London politics - a moral wasteland
by Jura Watchmaker, 29 April 2008
The election for Mayor of London and seats on the city assembly is just two days away, and I have had about as much as I can take of this bollocks. I’m sick of the candidates, and I’m sick of the endless pseudo-analysis of policies, personalities and the conduct of the election campaign.
Esteemed comrade Paulie has on his blog today issued a call for Londoners to vote for his least unfavourite candidate, Kenneth Robert Livingstone Esq.. In his post Paulie complains about the London Evening Standard and that newspaper’s vicious and relentless campaign against the re-election of Livingstone. Paulie is particularly upset about “revelations, smears and innuendo” published this week in the run-up to the poll.
The thing about such “smears” is that there is very often a ring of truth about them.
So exactly how much truth is contained in the allegations made by Andrew Gilligan in yesterday’s Standard? I’m talking of Labour leaflets handed out at mosques with Bengali text reportedly accusing Johnson of hating Islam, the Qu’ran and Muslims, claiming that Johnson is calling for the Qu’ran to be banned, and insisting that Muslims have a moral duty to support Livingstone.
If these leaflets are forgeries, then Labour should take the Tories and the Standard to court and have Johnson disqualified if he wins the contest. But Labour cannot complain about the moral deficiencies of others when their own camp is so compromised. Don’t talk to me about morality in an election where Livingstone is using every means at his disposal to cajole, scare and bully Londoners into voting for him.
In the Labourite blogosphere we are currently inundated with “If Boris wins the sky will fall” hysteria. Livingstone, we are told, may be a toad, but he’s our toad, and all caring, sharing Londoners should fall into line behind him. Where is the morality in this?
Despite spending much of my time in London, I do not have a vote in the city. But if I did have a vote I would not know what to do with it. Vote for the tosspot to get Ken out? Possibly, though in some ways this would be an abdication of moral responsibility.
Brian Paddick? He may have been an respected senior police officer, but in the political sphere he hasn’t a clue. And Siân Berry is part of an organisation contaminated by association with the moral-relativist and antisemitic left. The Green Party of Englandandwales is no Bündnis 90/Die Grünen.
Paulie also calls for the breakup of the Standard’s “monopoly”. I beg his pardon? The Standard’s backers and editors may or may not have indulged in some dodgy practices over the years, but the paper does not hold a monopoly position. There is nothing bar the lack of a viable business plan preventing the establishment of one.
What business is it of an elected mayor to interfere with the privately-owned press? He or she is not far off being president of a city-state, for goodness sake. When Hugo Chávez effectively nationalises the Venezuelan media we scream dictator, and rightly so.
I still don’t understand why we need executive mayors. I mean, it’s not as if Livingstone is a unifying figure, is he? Paulie somewhat bizarrely compares London with Ireland, but Livingstone is no Mary McAleese. Everyone in London bar a tiny coterie of advisors and cronies hates his guts, including many of those now calling for his re-election. How perverse can London politics get?
Sorry, Paulie, but your post reads like official Labour Party election propaganda or a press release. My recommendation, for what it’s worth, is for Londoners to give their first and second preference votes to candidates they approve of, and none other. If they do not like what is presented to them on the ballot paper, then they should spoil that paper by writing the word “ABSTAIN” across it.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 12:31
There was some bollocks on the BBC the other day about the city-state–how the percentage of overseas-born residents and hundreds of languages spoken make it like no other city on earth. Obviously the BBC’s budget doesn’t stretch to a map which is big enough to mark the capital city of New South Wales. Plonkers.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 15:01
‘Fraid the BBC no longer follows the highest standards. Some of their journalism is very sloppy and snide. I blame the fall in school standards since the 1970’s.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 16:03
I’ll probably vote Green. They seem to have some sensible ideas. However, as you point out, they do have elements of the crazy left and this bothers me. In particular, my Green candidate for Constituency Member is Miranda Dunn. She appears to be a loon. She apparently “protested against the use of rainforest wood in the War Cabinet by the Blair Government”.
http://london.greenparty.org.uk/constituency/4
Fucking hell.
So I’ll vote Sian Berry for mayor and green for the assembly, but Lib Dem on the yellow ballot (not entirely sure why).
Second vote? Dunno. Probably Ken. Sigh.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 16:09
I’ll probably vote Green. They seem to have some sensible ideas.
They do have a few good ideas, but anyone who has come away from a Green Party conference with a straight face is in my opinion a bit deficient in the head department.
The Green Party also produced the best TV election broadcast. It was leaps and bounds above the shite put out by the Lab-Lib-Cons
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 16:21
Brian Blessèd for mayor–he wouldn’t even need a microphone, he’s good with old people and he’s been in Dr Who.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 16:28
They do have a few good ideas, but anyone who has come away from a Green Party conference with a straight face is in my opinion a bit deficient in the head department.
That’s very possible. When I was reaching the decision to vote Green I had a continuous voice in the back of my mind saying “but what about this”:
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/3024
or this:
http://greensstoptheboycott.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/green-leadership-stop-the-war-coalition-and-ken-livingstone/
There are hopeful noises that Sian Berry is a bit more sensible:
http://greensstoptheboycott.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/green-candidate-no-to-boycott/
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 16:35
Oh and I’m generally quite pro GM and don’t have hatred for nuclear power oozing out of my pores. I do acknowledge a certain amount of cognitive dissonance is required for me to vote this way.
Hey ho.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 16:42
Don’t worry about it, Steve. A higher degree of cognitive dissonance is required for someone with their head screwed on to vote for Kenneth Livingstone.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 17:44
We could get into real pissing contest discussing relative antisemitism. I’m just into this leastworstism which says that Livingstone’s antisemitism, homophobia, racism or whatever is not as bad as that of Boris of Siân.
I was aware of the greensstoptheboycott blog, back from when it was established. But oh how I larfed when just now I read Assembly candidate Aled Dilwyn Fisher’s comment:
Watch your backs, pro-semitic Greens!
Aled Fisher was described by the Green Party’s Principal Speaker Derek Wall on the Socialist Unity website as “one of the world’s key ecosocialist,…”
Fucking hell; you don’t get anything like this kind of bullshit on the German left.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 17:54
the Socialist Unity website
I think you will find that’s the Stalinist Unity website.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 18:02
Sorry, I forgot to include the customary sarcy quote marks.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 18:21
Elsewhere, Nicholas Kollerstrom, an astronomer who had his University College London fellowship withdrawn after he published an article claiming that the gas chambers at Auschwitz never existed, is reported in the Jewish Chronicle to have said:
Oh I’m really full of piss now.
Ta muchly for that, Brockley Bob.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 22:14
The Greens are largely scum. And utterly loony, for that matter. Wild horses would not drag me to vote Green in almost any circumstances.
I think you will find, Jura, that the leaflets to which you refer (vile and disgusting bits of grubby bovinity) were produced by some scum like Muslims4Ken or the British Muslim Initiative. No official Labour Party organ would ever sanction the production of leaflets containing such pathetic lies, or predicated upon such an authoritarian contempt for the intelligence of Muslim voters. I would be spitting blood if it were otherwise.
It is, of course, things like this which encourage me to abstain. But this (for once) is not Ken’s fault, and I will be voting for him (and Labour for the Assembly, much more joyously) on the basis that I have come to the conclusion that it would be self-indulgent not to. I can well understand why others feel unable to, but in the end it has to be about what the implications are for ordinary Londoners.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 22:22
…I will be voting for him (and Labour for the Assembly, much more joyously) on the basis that I have come to the conclusion that it would be self-indulgent not to.
People should vote for what they believe in; not against what they feel would be worse. As I said before, I do not have a vote in London, despite my semi-domicile in the region. But if I did have a vote I could not in all conscience vote for Livingstone.
Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 22:54
I’ve just seen that this post is running in two places: Here, and *there*:
http://sedgemore.com/2008/04/london-politics-a-moral-wasteland/
You say (over there):
“Abstention is both a morally defensible position and a better option than not turning up at the polling station. It shows that you care enough about the democratic process, but are not happy with any of the candidates presented. This should give a signal to the parties that something is wrong with their candidates and/or policies.
It’s not enough to respond that potential abstainers should stand themselves.
That’s just silly. I get the impress that those who say such things are all party apparatchiks who expect the serfs to reward them for the effort they put in. Well bollocks to that.”
And bollocks to your argument too, if we’re going to cast things like that. If you are to advance a case for representative democracy, then these are your options - in order of preference:
1. You think that you have something to offer than no-one else can match - you can bring together the combination of skills and moral wisdom to fulfill an elected position: You should stand for election and persuade the largest number of voters to back you.
2. You recognise that you don’t have those assets yourself, but you can find someone who does - and that they have a realistic possibility of convincing a large number of voters of their suitability - and you decide to contribute to their team. You get an associate to stand for election and you support them.
3. You are in neither of the above positions. You are like 99.99% of the population. Well done! You select the least worst option on offer to you from any of the established groupings that have - over a period of time - come up with a methodology for choosing option 2 (above). You do this because representative democracy is the least-worst option for choosing a government. (Do let me know if you have a problem with that last sentence).
4. You don’t like any of the previous three options on offer. You acknowledge that you can’t really complain if the elected candidate is a disappointment to you because you didn’t take the opportunity to support a better one.
5. You don’t take any of these options, but just piss and moan about it anyway like a kid in sweetshop that can’t find *exactly* the colour of sherbet dib-dab that they had your heart set on. Or - alternatively - you don’t vote, you moan about it, and then you do the *really* stupid thing - you make the case that a more direct democracy would be better for all concerned, and that voting for candidates and parties - run by these dumb apparatchiks (where the fuck did that come from?) is just so … y’know … *unsatisfactory*.
Give me a droney apparatchiks over a sulky idealistic individual any day. The latter are ten-a-penny.
On your second point:
“You clearly do not understand the meaning of the term monopoly, which implies market dominance backed up by law or other statutory instruments.”
I can say, quite definitively, without any fear of contradiction from anyone who knows what they are talking about that you are completely wrong about this. I know that Wikipedia is a matter of taste and all of that, but here’s the first thing that came to hand when I typed ‘define:monopoly’ into Google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
You will see that your definition of the term is quite wrong. There is, however, right at the bottom, a ‘government granted monopoly’ but I don’t think that I said that this was the case here (apart from my suggestion that governments often don’t challenge *powerful* monopolies - a different thing, I think you will agree?)
If - on the one hand - you think that the choice that voters have - choosing one of a large number of candidates - representing a fairly wide range of the political spectrum - *is* a monopoly, but having a city of 7,000,000+ people that are only offered ONE paid-for (and decidedly right-wing) newspaper isn’t one, then I would suggest to you (and this is the kindest that I can do here) that your argument is very very VERY inductive.
Wednesday 30 April 2008 at 0:00
Oh, if it’s any consolation, I’ve dithered a bit on the whole ‘vote for Ken’ business myself.
But my dislike of absentionism trumps the lot when faced with the prospect of sitting on my hands with Boris waiting in the wings.
Here:
Argument no1: I’m not voting for Ken.
http://drinksoakedtrotsforwar.blogspot.com/2007/02/whats-wrong-with-national-purpose.html
Argument no2: There is a democratic justification for abstaining in mayoral elections in the same way that there is a moral duty to boycott referendums
http://nevertrustahippy.blogspot.com/2007/08/political-parties-good-or-bad.html
Argument no3: Gah! I can’t stand Ken, but I suppose I’ll end up voting for the git.
http://nevertrustahippy.blogspot.com/2008/03/voting-for-soul.html
Wednesday 30 April 2008 at 2:11
I do not agree with Winston Churchill that representative democracy is the least-worst form of government. It is arguably the best form of government that we have come up with so far to manage the society we have. Personally, I don’t much like the society we have, but that is something to work on in the long term. The changes I would like to see will have little or nothing to do with governments as we understand them, and will hopefully result in their demise.
This is not about not being 100% satisfied with any of the candidates in an election. But it is about insisting that anyone I vote for is a moral creature worth voting for, and voting for positively. Over the years I’ve given my vote to a number of candidates - party members of various hues - who I disagreed with sharply on a number of points, but felt that they would make good representatives and managers. In my view none of the candidates in the London mayoral election fit the bill. Ken Livingstone in particular I regard as a moral degenerate, and I am amazed at the mental contortions of people who say they also detest the man, but will nonetheless vote for him.
We should have an abstention option in all parliamentary and local authority elections. There is no other way for voters to express their unhappiness with all the candidates presented, while at the same time showing they care about the democratic process.
I do not think the current political situation in the UK as a monopoly (or duopoly). What I wrote was that I would NOT call it that, despite the challenges involved for independents and small parties in breaking through the Labour-Tory hegemony. And neither is the position of the Evening Standard a monopoly as there are numerous other sources of news from which Londoners can and do draw. If people choose to buy and read that right-wing rag then that’s regrettable, but one should not overestimate its influence.
Shuggy beat me to it with his comment on Paulie’s post. London actually has a relatively diverse newspaper market. There is also the local (i.e., borough-level) press to consider. We should not underestimate the role of the local press in political debate; the debates within their pages can be very lively indeed, and this is so throughout the British Isles.
Wednesday 30 April 2008 at 8:10
http://libsoc.blogspot.com/2008/04/hold-your-nose-and-vote-ken-paul.html
Wednesday 30 April 2008 at 9:46
Ken is a bad person (self-interested, vindictive, anti-semitic, ignorant, corrupt, etc etc). Not voting for bad people is the right thing to do. Even if he is best for Londoners, which is less certain.
Wednesday 30 April 2008 at 9:57
“Ken Livingstone in particular I regard as a moral degenerate, and I am amazed at the mental contortions of people who say they also detest the man, but will nonetheless vote for him.”
I think that I gave a fairly comprehensive set of reasons in that post as to why I changed my mind. Let me know which bits you think are wrong.
“We should have an abstention option in all parliamentary and local authority elections. There is no other way for voters to express their unhappiness with all the candidates presented, while at the same time showing they care about the democratic process.”
Balls! Here are four ways that you can express your unhappiness with all the candidates presented, while at the same time showing you care about the democratic process.
1. Run for election yourself
2. Get someone you approve of to run for election
3. Get involved in a political party and influence the policies of that party, and get involved in the selection process for the candidates
4. Vote for a candidate that says that they will change the political process that will make it easier for you to do any of the three points above more effectively.
Anything else is just a cop-out. It’s like someone taking their tiny little bat away from a game because they don’t like the way that it’s going. You seem to be really objecting to not being able to register a short-term win in the democratic processes that are open to you. Get over it.
I don’t know if you saw this pathetic puddle of self-loathing a few years ago, but if you didn’t – have a look.
http://uk2005.notapathetic.com
Thursday 1 May 2008 at 4:41
I’m sorry, where’s the morality been in British politics for… a long time? Why are the same people who urged us to hold our noses and vote for Blair now lambasting Livingstone and London Labour? Even if every allegation aimed at Livingstone were true, he’d still be less corrupt, less vindictive, less self-serving, less morally degenerate than Blair. (And most of the allegations that Gilligan, Bright et al have sacrificed their professional credibility to spread, *are* just smears.)
Yes, I know nobody here would piss on Blair if he was on fire. But HP is down, and I have to let off steam, about “don’t let the Tories in the back door” types suddenly changing their tune, somewhere. And I admit I have shifted my position here - I felt pretty much the same as you do now, during the general elections in ‘97 and ‘01 and duly cast a protest vote, though I was persuaded by the “least worst” case and voted Labour in ‘05. But I think it is different. That was about voting Labour in spite of Blair and New Labour, because the Tories were so much worse; whereas there are positive reasons to vote for Livingstone.
Livingstone has been a good Mayor. He’s far from perfect - he’s too close to big business, he’s urged strikers to cross picket lines - but on balance, he’s worth voting for (and not just to keep the Tories out). He’s more decent than most front-line politicians today - and a lot more honest. Both as head of the GLC in the 80s and as Mayor since 2000, he has done more than anyone to combat discrimination against minorities; racist and homophobic attacks in London fell thanks to the programs he enacted at the GLC, rose after it was abolished, and have been falling again with him as Mayor. He has massively improved public transport in the capital and reversed the decline in local policing. London is a much better place to live and work than it was 10 years ago, and that’s thanks to Livingstone.
Some very stark reasons have been given for not voting for him. He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an anti-Semite. He compared a journalist to a Nazi, and then refused to apologise when the journo turned out to be Jewish. That’s stubborness engendered by a quite understandably siege mentality that Livingstone has developed after 30 years of being slimed by the media, not anti-Semitism. Very few politicians have had to endure the same media onslaught Livingstone has faced in his career - only Kinnock, Foot and Wilson come to mind, and it produced the same isolation and intemperance, the same paranoid rejection of any and all criticism and the same reliance on a close circle of supporters, in all of them except Foot. If he had apologised, it would have been seen and spun as a victory over him, as one in the eye - that’s a fundamental part of politics now, the media and political opponents harangue a politician to change a policy, apologise for a gaffe, etc., and when he does, they declare he’s lost, he’s weak, he’s on his way out. Look at the reaction, from Cameron, from the political commentators on TV and in the press, when Brown finally started to give ground on the 10p tax rate - not “at last” but “ha-ha”.
That siege mentality has led Livingstone to make other poor choices. He shouldn’t have lumped Peter Tatchell in with the rest of the media campaign over al’Qaradawi. That campaign was more about scoring points against Livingstone than it was about al’Qaradawi himself - after all, some of the same papers that lambasted Livingstone had themselves previously described al’Qaradawi as a moderate, and he’d made many public appearances in the UK before his one at the GLA without raising eyebrows. Tatchell’s criticism were right and justified, but given the wider attack, it’s understandable Livingstone responded as he did. Similarly, he was wrong to reject the allegations made against Lee Jasper out of hand - though if Jasper is cleared and Livingstone wins re-election, he should re-appoint him. But it seems clear - again, even if every accusation is true - that Livingstone himself isn’t guilty of corruption, merely of being blind to the corruption of some in his administration. And if the accusations against Jasper are true, it’s still small potatoes compared to what’s been going on nationally for the past couple of decades.
Livingstone wasn’t wrong to lobby against Trevor Phillips becoming head of the EHRC. No doubt that issue was touched by a personal antipathy towards Phillips, which goes back to when they were rivals for the Labour nomination in 1999 and Phillips, as Blair’s crony candidate for the job, accused Livingstone of racism. But part of the Mayor’s brief is to promote equality, and as Livingstone believed that Phillips’ policies would not do that, he had both a right and a duty to try to prevent Phillips’ appointment. And, whether it’s pandering to the Mail, giving a speech to commemorate a speech a speech by Enoch Powell, or declaring that a victory for Obama in the US election will delay the advancement of equality, I think Phillips has proved just how much of a fatuous, self-serving, meejerati cunt he is.
Livingstone isn’t perfect, but nor is he merely the least worst candidate. Yes, he’s got things wrong, but understandably, and never with disastrous public consequences. When it comes to what matters, when it comes to things that aren’t primarily about political theatre, he’s made the right decisions. He is the best candidate, and not just amongst those running - I can only think of a handful of London politicos who I’d prefer to see as Mayor (Peter Tatchell would be my first choice), and I don’t think any of them would stand any chance of winning. Livingstone isn’t much of an answer to the ethical vaccum and ideological cowardice of New Labour, but he does at least present something of a working alternative. If he loses, then the last trace of left-wing politics, the last echo of the progressive, will be expunged from the mainstream political scene.
Sorry, this is very long and I’m too tired and emotional to know if it even makes sense.
Much less partisan, here are Dave Hill’s ten reasons to vote for Livingstone. (Which also reveals that Livingstone appears to have the edge in the one area I thought Johnson would be better than him - classical history. And how dare Johnson compare himself to the proto-socialist Pericles?!)
Thursday 1 May 2008 at 4:53
Brian Blessèd for mayor–he wouldn’t even need a microphone, he’s good with old people and he’s been in Dr Who.
Yes, but it was a Colin Baker.
Actually, one postive outcome if Livingstone doesn’t win: He’s a shoe-in for the celebrity cameo in the next series of DW.
Thursday 1 May 2008 at 15:28
DW?
Thursday 1 May 2008 at 15:28
*retraction*
Ah - Dr Who. Doh!
Thursday 1 May 2008 at 18:46
I hope the loathsome Etonian toff and bigot is defeated but even if he wins at least it won’t be as bad as what’s happened in fucking Rome:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/italy