Britannist

Iain Dale, a former Conservative General Election candidate, wrote on his blog on 9.5.2008 that europhile Livingstone (who thankfully lost his job as London Mayor in an election held in the capital the week before last) will (in his view) stand for the leadership of the Labour Party if he is back in the House of Commons and a vacancy for the leadership of that party arises:

Mr. Dale stated on his blog "Is This Man the Next Leader of the Labour Party? If you read Ken Livngstone's article in this morning's Guardian you could be forgiven for thinking so. We haven't seen the last of ‘Ken’ by any means. Prediction: he will stand in a safe Labour seat in a by-election or at the next election and then stand for the leadership on the exact manifesto he outlined in his article today. A lot of Labour people would be persuaded by it."

The article by Livingstone to which Mr. Dale refers can be found at:

Ken Livingstone: Yes, I lost. But still Labour must learn from London | Comment is free | The Guardian

Britannist

Chip

Having just returned from a pleasant holiday abroad I read this article and now feel sick as a pig.

Why should any politician get any money for losing an election? Next thing will be if you don't get elected the first time you stand then you will get compensation. Politicians treat our money with utter contempt and they obviously have far too much.