`Dangerous maverick’ hands Blair biggest electoral setback

Livingstone, referred to as “Red Ken” by his detractors, was the leader of the Greater London Council which was disbanded by Margaret Thatcher 14 years ago. His attempt to win the nomination to be the Labour candidate was stymied by an elaborately rigged electoral college designed to keep him out. His victory, predicted from the day he announced his nomination, is seen as a rejection of what is now known as Blair’s tendency towards “control freakry.”

Although Blair’s government initiated the devolution of power to the regions with the creation of a Scottish parliament and a Welsh assembly, and a Mayor for London, the PM has attempted to retain control by placing his own men in positions of leadership of these bodies. Meg Hillier, newly elected labour member of the London assembly said as much: “It is not the best result for Labour .. but with devolution we must let go.. allow each assembly to make its own decisions.”

Blair who is in Ireland trying to keep the halting Irish peace process on track was conciliatory. He accepted that the party would “learn lessons” from the irregular manner in which it stopped Livingstone from being its official candidate. Blair said that he had not changed his views about Livingstone, but that since “the people have elected him,” his government would do everything it could “to make sure it works for London.”

The debacle for Labour continued in the elections to the new 25-member London Assembly. The Conservatives have won a majority of the first-past-the post seats, including Barnet and Camden, which includes the parliamentary constituency of Frank Dobson, and another high profile Labour MP, Glenda Jackson. Final results, including the 11 seats decided through proportional representation, will give Labour and Conservatives nine seats each, the Liberal democrats four and The Green Party three.

In elections to city councils across the country, the Labour Party lost 568 seats and its majority in 15 town halls, while the Conservative party picked nearly 600 seats and now controls 16 city councils, including Oxford which they have controlled for 22 years. Pollsters say that if the results were projected to reflect how the party’s would have fared if this was a general election, the Conservatives would have been on the top of the heap with 37 percent of the vote, with Labour in second place with 29 percent of the vote and the Liberal Democrats bringing up the rear with 28 percent of the vote.

This is the Labour party’s worst election defeat since it lost the 1992 general election. Among the reasons being ascribed for the Labour party’s performance is voter turn out, which was as low as 20 percent in cities like Liverpool. In the midlands, where the Conservative made gains in Birmingham, the view was that “natural Labour voters” were punishing the government because the threat of thousands of job losses at the Rover factory in Longbridge.

The Conservative Party campaign which focussed on traditional right-wing issues like tough measures against asylum seekers, the right to self-defence of victims of burglary, clearly paid off. But the Conservative’s victory was dampened by the loss of a traditional stronghold — the parliamentary constituency of Romsey — to the Liberal democrats, in the by-election also held on Thursday.

For Labour the results are a time of reckoning. Friday’s elections indicate that Labour’s preparation for the next general election cannot simply rely on the Conservatives being “unelectable.” The expectations were for an early general election, next year. This however may not seem such a good idea now.