Ken Livingstone visits Ridley Road Market
Ken Livingstone with Labour’s byelection candidate Ben Hayhurst at Ridley Road Market. Photograph: Andrew Connelly
In little less than a month, Londoners will go to the polls to choose a mayor from a familiar list of candidates, almost the same as those standing at the last mayoral election. And at the end of last month (Saturday 31 March) it was Hackney’s turn to receive the Ken Livingstone campaign wagon.
The wagon, heavily laden with metaphor, was an old, battered red London bus emblazoned with the tagline ‘Better off with Ken’, not to be confused with the newer, shinier, white double decker that can be seen elsewhere in town that reads ‘Better off with Boris’.
They say a week is a long time in politics, and following the recent wrangling over pasties and petrol panic, the last few have seemed longer than most. But on a grey Saturday morning in Ridley Road Market, there were more pressing issues to address. So, flanked by supporters, Mr Livingstone took to his soapbox to hammer home his key policies.
It was only a matter of minutes until he railed against the current mayor and his perceived cosiness with the wealthy: “Boris Johnson has spent the last two years campaigning to cut the top rate of tax for the richest 1%, and half a million pensioners in London will end up paying more to compensate. Rates of murder and rape are up in London. The police are not immune from cuts, but what you don’t do is take them off the street. If you cut police numbers, crime goes up. Boris has admitted cutting 1700 police officers and if I am elected mayor I will reverse this.”
However, the overarching theme was Mr Livingstone’s ‘Fare Deal’ policy, which he has put at the heart of his campaign. Attacking the increase in London’s public transport fares, which he called a ‘stealth tax’, he promised a 7% cut, saving the public an average of £1000 over four years, and if this is not in place by October 2012, he will resign. The policy will be paid for with an apparent £729 million surplus in the TfL operating budget, a surplus TfL strenuously deny the existence of.
“Politicians at TfL deny it,” Mr Livingstone said, “meanwhile Boris wants to increase fares by 2% each year for the next twenty years. I believe that if you put some money back in Londoners’ pockets, the more they will have to spend on goods and services and the more you can improve the local economy.”
The strawberry sellers, irate at the small gaggle of supporters blocking their stall, erected a small ‘We love Boris’ sign, and one trader bellowed out: “No propaganda in the market”, but that was probably the closest to a dissenting opinion that the former mayor faced. This contrasts with recent controversies that seem be dogging the political veteran.
As a self-proclaimed champion of working people, Mr Livingstone has struggled to defend himself against recent allegations that he avoided paying tax by channelling his earnings through a company. When pressed on this, he replied: “I pay the standard rate of tax on everything I earn, what I don’t do is pay income tax on the money we use to employ people.”
As the procession finally came to the end of the market, a member of the public asked about this issue. “Don’t believe everything you read in the daily Telegraph!” Mr Livingstone shouted back.