No delay for the GLA!

The sooner the elections are held for the new London Authority the better, argues Ken Livingstone MP.

The Government's decision to put off the elections to the Greater London Authority until the last possible moment is a massive mistake. The fact that it was leaked to the BBC rather than announced to Parliament itself raises serious questions.

On the BBC bulletin, Nick Raynsford, the Minister for London, argued that the Government needed to hold off the elections until May 2000 because the legislation is complex. Nonetheless, the Government is ploughing ahead with equally difficult legislation, such as a Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers. There is no reason why the House of Commons could not meet on a number of additional Fridays to push the legislation forward. This is a matter of political will and I am tired of London taking a back seat. I intend to raise the matter at the next meeting of the National Executive Committee.

It makes much more sense for the elections to take place as early as possible. As any government moves out of its honeymoon, there is the danger that it will make losses locally. That factor may well be exacerbated by the recent slowdown in growth, brought about by the combination of high interest rates and the high exchange rate of the pound, policies likely to precipitate a recession, an unfavourable environment in which to fight the first GLA elections. A senior Tory in the House of Commons recently told me bluntly that it was not in the interests of his party to support my call for early elections. The longer it went on, he argued, the greater the potential for Labour to lose support.

The poor turnout in the referendum on London -- 33 per cent -- is a warning to Labour in the capital: London is not a safe electoral area. When Labour was in government the last two times, we were wiped out in the GLC elections. In both 1967 and 1977, the Tories won an absolute majority of the votes cast. Although the Tory vote is currently in a state of collapse, Labour cannot bank on the continued electoral success we enjoyed under Major. Underlying Labour's recent electoral success in the capital, London remains a marginal and it should be fought like one.

Some in the Millbank Tendency are busily fighting the wrong enemy. They were quick to dissociate themselves from the near-unanimous vote of the Greater London Labour Party in favour of an OMOV ballot to select Labour's candidate for mayor. Indeed, instead of exploiting Labour's record during the last GLC, some members of the front bench seem more keen to use Tory arguments to undermine it. For example, in a recent edition of the New Statesman, Glenda Jackson argued: "Fares Fair was popular in some quarters, but I hasten to say it was also unpopular. Some people got very angry, asking, 'Why should we subsidise those bloody tourists?'" Those people, of course, were Tory boroughs such as Bromley.

There would be considerable support for John Prescott on the backbenches if he were to tackle the increasingly rudderless direction over London. We want to fight these elections in the most favourable circumstances, as soon as possible, so that we can get on with governing London.

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