still has – some very fine thinkers!
Verity, I wonder why you exempt members of the Armed Forces from the francise, but not other state employees?
What is the principle at work here?
FrancHise, I meant to say. D’oh.
John Ellis,
I’m curious to hear Verity’s response but note that during Madison’s time, the armed defense was set up on something quite similar to the Swiss model or our present US National Guard. To remove these ‘part time’ soldiers who are disproportionately such a vital part of our economy during non-combat time would have gutted the voting pool of ‘free holders’. Not to mention the most loyal and proven defenders of the constitution.
Ken Livingstone is in power because he’s improved public transport, something that was vainly promised by his predecessors and something that matters more to real Londoners than 99.999% of the stuff you wonks have conniptions about!
Late in the day but Ken has conned more
money out of the government for the Olympics
Ken has improved public transport,you mean he has got the Central line working again?
Matt O’Halloran wrote:
Perhaps you would enlighten us ignorant folk on how exactly Little Red Riding Ken has ‘improved’ public transport? By removing the Routemasters, save some 12 left on the 159 route? By ordering Arriva to divert buses occasionally onto other routes, in order to show that he is ‘listening’ to passengers complaints about the shoddy service on the 24 route, for example?
What exactly was ‘vainly’ promised by his predecessors – fixed fares perhaps which are now being raised constantly way above the rate of inflation by Livingstone on bus routes and considerably higher on the London Undergound by him? How about Livingstone, Darling and their master’s’ plan for the Public Private Partnership? Workable? Not according to Kiley it wasn’t.
Newt so queer as folk, to miscoin the phrase …