Ken launches mayoral bid with a pledge to protect Londoners

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

UPDATE: Ken has now launched his new campaign website, which you can visit here. That reminded me of something else he said last year when I interviewed him:

“By the end of the year, when my biography is finished, I will blog. I might even have a Twitter!”

Ken’s Team has launched a Twitter account @Ken4London – I’m sure many people would like to see the man himself take to the medium…

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Ken Livingstone launched his mayoral bid in Croydon today, joining with Labour Party members to sign new recruits up to the party – including BorisWatch blogger Helen Gardner.

Ken also launched the main theme of his campaign: to protect Londoners against the ongoing impact of the recession – on public services, creating new jobs, making the streets safer, holding down fares, and building more affordable housing.

In an attack on Boris Johnson, Ken also said:

“I would overhaul London’s budget priorities in favour of Londoners as a whole. Under Boris Johnson a single bus fare by Oyster has risen by a staggering one third, as has the price of a weekly bus pass…Instead of wasteful projects, the obsession with academy schools, the zany floating airport in the Thames Estuary, we must concentrate on defending public services and holding down fares.”

Last year, I asked Ken what he was proudest of from his time as mayor between 2000 and 2008. He told me:

“There’s so much! We took a completely run down bus system and turned it into the best anywhere in the western world, the most extensive and the largest and one which has seen passenger numbers go from 4 million a day to 6 million a day. Then, after years of decline in police numbers, we are up to the most we’ve ever had and they are actually on patrol on the streets. Then there was winning the Olympics – and I’m immensely proud of the way we planned for and handled the bombings in 2005. But the most important long-term thing we did was the work on climate change. We created the C40, the group of the forty largest cities on earth, and started to combine our purchasing power.”

Ken has already been endorsed by twenty influential London Labour Party members, including Stephen Cowan, Claude Moraes, Andy Slaughter, Cat Smith, Liam Smith and Catherine West.

But Ken will face a strong challenge from Oona King, who told me when I interviewed her last week:

“Ken’s been in elected life in London for four decades, and I think he has fantastic achievements. But I also don’t think it’s a birthright. I think we have to look to the future. We have to look to how we can inspire London to be better. For me, that comes down to inspiring Londoners. I feel I’m able to inspire Londoners from all quarters, as opposed to one particular group. And I think I can do that better than any other candidate in the race.”

Candidates for the Labour selection must put themselves forward by June 18th; shortlisting will take place by June 24th.