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Ken Livingstone (born June 17, 1945), Mayor of London 2000 - present, was born in Lambeth, London. He was Labour MP for Brent East between 1987 and 2001.

He is also known as "Red Ken", a tabloid sobriquet, and is famous for his predilection for keeping newts.

He was a former member (1973-1986) and leader (1981-1986) of the Greater London Council with a reputation as a radical socialist (a member of the tabloid-despised "Loony Left"). After Margaret Thatcher disbanded the GLC, Livingstone went on to become an MP for the Labour Party. Having adopted a more moderate political position, Livingstone stood for nomination as the official Labour Party candidate in the London mayoral elections. Despite much popular support, the less controversial Frank Dobson was selected, via an internal election which some felt was too controlled by the party leadership who did little to disguise their distaste for Livingstone. Despite having earlier stated he would not, Ken chose to stand as an independent candidate and received a five-year suspension from the Labour Party.

Livingstone beat the other candidates: Frank Dobson (Labour), Steven Norris (Conservative), Susan Kramer (Liberal Democrat) and seven minor party candidates decisively in an incident-filled election, becoming the first modern elected Mayor of London.

Recent events

To date Livingstone has not been fully reconciled with the Labour Party. One of the key points of conflict had been the proposed partial privatisation of the London Underground. Livingstone had proposed that funds should be raised to improve the Tube infrastructure by a public bonds issue, which had been done in the case of the New York City Subway. Labour kept pushing their public-private partnership scheme, to which Livingstone relented in July 2002.

Livingstone was also instrumental in introducing the London Congestion Charge, in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion in the city.

Livingstone applied for readmittance to the Labour Party in 2002 but was rejected. In November 2003, however, rumours emerged that the Labour Party would invite Livingstone to rejoin, just ahead of the 2004 London mayoral election. Opinion polls consistently gave a poor showing to Labour's official candidate, Nicky Gavron, and many in the party leadership (including, allegedly, Tony Blair himself) feared that Labour would be humiliated by a third-place finish or worse. Hints emerged from both Blair and Gavron that Gavron would step down and Livingstone would replace her as Labour's official candidate, with Gavron taking the role of Livingstone's deputy. Gavron stated that "my guiding principle will be to act in the best interests of London and for the unity of the party," while Blair, when asked during Prime Minster's Questions whether he felt Gavron or Livingstone would be a better mayor, replied cryptically that "I, of course, always support the Labour candidate." Faced with opposition from a large section of the party (including Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and former party leader Neil Kinnock) and disagreement over what Ms Gavron's new role would be, the plan to readmit Livingstone stalled. Regardless, Livingstone is still generally expected to win the 2004 election; indeed, a poll comissioned by his Conservative opponent Steven Norris suggested that Livingstone would actually do worse as Labour's official candidate than if he stood as an independent.

Also in November 2003, Livingstone was named "Politician of the Year" by the Political Studies Association, which cited his implementation of the "bold and imaginative" congestion charge scheme. The honour came just a week after Livingstone made the headlines for referring to George W. Bush as "the greatest threat to life on this planet," just ahead of the President's official visit to England. Livingstone also organised an alternative "Peace Reception" at City Hall (London) "for everybody who is not George Bush," with anti-war Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic as the guest of honour.