Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in recent days met with dignitaries at the United Nations to generate international support for Iran to engage in talks with the United States and other permanent members of the UN Security Council over Iran’s nuclear program. But when Mottaki and other Iranian officials in Tehran have talked recently about restarting talks, they are not referring to the nuclear negotiations the Europeans and the United States are hoping for; rather, they are trying to gain traction on negotiations about the Tehran Declaration, the agreement brokered between Iran, Brazil and Turkey in May, which is limited to a swap deal over a portion of Iran’s enriched uranium. This is the deal the United States, Britain, and France dismissed in May as a sideshow and a manipulative tactic by Iran to get out of tough sanctions, shortly before crippling sanctions were passed in the United Nations, the European Union, and the U.S. Congress. At the time, this action prompted a hostile reaction from Iran.
Now that Mottaki is placing the deal squarely on the table again, the Obama administration should seize the moment. Rather than purse talks over Iran’s broader nuclear program and risk failure — during a period when there appears to be little time to waste before either a military attack is launched against Iran or Iran develops the technology to produce a nuclear weapon — a wiser move would be to talk with Iran first over the Tehran Declaration as a way of building trust.
This is certainly the view of the Turks. A delegation of Turkish parliamentarians was in Washington last week for meetings with the Obama administration over Ankara’s relations with Iran, Israel and other issues. The delegation likely advised the United States to take Iran up on its offer to begin talks immediately over the Tehran Declaration. At least one other Turkish delegation visited Washington this past summer, delivering this same message. But their efforts produced little more than hostility from members of Congress and less than enthusiastic responses from officials in the administration.
In interviews I had in Turkey during a recent trip there, Turkish diplomats who spent months shuttling between Ankara and Tehran last spring to broker the Tehran Declaration told me that the United States should accept Iran’s offer to make the Tehran Declaration the framework of any negotiations with the five-plus-one because there is no support in Tehran now to negotiate over Iran’s broader nuclear program. This might be what the United States wants, but there is no backing for it among a cross-section of Iran’s political elites. “The inner circle around [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei views this Tehran agreement as a first step to establish good faith with Western governments,” said one Turkish official with first-hand knowledge of the talks with Iran.
Iran’s new campaign to revive the Tehran Declaration extends from New York to Tehran. On Sept. 28, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast reiterated Iran’s position: “We have repeatedly said that we are ready for talks with Vienna Group based on [the] Tehran Declaration and we are continuing consultation to specify details of the negotiation as well as its place and time.”
Turkish officials have stated repeatedly — both last week during their Washington visit and in the summer — that Turkey wants to facilitate the negotiations with Iran and the five-plus-one. Indeed, as the arbiter Turkey would likely ensure success. By now, Turkish negotiators understand the internal politics inside the Iranian regime far better than their European or American counterparts do. The many months Turkish foreign ministry officials shuttled between Tehran and Ankara were instructive: “It was a good lesson in how to build a consensus with different political actors,” one Turkish foreign ministry official told me who participated in the delegation.
The Turks believe that negotiations first over the fuel swap deal — even though it falls far short of the demands of the five-plus-one — will lead the inner circle around Khamenei and the supreme leader himself to compromise over other issues of concern to the West, such as Iran enriching uranium at 20 percent, which the Obama administration adamantly opposes because it could allow Iran to eventually produce a nuclear weapon.
The United States should listen to the Turks, simply because there are no other options to begin a dialogue with Iran. At this point, we do not need any more negotiations with Iran to understand that Western states cannot effectively talk to the Iranians alone. Talks between the five-plus-one with Iran, with Turkey as the arbiter, are a positive path out of the deadlock.
Geneive Abdo is the Director of the Iran program at The Century Foundation and creator of .
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The BBC‘s service in Turkish, BBC Turkçe, has further extended its presence on Turkey’s leading 24-hour news channel, NTV.
The BBC‘s current-affairs TV programme, Dünya Gündemi (World Agenda), will now be broadcast five days a week, Tuesday to Saturday, adding two more editions to NTV’s weekly schedule.
Dünya Gündemi brings TV audiences in Turkey reports and analysis of issues that dominate the global agenda. The 13-minute programme focuses on news that has a global and regional impact, covering subjects from worldpolitics and world economy to environment and climate change, from the social and ethical impact of latest scientific developments to arts, culture and sports.
Sarah Jones, Business Development Manager, Europe, BBC World Service, says: “This is an exciting development for us as it means more BBC content is now brought to the audiences of our Turkish partner, NTV. We are looking forward to delivering the quality and range of BBC journalism, now five times a week, to the viewers of the NTV channel.”
Hüseyin Sükan, Head of BBC Turkçe, adds: “We’ve had an excellent relationship with NTV since the beginning of our partnership in 2002. Dünya Gündemi was launched two years ago and has gone from strength to strength. I am delighted that we have reached a stage when we can reinforce our TV offer with two more editions of the programme every week. Both BBC Turkçe and NTV teams have put a lot of effort to make this happen, and we will make sure that our programme stands out.”
Ömer Özgüner, Head of News Programmes, NTV, comments: “Our relationship with the BBC has always been marked with harmony and high performance ever since we started. With extended editions, BBC Turkçe’s Dünya Gündemi programme will now better satisfy the audience’s need for in-depth and comprehensive reporting on a wide range of international topics which the BBC is known for. We are excited that this expertise will now reach more people, more frequently.”
Dünya Gündemi is now broadcast on NTV at16.30 local time Tuesday to Friday, and at 19.30 on Saturdays.
BBC Turkçe is a multimedia service, delivering international news, information, reviews and analysis in Turkish. Theradio programmes are broadcast nationally in Turkey at 07.00 and 18.00 local time on weekdays, 18.00 on Saturdays, and 11.00 and 18.00 on Sundays via the partner NTV Radyo. The BBC Turkçe website bbcturkce.com offers news and analysis in text, audio and video, and can be accessed via mobile phones and via a range of partner websites.
Cyrus the Great liberated the Hebrew from the Babylonian captivity to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honoured place in Judaism. (Click to enlarge)
By Brokhim Davoudian from Tehran for CAIS
LONDON, (CAIS) — The Cyrus Cylinder loaned by the British Museum to Iran and currently on show at the National Museum in Tehran has attracted attention nationally and internationally and has excited all Iranians including the small community of the Iranian Jews.
The Cyrus Cylinder signifies humanity and kindness and it is considered by many scholars to be the world’s first declaration of human rights issued by the ancient Iranian emperor, Cyrus the Great in 6thcentury BCE.
Amongst Iranians the most excited for the return of the Cyrus Cylinder being home after forty years, is the small Jewish community. The Iranian Jewish population better known as ‘Persian Jews’, constitute the largest among the Islamic countries.
A Tehran Rabbi excitingly stating: “it is wonderful and I’m much exited to see that the Cylinder is home – in fact I am doubley exited, as an Iranian as well as a Jew.”
He continued: “the Cylinder is a Persian artefact, but its contents concerns the history of Jewish people as much as Iranians, which echoes the past and is the voice of our ancestors – it tells us about the history of my ancestors, the Hebrews who were liberated by the ‘anointed of God’ from Babylonian captivity and their return to the holy land. It is the history of my forefathers who stayed behind and who had chosen Iran as their home.”
Shahram, a young Persian Jew who travelled from the city of Shiraz to visit the Cylinder said: “when I laid my eyes on the Cylinder I start shaking and tears ran down my cheeks, which I had no control over. I felt a bit embarrassed but when I noticed that I am not the only one drowning in the tears of excitement I let my emotions to run.”
Maurice another teenager who was not lucky as Shahram to visit the Cylinder, said: “I am going to see it no matter how long it takes. From my childhood my family told me about Cyrus the Great and who he was. This artefact has importance for me for a number of reasons: first and foremost because I am an Iranian and second, this is a historical document that tells me how my ancestors were freed from captivity.”
Daniyal, a patriot Persian Jew from Esfahan and a veteran hero of Iran-Iraq war in moving words told me: “I defended my country during the sacred defence against the Arab aggressors and served in the frontline and I have a shattered leg to prove it. My feelings of knowing Cyrus’s Cylinder is home, is the exact feeling of joy and excitement that I had when I was ready to offer my life defending my country. If I have to sleep behind the doors of the National Museum, I will do it to see the Cylinder.”
According to Iran’s National Museum over 2,000 peoples are visiting the Cylinder everyday. The number could be have been three times but since the visitors are divided into groups of 20 to 25 individuals and at a time to be led to a special room where the priceless Persian artefact is kept, the numbers are currently limited to 2,000.
Some Iranians called for the museum to be open 24 hours before the return of the Cyrus Cylinder to England.
With regard to attacking Cyrus the Great in Western Media, such as a ‘Cyrus-bashing’ article published by Der Speigel in 2008 rabbi said: “We are appalled by those in West who are attacking the character of Cyrus the Great and calling his Cylinder as a hoax, especially that neo-Nazi who wrote the article in the Spiegel. We the Jewish community in Iran are deeply insulted and consider his attack as anti-Semitism, which is no better than those anti-Semitics who are denying the Holocaust from taking place.”
He added “Cyrus deserves better respect, and I’m pleading to my Jewish brothers and sisters outside Iran to stop these anti-Semitic-Nazis, attacking the man who loved and liberated us from captivity.”
A prominent Persian Rabbi back in 2008 also called the author of the De Spiegel article a neo-Nazi and an anti-Semitic.
The Persian Jews
The Persian Jews trace their ancestry to the Babylonian Exiles of the 6th century BCE and, and like the Armenians and the Assyrians living in modern Iran, have retained their ethnic, linguistic, and religious identity.
The beginnings of Jewish history in Iran dates back to late biblical times. The biblical books of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther contains references to the life and experiences of Jews in Persia. In the book of Ezra, the Persian kings are credited with permitting and enabling the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple; its reconstruction was ordered “according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia” (Ezra 6:14). As the result, sixth century BCE is considered as one of the greatest events in the Jewish history.
Scholars believe that during the peak of the Persian Empire, Jews may have comprised as much as 20% of the Iranian population.
Jews continued living in various part of the empire including Babylon during and after the fall of Achaemenids. Under the succeeding Iranian dynasties of Parthians and Sasanian, Jews lived freely and practised their religion until the 7th century and invasion of Iran by Arabs, the majority of which along with other Iranians faced execution or were forced to accept Islam.
The reaming which could afford to pay the Jizyya (poll tax) for not being Muslim to the Arab invaders chose to remain or emigrated to concentrated Jewish areas such as in Assuristan and Khvarvaran (nowadays Iraq), Khuzestan, Fars and Esfahan provinces. As the result the central Iranian city of Esfahan become one of the main hubs for the Persian Jews. Esfahan then divided into two major settlements of Yahudiyeh (the Jewish Quarter) and Shahrestan or Gey (the Zoroastrian Quarter).
The second major blow to the Jewish community after the Arab invasion of Iran was under the Mongol Ghazan Khan. In 13th century, he ordered a large number of synagogues to be destroyed and forced many to accept Islam. The policy continued under the Tamburlaine’s rule which resulted in more Jews converting to Islam and their resettlement in the north-eastern Iranian city of Samaqand (in modern Uzbekistan) to promote the textile industry.
The Jewish community however survived in large numbers until the reign of Shah Soltan Hossein (r. 1694–1722) when they forced the majority to convert to Islam once again. Their numbers were estimated in the Safavid capital, Esfahan around 3,000,000 (including the Zoroastrians). As the result Jewish scholars believe a large portion of modern Esfahani ancestry is of Jewish origin.
Some of the Jewish communities in Iran have been isolated from others, to the extent that their classification as “Persian Jews” is a matter of linguistic or geographical convenience rather than actual historical relationship with one another.
Persian Jews until the 19th to mid-20th century were still extant communities in the mainland-Iran and the Greater Iran (once were part of Iran) including the present-day Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Eastern Turkey, Georgia, Northern-Iraq, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Before the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, there was an estimated 140,000-150,000 remaining Jews living in Iran, the historical centre of Persian Jewry, the number were expected to be well over 500,000 by early 2000. Over 85% have since left Iran either for Israel or the United States.
Since the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the Jewish population of Iran dramatically decreased from 80,000 to less than 40,000 today, with around 25,000 residing in Tehran, and the remaining mainly living in the cities of Esfahan and Shiraz, the historical cities of Persian Jewry.
Modern Israelis of Iranian origin are referred to as Parsim meaning “Persians”.
It is widely believed the President Mahmood Ahmadinejad is of a Jewish origin who turned against his own people. His surname before conversion of his parents to Islam was Saburjian, meaning ‘cloth weaver’, a traditional Jewish family- name in Iran. Ahmadinejad rejected the claim.
, 24 September 2010
[2]
Falling for Ancient Propaganda
UN Treasure Honors Persian Despot
By Matthias Schulz
A 2,500-year-old cuneiform document ceremoniously displayed in a glass case at the United Nations in New York is revered as an “ancient declaration of human rights.” But in fact, argue researchers, the document was the work of a despot who had his enemies tortured.
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi was planning a record-breaking gala. First he proclaimed the “White Revolution,” a land reform program, and then declared himself the “Light of the Aryans.” Finally, in October of 1971, he had taken it upon himself to celebrate “2,500 years of the Iranian monarchy.” The organizers of the celebration had promised to deliver “the greatest show on earth.”
The Shah had 50 opulent tents set up amid the ruins of Persepolis. Invited dignitaries included 69 heads of state and crowned monarchs. The guests consumed 20,000 liters of wine, ate quail eggs with pheasant and gilded caviar. Magnum bottles of Château Lafite circled the tables.
At the high point of the festival, the Shah walked to the grave of Cyrus II who, in the 6th century B.C., had conquered more than 5 million square kilometers (1.9 million square miles) of land in a long and bloody war.
Critics at the time complained that $100 million (€63 million) was a lot of money to spend celebrating the ancient Persian king. “Should I serve heads of state bread and radishes instead?” was the Shah’s brusque rejoinder.
Religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, still in exile at the time, was also quick to issue his scathing criticism: “The crimes committed by Iranian kings have blackened the pages of history books.”
But the Shah knew better. Cyrus, he announced, was a very special man: noble and filled with love and kindness. The Shah insisted that Cyrus was the first to establish a right to “freedom of opinion.”
‘Ancient Declaration of Human Rights’
Pahlevi also ensured that his view of history would be taken to the United Nations. On Oct. 14, just as the party in Persepolis was in full swing, his twin sister walked into the United Nations building in New York, where she handed a copy of a cuneiform document, about the size of a rolling pin, to then Secretary General Sithu U Thant. Thant thanked her for the “historic gift” and promptly praised it as an “ancient declaration of human rights.”
Suddenly even the UN secretary-general was insisting that Cyrus “wanted peace,” and that the Persian king had “shown the wisdom to respect other civilizations.”
Then Thant had the clay cylinder (which contains a supposedly particularly humane decree by Cyrus II dated 539 B.C.) displayed in a glass case in the main UN building. And there it continues to lie today, directly adjacent to a copy of the world’s oldest peace treaty.
Those were grand gestures and grand words, but in the end it was nothing but a hoax that the UN had fallen for. Contrary to the Shah’s claims, the cuneiform degree was “propaganda,” explains Josef Wiesehöfer, a scholar of ancient history at the University of Kiel in the northern Germany. “The notion that Cyrus introduced concepts of human rights is nonsense.”
Hanspeter Schaudig, an Assyriologist at the University of Heidelberg in the southwestern Germany, says that he too would be hard-pressed to see the ancient king as a pioneer when it comes to equality and human dignity. Indeed, Cyrus demanded that his subjects kiss his feet.
The ruler was responsible for a 30-year war that consumed the Orient and forced millions to pay heavy taxes. Anyone who refused stood to have his nose and ears cut off. Those sentenced to death were buried up to their heads in sand, left to be finished off by the sun.
Did the UN simply believe this historical lie — concocted by the Shah — without any further examination?
‘The UN Made a Serious Mistake’
Art historian Klaus Gallas, who is preparing a German-Iranian cultural festival to take place in Weimar next summer, has now brought the matter to the public’s attention. During his preparations for the festival he discovered the inconsistencies between the Shah’s claims and the Cyrus decree. “The UN made a serious mistake,” says Gallas.
The limestone tomb at Pasargadae of King Cyrus the Great.
Despite having been contacted by SPIEGEL several times, the organization has declined to comment on the incident. Indeed, the UN Information Service in Vienna continues to insist that many still consider the cuneiform cylinder from the Orient to be the “first human rights document.”
The aftermath of the hoax has been disastrous. Even German schoolbooks describe the ancient Persian king as a pioneer of humane policies. According to a forged translation on the Internet, Cyrus even supported a minimum wage and right to asylum.
“Slavery must be abolished throughout the world,” the fake translation reads. “Every country shall decide for itself whether or not it wants my leadership.”
Even Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was taken in by the hoax. “I am an Iranian. A descendant of Cyrus the Great,” she said in her speech in Oslo. “The very emperor who proclaimed at the pinnacle of power 2,500 years ago that … he would not reign over the people if they did not wish it.”
The experts are now stunned at this example of a rumor gone wild.
If one thing is clear, it is that the figure at the center of this hoax radically shook the ancient Orient like no other ruler. With what German scholar Wiesehöfer calls “military strokes of genius,” Cyrus advanced with his armies to India and to the Egyptian border. He is considered the creator of a new kind of country. At the height of his power, he was the ruler of a magnificent empire bursting with prosperity.
But it all began far more modestly. Born the son of an insignificant minor king in what is today southwestern Iran, the young man mounted the throne in 559 B.C.
Even in antiquity, bizarre legends were associated with the king. According to one of them, Cyrus grew up in the wild and was nursed by a female dog. There are no contemporary images of him.
His neighbors to the west soon felt the brunt of this man’s determination. After conquering the neighboring Elamite people, he attacked the Median Empire in 550 B.C. with his army’s fast combat chariots and soldiers dressed in bronze armor.
After that, the upstart king invaded Asia Minor, or modern Turkey, where hundreds of thousands of Greeks lived in colonies. Well-to-do citizens from Priene were enslaved.
Part 2: ‘One of the Most Magnificent Documents Ever Written’
The general recuperated from the trials of war at his residence in Pasargadae. It was surrounded by an irrigated garden known as the “paradeisos” and was home to a sumptuous harem.
But Cyrus soon became restless in his palace and returned to the front, this time heading east to Afghanistan. His life ended at 71, somewhere in Uzbekistan, when a spear punctured his thigh. He died three days later.
The Walls of Babylon, now at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
Courageous in battle and adept in the politics of running his empire, Cyrus, says Wiesehöfer, was a “pragmatist” who attained his goals with “carrots and sticks.” But he was no humanist.
Some Greeks praised the conqueror. Herodotus and Aeschylus (who lived after Cyrus’s death) called him merciful. The Bible describes him as the “anointed one,” because he supposedly permitted the abducted Jews to return to Israel.
But modern historians have long since debunked such reports as flattery. “A shining image of Cyrus was created in antiquity,” Wiesehöfer says. In truth, he was a violent ruler, like many others. His army ransacked residential neighborhoods and holy sites, and the urban elites were deported.
Only the Shah, who had his own problems in the 1960s, could have come up with the idea of reinterpreting this man as an originator of human rights. Despite his SAVAK secret police’s notorious torture practices, there was resistance throughout the country. Marxist groups carried out bombings while mullahs called upon their followers to resist the government.
In response, the Shah attempted to invoke his ancient predecessors. Just as Cyrus was once the father of the nation, he insisted, “So am I today.”
“The history of our empire begins with the famous proclamation by Cyrus,” the Shah claimed. “It is one of the most magnificent documents ever written on the spirit of freedom and justice in the history of mankind.”
One thing is true, and that is the clay cylinder documents a banal story of political betrayal. When the text was written in 539 B.C., Cyrus found himself in what was probably the most dramatic part of his life. He had dared to attack the New Babylonian Empire, his powerful rival for dominance of the Orient, a realm that extended all the way to Palestine. Its capital, the magnificent city of Babylon, crowned by a 91-meter tower, was also a center of knowledge and culture. The empire itself was bristling with weapons.
Nevertheless, the Persian ruler decided to risk attacking the Babylonians. His troops marched down the Tigris River. After attacking the fortified city of Opis and killing all prisoners, they advanced on Babylon.
Babylonian Betrayal
There, barricaded behind an 18-kilometer (11-mile) wall around the city, sat Cyrus’ beleaguered enemy: King Nabonid, an old man of 80.
At that very moment, the priests of the god Marduk were committing treason against their own country. Angry over the loss of power they had suffered under their king, they secretly opened the gates and allowed hostile Persian negotiators to enter the city. Nabonid was banished and his son murdered.
Cyrus' Persian Empire
The conditions for a complete surrender were then hammered out. Cyrus demanded the release of fellow Persians who had been carried off in earlier wars. He also insisted on the return of stolen statues of gods.
These were the passages that the Shah would later reinterpret as a general rejection of slavery. In truth, Cyrus merely freed his own followers.
In compensation for their treacherous services, the priests were given money and estates. In return, they praised Cyrus as a “great” and “just” man and as someone who “saved the entire world from hardship and distress.”
Only after all the arrangements had been made did the king enter Babylon, riding in through the blue-glazed Gate of Ishtar. Reeds were spread on the ground at his feet. Then, as is written in line 19 of the Cyrus proclamation, the people were permitted to “kiss his feet.”
There is no evidence of moral reforms or humane commandments in the cuneiform document. Assyriologist Schaudig calls it “a brilliant piece of propaganda.”
But the legend of this prince of peace had been born, thanks to the wily priests of Babylon. And since it was placed on a pedestal by the UN, it has become even more inflated.
Iran’s mullahs have not escaped the Cyrus cult. In mid-June, the British Museum in London announced that it planned to lend the valuable original cylinder to Tehran. It has become an object of Persian national pride.
“The German Bundestag even recently received a petition to have the proclamation exhibited in a glass case at the Reichstag building,” says Gallas.
The petition was denied, and yet the distortion of history continues. With its disastrous tribute, the UN gave birth to a seemingly never-ending rumor.
As the saying from the Orient goes: “A fool may throw a stone into a well which a hundred wise men cannot pull out.”
Two years after losing the mayoralty to his nemesis Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone is campaigning to run London for a fourth time
Hugh Muir
Ken Livingstone is Labour's candidate for mayor of London. Again. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
It is Labour‘s curse to struggle for consensus. Scratch the surface, and it is hard to find senior figures agreeing on policy, or direction, or personnel. They muddle through, but uniformity of thought has never been one of the party’s abiding traits. At worst, it is a maelstrom. At best, they might argue, a broad church.
But on 2 May 2008, one opinion seemed to be shared by most of the leadership, particularly those accustomed to running London. The Day of Ken is done, they said. He has served us well, but if we are to renew ourselves and wrest the London mayoralty away from Boris Johnson, we must have another candidate. A green-skin. Someone who has not been bested at the polls. Someone who, unlike our wearied champion, has not put himself at odds with noisy, vigorous sections of the electorate. Someone untroubled by rumour and the appearance of scandal.
And so, two years later, after a long campaign, we give you the Labour candidate for the London mayoralty in 2012 . . . Ken Livingstone, thrust forward with the full backing of that same Labour establishment that had said he should go shuffling off into the sun. Restored to a status that also saw him top the poll in the party’s national executive committee (NEC) elections at the weekend. Ready to bask in the spotlight on Wednesday with his speech to Labour delegates from the conference platform. How has this happened? The journey tells us quite a lot about the state of Labour at the moment – but more than that, it tells you an awful lot about Livingstone.
In his dust blue suit and shimmering yellow tie, he is rounder than he was in 2008 (eating too many of his children’s leftovers). Certainly he is chipper. “I am looking forward to it,” he says. “It will be a much more serious, intensely political contest than last time. In the next two years, we are going to see severe cuts and people will want someone to protect them from those cuts. It won’t be about who tells the best jokes.”
Livingstone is sunny now, but there have been flashes of darkness in recent days, not prompted by the contest itself – “He loves the challenge,” a lieutenant told me – but, in part, by his opponent, Oona King. Livingstone now says her campaign, by forcing everyone to sharpen their arguments, was good for the party, and good for her too (she was runner-up in those NEC elections). But her best card was to portray him as the candidate whose sell-by date had expired – and Livingstone took exception to being portrayed as a spent force.
“It was pretty naked ageism,” a member of his campaign team told me. “If she had been saying don’t vote for this person because they are disabled or a woman, there would have been an outcry. He seems thick-skinned, but he does hurt quite easily.”
Livingstone has often been magnanimous with his opponents – Conservative candidate Steve Norris ended up on the board of Transport for London, as did the defeated Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer. An offer was floated to Frank Dobson in 2000. He may yet feel magnanimous again, but right now it’s sensitive. Might there be an offer to King if the Livingstone bandwagon rolls into City Hall in 2012? An aide furrows his brow. “I doubt it.”
If the mayoral election was held tomorrow, Livingstone would lose. For Boris Johnson’s honeymoon period has been a particularly long one. He has survived accusations of inactivity and personnel scandals, with one acolyte, a deputy mayor, convicted of fraud. Allegations of cronyism have been levelled, as have sexual claims in the tabloids. He has even had the humiliation of being caught on video falling into a muddy river. But Johnson has risen above it all with brio and self-deprecating humour. Which is a problem for Livingstone, for the way Boris shapes and guards his public persona seems unnervingly similar to the template created by a fully functioning Ken.
Labour’s candidate says he expected to lose last time round. Perhaps, having viewed the private polls, he did – but it didn’t look like that. His concession speech was graceful enough, but it soon became clear that he was shell-shocked, bereft. And he didn’t even bother to take himself away to grieve in private. Instead, he headed to City Hall, attending Mayor’s Question Time to watch Johnson bask in the sunshine to which he himself had been accustomed. Some say that even then he was making a statement and seeking fresh ammunition to use against Johnson in the future. But for the elected politicians who had supported him, and for the officers who rather liked him, it was a wretched sight – like a bereaved parent visiting the scene of the murder, hoping to be told it was all a mistake. “He would sit behind the Labour group and he always looked so awful,” said one official. Everyone was thinking, ‘Why don’t you go on holiday or something? Go deal with it in private.’”
There was compassion in that reaction. But it also said something about the norms in our politics. Livingstone had lost and the convention is that the loser in a high-profile election, particularly one as personality based as the mayoralty, heads for the scrapheap, or at least other pastures. And anyway, why would a politician in his 60s, father to two young children, who had thrice run London – first taking the reins back in 1987 – want to do it again?
Necessity perhaps. “I am not Tony Blair,” he says, as blunt as ever. “I didn’t go bombing Iraq, to be rewarded by nice posts by US banks. With my politics, most of the jobs that ‘respectable’ Labour types get offered don’t come my way.”
Gordon Brown did, though, make him a vague offer the morning after that 2008 loss. “It was something on the environment, but I said there is a problem because I don’t agree with the third runway at Heathrow. And he said: ‘That is a problem.’ There is a lot I could do if I would ignore my beliefs. But my framework of political beliefs is as important as religious beliefs are to Christians and Jews. They determine all I do. The strong mishmash of my parents’ views and socialist ideology is as important to me as religious faith. Without that, people are adrift.”
Livingstone is seen by the right as the ultimate lefty, but those who hold that view have to gloss over some fairly harsh views on law and order, and the fact that some of his fiercest critics reside on the left of the Labour party. Even so, he has a well-placed network of contacts within the constituencies and the unions – which, over the last two years, he has used to good effect. Always good value as a star speaker at functions, nearly always available, and always ready with a critique of Johnson’s administration, he has retained a grassroots following. But the trick of his success in the Labour mayoralty race was to garner support from those whose initial view was that he should walk off into the sunset.
By June, at the start of the nomination contest, they found his campaign well advanced, his arguments honed. Many who instinctively preferred King came to see him as the only heavy hitter capable of deposing Johnson (even King herself admits that, as time passed, Livingstone grew stronger). His triumph, however, is a defeat for those who wanted to mirror what the national party has done by electing Ed Miliband, and turn the page. “Alan Johnson could have done it [the London mayoral candidacy],” said one Labour source. “But he couldn’t reconcile what he would say to the people of Hull had he lost. Mandelson: people were talking to him. And Tessa Jowell.”
But Livingstone started his campaign early, creating the impression that he was unstoppable. This kept the biggest beasts out of the race, and thus made him unstoppable. Sometimes perception is reality.
The election of the London mayor in 2012 is important to Labour. At best, it will be a springboard – after Johnson, of course, came Cameron. So before Livingstone won the endorsement of his senior colleagues, there was some tough talking. Yes, Labour’s general malaise dragged you down last time, they said. But what about you? If we run with you again, how is it going to be different? What about your mistakes? This was thorny territory. Livingstone doesn’t easily admit to mistakes, certainly not in public and certainly not if those admissions give succour to his enemies. “He’s of that generation,” said a friend. “You concede you made mistakes, then people ask, ‘OK, what were they?’ Suddenly you look weak and are having to show contrition for all sorts of things.”
Colleagues hoped for an explicit sign that he had learned lessons, but it is not Livingstone’s way to be explicit about such things. “These are different times, things will be different” was the closest they got to introspection. Did you do anything wrong, he was asked last Friday in the afterglow of victory. “Perhaps we put the congestion-charging call centre in the wrong place,” he replied.
But mistakes there were. The haughty way in which he proceeded with the western extension of the congestion charge; his reluctance to confront the accusation that he was an inner-city “zone one mayor”. His ill-tempered contretemps with the Jewish Evening Standard reporter he likened to a “concentration-camp guard”. His quip that no one will find out what he got up to in City Hall because everything incriminating had been shredded; his cheap oil deal with Venezuela; and his failure to deal adequately with the toxic, largely unsubstantiated melange of allegations levelled by the Evening Standard against his then equalities adviser Lee Jasper. Livingstone still insists he got all the big decisions right. But by the end, he and his mayoralty seemed traumatised and weary.
Jenny Jones, a Green party member on the London Assembly, wasgenerally supportive, but she says: “It was difficult. He had very young kids at the time and I don’t think he had been getting much sleep. He is very committed, but it did look like arrogance.” She sees improvement, though. “I think he has learned lessons. He certainly looks a lot fresher now. He came to my birthday party in a field the other day with his wife and children. We camped out and had a lot of fun. He was up for everything.”
All but one of the eight Labour assembly members backed Livingstone, but Jennette Arnold says she needed some persuading. “During the last 18 months of his last term, there were issues raised. He went into defence mode and I don’t know that that was the right call. People were saying: ‘Is he there for us, or the people he employs?’ But he does have an innate sense of what London needs. I want him out there, showing his leadership.”
Livingstone says he will. Back will come the western extension of the congestion charge, a measure scrapped by Johnson, and an end to tube fare increases and police cuts. In will come a new victims commissioner, further measures to cut pollution, initiatives to protect the green belt.
His foes at City Hall say: bring it on. “We’ll run on Boris’s record,” says Johnson’s deputy, Richard Barnes. “We have held the council tax precept for two years. Ken put it up 152%.” It’s personal, says Barnes. “London has a smile on its face because of Boris. As for Ken, he just didn’t think he could lose. He is still very bitter.”
But if he is bitter, Livingstone insists that it’s because of Johnson’s “disastrous administration”. And so he will hit the road again, the candidate once more, ending a cherished period of extended time with his two youngest children, now six and seven. (Together, they have led a nomadic life in London, visiting zoos, cafes and museums.) He’ll hold off on the travel, advising mayors in Canberra and Bogota, the memoir writing, and the gardening. He will think of platforms to add to his Saturday morning talkshow on London’s LBC radio station, where after an uncertain start, his cheery banter and opinions on everything have doubled his audience over 12 months. Heady times to come, he says.
But there has been a change. Unlike 2008, politics is no longer an all-consuming passion. He has the family shopping to do. His skill, he says, is spotting bargains. After that, the battle proper can begin.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/sep/28/ken-livingstone-mayor-london, 28 September 2010
