Anthony Barnett: I signed the statement in support of Ken Livingstone organised by Compass - in my personal capacity and after hesitating. I don't think Boris will necessarily be a "horror and embarrassment" as it states. Indeed, if we are to have a Tory from his generation and old school in No 10, I think I'd prefer him as Prime Minister to David Cameron as he is bolder. More important I think that Livingstone should have passed on the torch. Eight years is enough. Indeed the ideal candidate to have succeeded him on the left would be Neal Lawson who created Compass. And I certainly do not think that others on the left who have a case against Ken should be criticised on the grounds of giving comfort to the enemy. But the passage that struck a chord for me was this:
Livingstone made the weather against the odds. Millions now enjoy better and cheaper public transport. When we look around London we see a public realm that has been transformed with renovated squares, parks and river banks for everyone to enjoy and share. It is a London at ease with its multi-cultural identity, and Livingstone has played a decisive role in that. Not least because he opposed the war in Iraq. This is the politics of equality and real opportunity.
The point is that Ken expanded the sense of what politics could do when everyone and everything else conspired to restrict it. (He has even expanded it to having a glass of whiskey on the table when being held to account.) He has also acted like an executive politician should. He deserves the prize for originality and creating a better public space. That Boris is drawn at all to the prize at all is thanks to the counter-establishment influence of Livingstone, who has lit a torch that must not be snuffed out.
I should add that, thanks to our hopeless electoral system I had never voted for a winning candidate in any election for public office in the UK, until I cast my vote for Ken in the first direct Mayoral campaign. But, as the statement says, he may well not win this time. He is not organising in the way he should. The spirit of renewal is wilting. Compass are trying to put some courage and breadth into his campaign - and THIS I support.
