More Livingstone musings

So the pundits are all wondering whether the maverick politician with the popular touch, who's been a loyal party member (albeit on the outside edge of the party, and extremely unpopular within the party's governing structure) for decades, and who's said repeatedly that he'd never leave, is going to do just that and run against the two main parties in an election giving the winner the single largest personal mandate in the country.

Well, I don't think he will. John McCain is popular, but ultimately if he ran as Reform Party candidate he would achieve very little beyond handing the general election to Al Gore on a plate.

But the similarities are interesting. Despite Ken being a hard left-winger and McCain being a hard right-winger (many of his policies make the Portillo/Hague axis look like Socialist Workers), both have astonishing levels of support across the political spectrum. Ken is polling 8 points ahead of Norris among Tories, while committed (if not card-carrying) Democrats in their thousands were registering as Republicans during this primary season so that they could vote for McCain.

Both McCain and Livingstone basically have one issue: campaign-finance reform for the former, and Tube funding for the latter. This could explain why Livingstone is that much more popular: everybody in London takes the Tube, pretty much, and even the Tories are very happy to give up their ideology in this one instance if it will help their commute.

So I'm beginning to see why London doesn't seem to care that Ken is a proven liar. That's not the point. Political junkies -- including nearly all politicians and the media -- care very much about what Ken may or may not have said in 1982, want to know if he's "changed", want to know what his policies will mean for corporation tax in the City, etc., etc. The public at large just gets bored by all this. They like Ken, they like the way that they agree with what he's saying, and God knows it's impossible to get enthusiastic about Frank Dobson.

In America, the forces of conservatism have pummelled the maverick into defeat. In the UK, it now looks very much like it will be the other way around. Livingstone will have very few powers, and a very small power base within the London assembly, but he has already left his most important legacy: a crystal-clear message to both political parties that the public doesn't care about Labour or the Conservatives; it cares about individuals who can inspire enthusiasm.

And this is the great irony, of course: Tony Blair got elected on a wave of enthusiasm for him as a person, enthusiasm which he has now frittered away. That personal rating he still has in the polls is now a grudging respect for his global stature. It was Blair the person who beat the Tories, it will be Livingstone the person who beats Blair the person (or more accurately Labour the machine), and the Tories, if they ever want to see power again, are going to have to do a lot more than tweak their policies. They're going to need to find an individual who can garner broad personal popular support. And that individual sure as hell ain't Michael Portillo.

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