Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as the first mayor of London from the creation of the office in 2000 until 2008. He also served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent East from 1987 to 2001. He is a former member of the Labour Party, ideologically identifying as a socialist.
Born in Lambeth, South London, to a working-class family, Livingstone joined Labour in 1968 and was elected to represent Norwood on the GLC in 1973, Hackney North and Stoke Newington in 1977, and Paddington in 1981. In the latter 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 press gave him the moniker "Red Ken" in reference to his socialist beliefs and criticised him for supporting republicanism, LGBT rights, and a United Ireland. Livingstone was a vocal opponent of the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which in 1986 abolished the GLC. Elected as MP for Brent East in 1987, he became closely associated with anti-racist campaigns. He attempted to stand for the position of Labour Party leader following Neil Kinnock's resignation in 1992, but failed to get enough nominations. Livingstone became a vocal critic of Tony Blair's New Labour project that pushed the party closer to the political centre and won the 1997 general election.
After failing to become Labour's candidate in the 2000 London mayoral election, Livingstone successfully contested the election as an independent candidate. In his first term as Mayor of London, he introduced the congestion charge, Oyster card, and articulated buses, and unsuccessfully opposed the privatisation of the London Underground's infrastructure. Despite his opposition to Blair's government on issues like the Iraq War, Livingstone was invited to stand for re-election as Labour's candidate. Re-elected in 2004, he expanded his transport policies, introduced new environmental regulations, and enacted civil rights reforms. Overseeing London's winning bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and ushering in a major redevelopment of the city's East End, his leadership after the 7 July 2005 London bombings was widely praised. After losing both the 2008 and 2012 London mayoral elections to the Conservative candidate Boris Johnson, Livingstone became a key ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. A longstanding critic of Israeli policy regarding Palestinians, his comments about the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Zionism resulted in his 2016 suspension from Labour. He resigned from the party in 2018.
One of the most prominent left-wing British politicians of modern times, Livingstone was a controversial and polarising figure. Supporters praised his efforts to improve rights for women, LGBT people, and ethnic minorities in London, but critics emphasised allegations of cronyism and antisemitism, as well as his connections to Irish republicans and Islamist extremists.
Childhood and young adulthood: 1945–1967
Kenneth Robert Livingstone was born in his grandmother's house at 21 Shrubbery Road Streatham, South London, on 17 June 1945. His family was working class; his mother, Ethel Ada (née Kennard, 1915–1997), had been born in Southwark before training as an acrobatic dancer and working on the music hall circuit prior to the Second World War. Ken's Scottish father, Robert "Bob" Moffat Livingstone (1915–1971), had been born in Dunoon before joining the Merchant Navy in 1932 and becoming a ship's master.
Having first met in April 1940 at a music hall in Workington, they married within three months. After the war the couple moved in with Ethel's domineering mother, Zona Ann (Williams), whom Livingstone considered "tyrannical". Livingstone's sister Lin was born 21⁄2 years later. Robert and Ethel went through various jobs in the post-war years, with the former working on fishing trawlers and English Channel ferries, while the latter worked in a bakers, at Freemans catalogue dispatch and as a cinema usherette. Livingstone's parents were "working class Tories", and unlike many Conservative voters at the time did not hold to socially conservative views on race and sexuality, opposing racism and homophobia. The family was nominally Anglican, although Livingstone abandoned Christianity when he was 11, becoming an atheist.
Moving to a Tulse Hill council housing estate, Livingstone attended St. Leonard's Primary School, and after failing his 11-plus exam, in 1956 began secondary education at Tulse Hill Comprehensive School. In 1957, his family purchased their own home at 66 Wolfington Road, West Norwood. Rather shy at school, he was bullied, and got into trouble for truancy. One year, his form master was Philip Hobsbaum, who encouraged his pupils to debate current events, first interesting Livingstone in politics. He related that he became "an argumentative cocky little brat" at home, bringing up topics at the dinner table to enrage his father. His interest in politics was furthered by the 1958 Papal election of Pope John XXIII – a man who had "a strong impact" on Livingstone – and the 1960 United States presidential election. At Tulse Hill Comprehensive he gained an interest in amphibians and reptiles, keeping several as pets; his mother worried that rather than focusing on school work all he cared about was "his pet lizard and friends". At school he attained four O-levels in English Literature, English Language, Geography and Art, subjects he later described as "the easy ones". He started work rather than stay on for the non-compulsory sixth form, which required six O-levels.
From 1962 to 1970, he worked as a technician at the Chester Beatty cancer research laboratory in Fulham, looking after animals used in experimentation. Most of the technicians were socialists, and Livingstone helped found a branch of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs to fight redundancies imposed by company bosses. Livingstone's leftist views solidified upon the election of Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1964. With a friend from Chester Beatty, Livingstone toured West Africa in 1966, visiting Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Lagos, Ghana and Togo. Interested in the region's wildlife, Livingstone rescued an infant ostrich from being eaten, donating it to the Lagos children's zoo. Returning home, he took part in several protest marches as a part of the anti-Vietnam War movement, becoming increasingly interested in politics and briefly subscribing to the publication of a libertarian socialist group, Solidarity.
Livingstone joined the Labour Party in March 1968, when he was 23 years old, later describing it as "one of the few recorded instances of a rat climbing aboard a sinking ship". At the time, many leftists were leaving due to the Labour government's support for the U.S. in the Vietnam War, cuts to the National Health Service budget, and restrictions on trade unions; some joined far-left parties like the International Socialists or the Socialist Labour League, or single-issue groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Child Poverty Action Group. The party was suffering mass electoral defeat at the local elections. In London, Labour lost 15 boroughs, including Livingstone's London Borough of Lambeth, which came under Conservative control. Contrastingly, Livingstone believed that grassroots campaigning – such as the 1968 student protests – were ineffective, joining Labour because he considered it the best chance for implementing progressive political change in the UK.
Joining his local Labour branch in Norwood, he involved himself in their operations, within a month becoming chair and secretary of the Norwood Young Socialists, gaining a place on the constituency's General Management and Executive Committees, and sitting on the Local Government Committee who prepared Labour's manifesto for the next borough election. Hoping for better qualifications, he attended night school, gaining O-levels in Human Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene, and an A-level in Zoology. Leaving his job at Chester Beatty, in September 1970 he began a 3-year course at the Philippa Fawcett Teacher Training College (PFTTC) in Streatham; his attendance was poor, and he considered it "a complete waste" of time. Beginning a romantic relationship with Christine Chapman, president of the PFTTC student's union, the couple married in 1973.