Ken Livingstone

On the campaign trail?
Watching the Labour leadership battle was a strain, it went on far too long. The tedium numbed many a person's brain and so skewed their judgement. Common sense, not always on show with anything to do with Labour, favoured the Miliband bothers, the rest were make-weights. Before the ballot it was wise to say David Miliband was likely to win, which this blog did. For this would have been the sensible thing to happen but common sense versus Charlie Whelan is not a fair fight so the younger fella got it. During the hustings as the months rolled by the other big battle, Ken Livingstone versus the rest, was being played out to a London only audience. Whoever won the leadership battle would have to come to terms with Livingstone. For he was always an odds-on favourite to win the nomination and to do so 'on his own'.

Red Ed and Brown friend
We wrote about one aspect of the Labour leadership battle here, suggesting it was about to get interesting. About time too! Several Labour people, David Blunkett for example, have admitted that it was a dull thing. It was wrong to imagine that anyone other than the political anoraks of the left would welcome such a long drawn out stunt. No doubt there will be a lot of thought as to what the result might have been had a more compact time frame been in place. In particular, did this mad marathon help the trade unions dominate the whole thing? It's about to become interesting as Ed Miliband has won the leadership battle and has done so with help from the trade unions. This contest and its outcome must be seen alongside the other winner, Ken Livingstone, now the Labour party's official candidate for the Mayor of London elections. These will be held in 2012. So the result, like the campaign, will watched by those looking for indicators as to how the general election, scheduled for 2015, might turn out.