While the hoo ha continues about whether someone left of the center gets to lose the leadership to the Miliband franchise there is a far more important selection taking place inside of Labour.

It’s going to be a Oona King vs Ken Livingstone stand-off with the winner to be decided at the Labour caber tossing contest late September.

I’m interested not just because I’m a nosy buggar, but also because a) I live in London and so I’m curious as to who hopes to rule over me and b) we get a second preference in the Mayorals which, last time round, the Green Party officially recommended using for the Labour candidate.

If Labour select Ken I’m confident we’ll repeat that happy experience, but if they select some bomb loving politician-for-the-sake-of-it then I doubt London Greens would be shy about publicly critiquing the lack of progressive credentials in Labour candidate and we may well have a less supportive stance.

The two hopefuls are like chalk and cheese in many ways. King spent her time in Parliament as an ultra-loyal speak your policy machine while Livingstone has been a thorn in Labour’s side for decades.

King has always been eminently ignorable and defeatable while Livingstone is a formidable customer, who walks the walk and is able to defeat real opponents both internal and external. He took on all comers, including Labour’s Frank Dobson, to win the Mayoralty in the first place. His medal cabinet is unique in British politics, King on the other hand is “fresh” and essentially untested.

Oona says of her candidacy

We can’t kid ourselves that we can beat Boris Johnson by using the same rhetoric or policy platform that failed last time. We need fresh new ideas. We need an honest conversation with London based on our values and aspirations – that’s what this site and my candidacy is about.

It’s nice to hear she’s going to single-handedly overturn Labour’s entire policy platform, but her website gives little indication of in what way she intends to this. Does she mean she’s going to reverse policy on transport and the congestion charge? Will she issue all Brazilians with bullet proof vests on the tube? What?

It’s not that the Greens agree with Ken all the time, but he’s a serious politician who we can work with on friendly terms and with whom we genuinely do share a great deal of political ground. The same cannot be said for King whose track record of coalition building does not extend beyond the Iraq invasion.

It’s good that there’s a choice and quite rightly I don’t get a vote in Labour’s selection process, but I will get a say in whether the Greens recommend a second preference for Labour in 2012 and that rests entirely on who they pick as their candidate.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   It's now down to Ken to win London for Labour http://bit.ly/cMCuzV

2. Kasch Wilder

   RT @BenCooper86: “@libcon: It's now down to Ken to win London for Labour http://bit.ly/cMCuzV” < Oona King "bomb loving", what nonsense!

3. Jenni Jackson

   RT @libcon It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour http://bit.ly/c60Ouz

4. Stephen Bush

   Good article at @libcon that raises the interesting point that the London mayoral candidate has to build a coalition http://bit.ly/cMCuzV

5. Naadir Jeewa

   Reading: It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour: While the hoo ha continues about whether someone left of t… http://bit.ly/9kg9ET

6. Ben Cooper

   “@libcon: It's now down to Ken to win London for Labour http://bit.ly/cMCuzV” < Oona King "bomb loving", what nonsense!

7. Phil BC

   Another reason why Ken should be Labour's London mayoral candidate http://bit.ly/cMCuzV

8. Peter Andre Launches His New Book… | Celebrities Hot Spot

   [...] It’s right away down to Ken to win London for Labour | Liberal Conspiracy [...]

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