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Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London 1999 - present, was born in 1945 in Lambeth, London. He has been Labour MP for Brent East, 1987 - present.

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 was expelled from the Labour Party.

Livingstone beat the other candidates: Frank Dobson (Labour), Stephen Norris (Conservative), Susan Kramer (Liberal-Democrat) and seven fringe 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.