fieldus

Johann Hari: It’s the policies that count and that means Londoners should vote for Ken Livingstone - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

Ken Livingstone with his adenoidal, amphibian populism is the most successful left-wing politician in Europe today. Born into the white working class in the rubble of post-war London, he has helped steer the transformation of this city through an amazing flourishing of sexual freedom and immigration and faced down Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair on the way.

At a time when most politicians cower beneath a lightning-storm of opinion polls and focus groups, he pushes politics forward in quantum leaps on talking to the IRA, on gay equality, on the environment. Whenever he has the power to, he ploughs money into services like buses used by the poorest. If Londoners replace him tomorrow with the political love-child of Margaret Thatcher and Billy Bunter, we will have four long years to stop seeing the funny side.

Boris is famously likeable, but behind the Pimpernel charm, the old Tory devotion to furthering the cause of vested interests.

Technorati Tags: mayoral, election, london, politics, hari, johnson, boris, livingstone, mayor, gla