Respect - Galloway: Why I back Red Ken

Home

Articles

George Galloway

Galloway: Why I back Red Ken

Home Conference 2008 News Join Respect Online Donate to Respect Articles Local Pages Constitution Policies Multimedia Campaign material Events/Get Involved Contact Us Links

Join our mailing list

All materials published and promoted by L Smith, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU

Galloway: Why I back Red Ken

There's a witch-hunt going on against London Mayor Ken Livingstone - and it has nothing to do with bendy buses, those ugliest of broomsticks he's introduced, his bizarre backing of Met commissioner Sir Ian Blair, or the privatisation of the East London line.
It used to be said that being attacked in the New Statesman was like being slandered in an empty room. Nowadays, their political editor, Martin Bright, can count on everyone from the pro-war Observer, through the Murdoch empire to the Rothermere stable, to spread his poison against Livingstone.
Thus in the recent Dispatches assault on the re-election of the mayor, widely previewed in the Sunday Times and the Evening Standard, Channel 4 gave over a full hour of prime-time TV to the political assassination of Livingstone. For those of us of a certain age it was a reprise of the 1980s campaign of vilification that led to the abolition of the Livingstone-led GLC. Except this time it was "Arab women's groups" rather than "lesbian wrestlers" whose funding was singled out for ridicule. And Livingstone's support for Muslims, rather than the Irish, which earned him the lash.
But there was another important difference. Whereas with the GLC, the witch-hunt was mounted by self-avowed Thatcherites, this time the attack is being mounted from "within"; by the cell of self-styled critics of "Islamofascism" increasingly led by Bright and the Observer/Evening Standard pro-Iraq occupation columnist Nick Cohen.
A succession of Whittaker Chambers' - former leftists turned renegade - were produced by Bright, and suitably shadowy they were too. Chambers, you'll recall, was the former communist turned apostate who "revealed" that celebrated senior US state department official Alger Hiss was a red under the White House bed. In this affair former black radical Marc Wadsworth, "revealed" that in the early-1990s many of Livingstone's top staffers were on the far left (like several of Tony Blair's cabinet). And gay rights hyper-activist Peter Tatchell plunged the knife into the mayor - the country's longest-serving gay-friendly politician - because of Livingstone's support for Muslims.
Some may be surprised at the authorship of this article. After all Livingstone was last seen in my constituency with a phalanx of police officers, wading through the jeers on Brick Lane accompanied by one Oona King. His vain attempt to defeat me in the Bethnal Green and Bow seat in 2005 - despite the fact that King was a cheerleader for the war he had so recently opposed - was not his finest hour. But I'm not the type to harbour grudges.

Not that all is well at City hall; there is an urgent need for change. Just not the change from Livingstone to Boris Johnson. There are problems of accountability in the Livingstone mayoralty. It seems clear that he treats the Greater London Assembly with contempt. But that is surely not helped by the fact that most of the members of the GLA are contemptible. Ask yourself to name a single member of the GLA now in the eighth year of its anonymous existence. Or anything that they have ever done.

What London needs is an assembly worthy of one of the world's greatest capitals. And one strong enough that the mayor would ignore it only at his peril. That's why I'm currently involved in trying to put together a progressive list for the May elections to renew London's democracy. I will be a candidate somewhere on that list myself! If I'm elected you can be sure Livingstone won't be able to ignore me!

Take the 2012 London Olympics for example. The Olympic logo has five rings. There needs to be a sixth, representing London's people and their interests. As things stand, billions of pounds will be blown - £125m of it blasted away on a temporary shooting range in the grounds of the Royal Arsenal that will be dismantled 15 days later. Other Olympic developments risk being white elephants, a standing reproach for decades after the games are gone, like in Montreal.
With New Labour sinking in a morass of party funding scandals, the Northern Wreck fiasco, throwing discs of personal data around the country's wastelands, persisting in the bizarre special relationship with George W Bush and a looming recession, there is now the clear and present danger of Tory buffoon Boris Johnson beating Livingstone in the forthcoming ballot. This would be a disaster for London and the left.

City Hall would then be in the hands of, not former leftists, but unreconstructed Thatcherites. Out would go supporters of Hugo Chávez, in would come apologists for Augusto Pinochet and Livingstone's approach of anti-racism and ethnic and religious harmony, replaced by a man who talks of "piccanninies" with their "watermelon smiles". Livingstone, the opponent of the Iraq war, replaced by Johnson, its firm supporter.

In these new and developing circumstances, it would be self-indulgence, a luxury the left can no longer afford, to stand a candidate of the left against Livingstone for mayor. The danger of his defeat by the right is too great. With opinion polls varying between neck-and-neck and a substantial Tory lead, a left candidate opposing Livingstone really could aid the Tories and risk handing the keys to City Hall to the rancid reactionaries around Johnson.

Any stick will do for the right to beat up Livingstone. Within the same vile Dispatches programme he was portrayed as both a closet communist and an Islamist fundamentalist; while being both soft on sharia law while slugging back tumblers of whisky at the taxpayers' expense. Traduced for supporting Cuba and Venezuela and funding black and ethnic minority organisations by the same white liberals who would once have been advocating exactly the same thing. The left should rally round Ken Livingstone in these new circumstances - but elect a progressive list to a beefed-up London assembly with real powers, to make sure that he doesn't step out of line!

News and articles of interest

Here are some articles and news reports we think are worth looking at

Gaza: The Real Terrorists - Stuart Littlewood
The patience of all decent men must surely be exhausted.
Today's slaughter of innocents in Gaza, with at least 230 reported killed in raids on "Hamas terror operatives" (as the Israeli military put it), amounted to "a mass execution", said Hamas.
Can there now be any doubt who the real terrorists are?
The killing spree couldn't have happened without the tacit approval of America, Britain and the EU. The political pea-brains that direct the pro-Israel western alliance were partying, gorging themselves on Christmas fare or binge-shopping while this massacre of hungry women and children and their despairing menfolk in Gaza was being planned and executed.

Stench of Death Hangs Over Gaza - Ola Attallah
With thick clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and dead bodies littering into the streets, a stench of death rose from the ruins of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, December 27.
"Where are my sons?" screamed Um Ibrahim as she ran hysterically looking for her little kids.
She lives near a security compound Israeli planes pounded to the ground on Saturday.
"I don't know what happened to them," cried the bereaved mother.
Her neighbor Um Abed fell unconscious when she saw her son among the dead in the attacks.
At least 206 Palestinians were killed in massive Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
"The number of victims has reached 195 martyrs with more than 300 wounded, 120 of whom are critically hurt," said Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.
"The toll has gone up because of new Israeli raids and the discovery of several martyrs under the rubble."

Gaza massacres must spur us to action - Ali Abunimah
"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing." Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world.
A short time earlier, US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located, like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas. The US government was one of the first to offer its support for Israel's attacks, and others will follow.

Face to face with the Taliban - Ghaith Abdul Ahad
Qomendan Hemmet sat cross-legged under a window of the mud-walled room. His shoulder, sunk in an old military jacket, rested against the wall and a radio antenna stuck out of his pocket. Next to him sat his deputy, wrapped in a big blanket, silent and sleepy. Around the room sat his men, their faces contorted by years of fighting and poverty, dressed in shalwar kameez and magazine pouches, eyes dark as the kohl lining them. Radios crackled, phones rang non-stop, and more fighters came, drank tea and left with orders.
"Salar is the new Falluja," declared Qomendan Hemmet emphatically. "The Americans and the Afghan army control the highway, and five metres on each side. The rest is our territory."

Communication Workers Union vows to fight any privatisation - Christine Buckley
The main postal union gave warning yesterday that it would fight any move to partly privatise Royal Mail as expectations grow that the organisation is facing a huge shake-up.
This week the Government is expected to publish an independent report that it commissioned into the postal service which will pave the way for an overhaul of Royal Mail.

Free Bush shoe-thrower, Iraqis urge - Aljazeera.net
Thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated in Baghdad's Sadr City in support of a journalist being held in custody after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president.
Muntazer al-Zaidi was detained for what the Iraqi government on Monday said was a "barbaric and ignominious act" during a news conference the previous day.