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Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone

A working-class villain

Andrew Hosken
Arcadia Books, 435pp, £15.99,

Leo McKinstry

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

Leo McKinstry on Andrew Hosken's biography of Ken Livingstone

Hosken further highlights Livingstone’s closeness to the tiny, secretive outfit Socialist Action, a Marxist cell whose members now dominate the higher echelons of City Hall in London. One of the more sinister aspects of Livingstone’s rise the top is the way he has consistently manipulated political structures for his own ends. For all his ‘Cuddly Ken’ image, he is actually a ruthless operator, willing to ditch anyone who stands in his way. ‘I love plotting’, he once said.

But such revelations cannot disguise the somewhat pedestrian tone of the book. Hosken dutifully covers all the important episodes of Livingstone’s story, but without much verve or vibrancy. For a biography of a character as explosive as Livingstone, there are surprisingly few juicy anecdotes, hardly anything, for instance, about his renowned fondness for the bedroom or the drinks cabinet. Throughout the text, there is a sense of punches being pulled, perhaps because the author felt inhibited by the fulsome co-operation that Livingstone gave him. At times, Hosken seems far too generous. He frequently describes Livingstone as ‘sensitive’, though what he really means is that Livingstone is prickly and egocentric.In one almost laughable passage, Hosken claims that Livingstone inherited his ‘old-fashioned values’ of ‘politeness and compassion’ from growing up in a working-class household in Lambeth in the Fifties. In truth, Livingstone’s career has often seemed like a permanent adolescent rebellion against the well-ordered British civilisation of the post-war era. And ‘politeness’ and ‘compassion’ are the last words to describe Livingstone’s hysterical abuse of colleagues on the Greater London Authority or his anti-Semitic ranting against a Jewish reporter from the Evening Standard, whom he compared to a Nazi concentration camp guard. Livingstone would never had dreamt of calling a black journalist a slave owner.

Lavishing praise on Livingstone over the congestion charge or the successful Olympic bid, Hosken has little to say about the vast empire of sleaze and wasteful expenditure that Livingstone has created at City Hall. The book also fails to challenge Livingstone’s stance that, after the July bombings in 2005, the ‘most important’ task was to ‘prevent a breakdown in community cohesion’, this to be done through lavish spending on anti-racism campaigns. Some would argue that it is precisely this ideological attachment to multi-cultural diversity, so eagerly promoted by left- wingers like Livingstone, that has helped to foster radical Islam in our midst.

Hosken once wrote a magnificent book about one of Ken Livingstone’s political rivals, Dame Shirley Porter, the former leader of Westminster City Council. Sadly, this effort is only a pale successor.

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