Gimlet Kamm has managed to leave out one crucial bit of information with regards to Livingstone’s election as leader of the old GLC. All political groupings on all councils hold a meeting after every election to select a leader.
Living in Manchester at the time I can well remember how the press howled that if Labour won that election then Macintosh would be removed as Labour leader and replaced by Ken Livingstone. So the notion that Livingstone became leader “without any reference to the people of London” is yet another of Gimlet’s idiotic lines.
I wouldn’t mind if the line was unique to Gimlet, but it was being put about by the Tories during the election. In fact, so keen were they on this line that the news of what was happening in London’s local election reached me up in Manchester – 200 miles to the north. If I could hear the news, then the notion that Londoners didn’t know that a vote for Labour was a vote for Ken Livingstone as leader is risible. Well, gimletish…
By the way, I call this character Gimlet because a gimlet is a small device used to bore holes in wood. A small, boring tool.
