Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone

I was not expecting much bearing in mind most of Ken's history has been covered by John Carvel's excellent books. However this biography casts a fresh look from different angles and with greater hindsight and even has an excellent selection of photographs. I never knew Ken was such a student of The Godfather I and II, it explains a lot...The structure also divides Ken's history into easy to digest well defined eras. The final page is an excellent summary of Ken's career and what he actually stands for. No doubt this book will go down in history as the one that finally exposed in detail Ken's other children at the very opportune (cynical?) moment of the build up to an election. The writers style is sharp and engaging but very much like a university lecture with the author's own low shock threshold thrown in for free. Oliver Finegold's terrible suffering is covered in some detail, a man who was happy to work for a family with an anti semitic record. He and other jewish hacks were happy to take their shilling. Mud sticks but considering the sewage pit thrown at Livingstone over the decades he was entirely justified to harass a doorstepper whom he did not initially know was Jewish anyway. Then there is the curious historical revisionism that creeps in:

"the dossier draws attention to Israel's infamous role in the 1982 massacres of Palestinans at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon carried out by a christian militia allegedly with Israeli collusion"

Where does this allegedly come from? It's been a well established fact for decades that the Israeli army controlled the territory, surrounded the camp and lit up the sky with flares. Is Hosken scared of upsetting someone or biased perhaps?

Light is also shed on the grotesque leader of the WRP and Ken's regrettable dalliance with him, Ken ever the pragmatist would work with anyone who would further his agenda in the face of hostility from the mainstream Labour leadership. Perhaps this hostility was justified at times, particularly when Hosken describes the shoddy takeover of Brent East by a new left using ignorant new Labour Party member locals as their voting fodder. I did not realise the intensity and ugliness of it till now and this book certainly covers the ruthless side to 'Cuddly Ken'. Most interesting of all for me was the history and description of the Socialist Action group, the much more slick left machine that propelled Ken in the latter half of his career. Their title is justified as far from feeling hand wringingly horrified at this bunch I was left very impressed at their capacity for getting the job done. If the rest of the left had been that good we'd be living in a socialist republic by now.

Top marks to Hosken for uncovering new areas and conducting a fresh wave of interviews that obviously paid off. Apart from the laughable plea for sympathy for a hack and the historical water muddying this is an incisive, easy to read and highly enjoyable biography.

Reasonably fair and very funny life of Ken (2/3 people found this helpful)

Author Andrew Hosken spares us most of the cod psychology about Ken and gets down and dirty digging over his life.

We get the triumphs; we get the ruthlessness and we get the bum notes too. Easy to forget now how Ken finally killed off the ill-conceived motorway box around and through inner London, long before the largely successful congestion charge was born or thought of.

Ken comes across as his own man, a risk-taker and a plotter with an absolutely brilliant sense of humour who was greatly helped in his early career by media enemies who he played like a dream.

There is a lot of detail, perhaps too much, about a parade of fairly small Trot groups who serially, but not concurrently, provided Ken with a close circle of talented acolytes. Usually this worked. It even helped get the Olympics. But it had its sordid side with Ken giving the oration at the funeral of Gerry Healy who had been funded by Gaddafi of Libya. Hosken fails to add that we are now advised by Jack Straw that the same Gaddafi is, in fact, a statesman. So that's OK then.

This book is hugely enjoyable. Time after time Ken outwits the Labour machine or bounces back when given up for dead. We learn how Tony Blair tried and failed to kill off Dobbo, Frank Dobson, the official Labour candidate for Mayor of London. We learn how Ken had to rise up through a mountain of condescension. There is a memorable letter from a Hampstead Labour luminary making the most ridiculous snob comments about Ken's background.

This and much else is reproduced for your enjoyment.

Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone

Andrew Hosken

Reader Reviews:

A judgemental but quality history (4/4 people found this helpful)

Reasonably fair and very funny life of Ken (2/3 people found this helpful)

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