Decisions, decisions

Members of the Labour Party in Britain made two big decisions last week. One of the decisions was a fairly sound one. One of them was, sadly, not so sound.

Taking the negative one first, party members in London have selected Ken Livingstone as their candidate for the next London mayoral election. The selection of Livingstone is, in my view, a significant step backwards. It is not that the man is too left-wing as some would you have you believe. On the contrary, the man misleadingly nicknamed 'Red Ken' is just not left-wing enough. Remember that Livingstone is the man who once described the despicable Yusuf al-Qaradawi as "one of the leading progressive voices in the Muslim world" and an individual who is the target of a "huge smear campaign organised by the Zionists." For those of you not au fait with the hate-filled preaching of this supposedly progressive Islamic voice, al-Qaradawi is on record as saying that the Holocaust was divine punishment for the Jews sent by Allah in order to "put them in their place." To say that this vermin is one of Islam's shining lights does not only put your socialist credentials at risk but it is also a gross insult to the tens of millions of Muslims out there who would want absolutely nothing to do with such filth.

Livingstone is also the man who in 2000 broke his original promise not to run as an independent in the inaugural London mayoral election if he did not obtain the Labour nomination. His loyalty to Labour has been brought into question numerous times in the years since, by his involvement in everything from appointing members of the Trotskyist microsect Socialist Action to his GLA administration and only this year appearing on the RESPECT general election flyers for George Galloway who stood against Labour's Jim Fitzpatrick in Poplar and Limehouse.

Since losing to Boris Johnson in the last election in 2008, Livingstone has been advising Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's favourite Latin American goon, Hugo Chavez. Ken is also still well capable of making the odd outrageous statement now and then. During the London Labour Mayoral hustings over the summer he shamefully stated that the intervention in Iraq had "took the lives of 52 Londoners." Quite which act of Anglo-American imperialist aggression the newt enthusiast blames for taking the lives of almost 3,000 New Yorkers four years previously is not entirely clear.

Still, the members of the Labour Party in the city have spoken and Ken Livingstone is to be the candidate for Mayor in 2012. Very well. The crucial thing now is for activists in the city to unite behind the Livingstone campaign in order to boot out Boris. Having a charming upper-class buffoon present Have I Got News For You was relatively amusing. Having him Mayor of the largest city in the European Union is not so hilarious. Unlike Ken who ran against his party in 2000 when he wasn't chosen, Oona King (who had thrown her hat in the ring in the race for the Labour nomination) has given her full backing to his campaign to defeat Boris Johnson. That's real political maturity, comrade Livingstone.

On the bright side, the Labour Party on Saturday chose Ed Miliband as their new leader. It was clear from very early on in the race that the new leader would be one of Ralph's boys, the question was which one. Personally, I did not mind who became leader as long as it wasn't Ed Balls or Diane Abbott. Neither Balls nor Abbott are particularly bad human beings, they just aren't natural born leaders (but then again, they never were going to win). I liked a lot of what I heard from Andy Burnham, not least his promise to give Labour members in Northern Ireland the same rights as members in GB (but then again, he was never going to win either). In the end it was a clear cut choice: Miliband or Miliband.

In the beginning I favoured David over his sibling. He was, at the risk of sounding slightly shallow, the more Prime Ministerial of the two. He also had the more impressive CV and had played a more senior role in the last Labour administration. As Foreign Secretary for three years he had a higher international profile than his brother. Yet the truth is that when it came down to the nitty gritty of ideology there was very little to separate the two. Both men are firmly on the centre-left of British politics. Because there was so little to separate them politically one could only really make their decision on who was best to lead the party on the basis of what I would usually consider to be the more superficial elements of politics. Which one came across best on the hustings? Who seemed the more engaging of the two on the BBC Question Time special a few weeks back? Which of the brothers possessed the personality and leadership qualities necessary to get British citizens off their backsides at the next general election and go to their nearest polling station to rid the country the present Conservative-Liberal coalition (incidentally, I don't use that naff 'Con-Dem' term to describe the present government)? On all of these I thought Ed just about edged it. Miliband the elder came across a tad wooden, a bit aloof. I'll say it again, these are not normally the things I would focus on in a political battle, but in a clash where there was so little to split the two men policy-wise you just had to make your call based on such factors (and nowadays such factors unfortunately influence a lot of people when it comes to deciding which box they'll tick on their ballot paper).

Now begins the long struggle to oust the Tories and their Liberal hangers on. There are reasons too to be cheerful. As Laura Kuenssberg observed during the BBC's coverage of the result on Saturday evening, party members appeared united and in a buoyant mood. So they should be. This is not 1983. Even when faced with an unpopular government at a time of recession headed by a Prime Minister for whom nothing could ever seem to go right, Cameron and the Conservatives still failed to land a knockout blow in the last general election. Many who voted Lib Dem back in May now feel betrayed by the deal they subsequently struck with the Tories. The most recent YouGov opinion poll has Labour ahead of the Conservatives for the first time in three years.

Already the right-wing press are starting to show just what sort of lengths they are going to go to in order to make sure Ed Miliband never makes it to Number 10. "Get ready for 'Red' Ed Miliband, the unions' choice," read the headline to James Kirkup's piece in the Daily Telegraph. Expect to hear much more of this type of thing in the coming months and years. The idea though that Ed is now going to drag the party back into the bad old days of the early eighties is frankly codswallop. Nothing that he has said points toward such a move. However, hard facts are often less important than perceptions and particularly when those very perceptions can be actively encouraged by a tremendously conservative media in order to frighten an electorate (there is no need to drag up stories about 1992 and Sun headlines again).

But then nor should people on the left moan and whine about what the Tory press say. They are called the Tory press for a reason – they are Tories. It should not be a surprise that they are hostile to the new leader of the Labour Party. Do not forget that Tony Blair did not make it into Downing Street thanks to Rupert Murdoch. The Sun only declared for Blair on March 17th 1997, a mere six weeks before the election when it had become clear to absolutely everyone that the Conservatives were on their way out. It wasn't of course that the said publication had undergone a sudden conversion to democratic socialism. Far from it. Mr Murdoch does not like to be seen backing a losing horse and if in a few years time Ed Miliband has a sizeable lead in the polls going into a general election I would not at all be surprised if we witnessed a similar move. So, to hell with the myth that Labour cannot win an election unless the Kelvin MacKenzies of this world are saying nice things about them. It has been done before. It can be done again.

One week. Two decisions. So, Red Ed for PM and Red Ken for Mayor of London? Aye, I'll settle for that.