Good article in what is now yesterday’s Grauniad … “Just get over it, Ken”. This bit rings especially true:
“…The raw psephological truth is that Livingstone’s rainbow coalition was not enough to keep him in office in 2008. His studious nurturing of a radical, internationalist, urban core saw him lose the vote of the suburbs and white working class. Outside central London, the electoral map was daubed deep blue…”
Looking over the borough results from that election, two things stand out. The first is that Livingstone nearly lost Barking & Dagenham (!). The second is that he actually managed to lose Greenwich (which Labour carried in both GLA elections on the same day). The pattern is even more stark, and interesting, at ward level.
