page_title: Ken Livingstone
section_title: Member of Parliament
hierarchical_section_title: Ken Livingstone / Member of Parliament
caption_attribution_description: English: The Palace of Westminster in London, the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
context_page_description: Kenneth Robert Livingstone is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office in 2000 until 2008. He also served as the Member of Parliament for Brent East from 1987 to 2001. A former member of the Labour Party, he was on the party's hard left, ideologically identifying as a democratic socialist.
  Born in Lambeth, South London, to a working-class family, Livingstone joined Labour in 1968 and was elected to represent Norwood at the GLC in 1973, Hackney North and Stoke Newington in 1977, and Paddington in 1981. That year, Labour representatives on the GLC elected him as the council's leader. Attempting to reduce London Underground fares, his plans were challenged in court and declared unlawful; more successful were his schemes to benefit women and several minority groups, despite stiff opposition. The mainstream media gave him the moniker "Red Ken" in reference to his socialist beliefs and heavily criticised him for supporting controversial issues like republicanism, LGBT rights, and a United Ireland.
context_section_description: Livingstone defeated Reg Freeson in the selection process to represent Labour for the north-west London constituency of Brent East in the 1987 general election. When the election came, he narrowly defeated Conservative candidate Harriet Crawley to become Brent East's MP, while Thatcher retained the Premiership for a third term. Livingstone found the atmosphere of the Houses of Parliament uncomfortable, labeling it "absolutely tribal", and asserting that "It's like working in the Natural History Museum, except not all the exhibits are stuffed." There was much hostility between him and the Parliamentary Labour Party, who allocated him a windowless office with fellow leftist MP Harry Barnes. He took on Maureen Charleson as his personal secretary, who would remain with him for the next 20 years.
  In his maiden speech to Parliament in July 1987, Livingstone used parliamentary privilege to raise a number of allegations made by Fred Holroyd, a former Special Intelligence Service operative in Northern Ireland. Despite the convention of maiden speeches being non-controversial, Livingstone alleged that Holroyd had been mistreated when he tried to expose MI5 collusion with Ulster loyalist paramilitaries in the 1970s. Thatcher denounced his claims as "utterly contemptible". In September 1987 Livingstone was elected to Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC), although he was voted off in October 1989, to be replaced by John Prescott. As Kinnock tried to pull Labour to the centre, Livingstone worked to strengthen its socialist elements. He refused to pay the controversial poll tax until it was revoked, and was one of the 55 Labour MPs to oppose British involvement in the Gulf War in January 1991. Conversely, he supported NATO intervention in the Balkans, and the bombing of Serbia.
  In the 1992 general election, John Major led the Conservatives to a narrow victory, resulting in Kinnock's resignation as Labour leader. Livingstone put his name forward, with Bernie Grant as his deputy, but they were not elected, with John Smith and Margaret Beckett taking the positions. After Smith died in May 1994, Livingstone again put his name forward as a potential leader, but withdrew it due to a lack of support. Instead, Tony Blair was selected, with Livingstone predicting that he would be "the most right-wing leader" in Labour history. Blair and his supporters sought to further expunge leftist elements and taking it to the centre, thus creating "New Labour", with Peter Mandelson asserting that figures like Livingstone represented "the enemy" of reform. Throughout 1995, Livingstone unsuccessfully fought Blair's attempts to remove Clause Four (promoting nationalised industry) from the Labour constitution, which he saw as a betrayal of the party's socialist roots. In 1996, he warned of the growing influence of spin doctors in the party, and called for Blair to sack Alastair Campbell after a High Court judge criticised Campbell in a libel trial. Nevertheless, Blair led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, resulting in the formation of the first Labour government since 1979. In December 1997, Livingstone joined a Labour revolt against Blair's attempts to cut benefits to single mothers and, in March 1998, publicly criticised Gordon Brown for advocating "an awful lot of Thatcherite nonsense" and attempting to privatise the London Underground through the PPP scheme. In 1997 he was re-elected to the NEC, beating Mandelson to the position.
  Livingstone continued his association with members of Trotskyite group Socialist Action, with the group's leader John Ross becoming his most important adviser, teaching him about economics. Investing in an advanced £25,000 computer, he and Ross used the machine to undertake complex economic analysis, on the basis of which they began publishing the Socialist Economic Bulletin in 1990. Two other members of the group, Redmond O'Neill and Simon Fletcher, also became trusted advisers. When Socialist Action founded a campaign group, the Anti-Racist Alliance, Livingstone came to be closely associated with
caption: The Houses of Parliament, where Livingstone served as MP
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