Lone wolf Ken should stay independent

In the brown pond life of politics, there is not much space for the maverick, the provocative, the individualist. Ken Livingstone is one of the rare exceptions to the rule of the bland. Love the man or loathe the slippery salamander, he has demonstrated that independents can prosper. Londoners made him their mayor because they did not want a machine politician to run their city. They did not want to be represented by a Labour hack, a Tory retread or a Lib Dem also-ran. They made Ken their Mayor because they wanted a people's Mayor not a party's Mayor.

Two years on, however, the solo artist wants to rejoin the Labour band - and many members of the party in London are willing to welcome him back. Labour's national executive committee will tomorrow discuss whether to commute the five-year expulsion order served on Mr Livingstone when he broke with Labour. Most people who live and work in the capital will not give a stuff that this would be a gross breach of Labour's own rules. What Londoners will surely register and probably punish is the rich level of hypocrisy that would be involved in reuniting Ken with a Labour card.

There is an ocean of bad blood between the Mayor and the party he seeks to rejoin. The well-documented mutual hatreds between him and much of the party leadership is not just confined to Blairites and Brownites. Only recently John Prescott accused Ken of being a perpetually untrustworthy character who tells "a tissue of lies". What on earth is the Deputy Prime Minister supposed to say if Ken is allowed back in? Welcome back, you prodigal liar? Those arguing for his readmission to Labour rarely do so on grounds of principle. They candidly concede that what this is really about is self-preservation.

Looking at the candidates likely to be available for the next mayoral contest, the London Labour Party has no confidence in their ability to win. They fear that a split in the Labour vote will hand the capital over to a Tory. Ken's supporters seem anxious for the same reason. As Diane Abbott puts it: "The alternative to Ken, as everybody knows, is not a Labour mayor. It is a Tory mayor and most likely Steve Norris."

I somehow doubt that the Cricklewood chancer would be so keen on being readopted by Labour were he to think that he had a better chance of remaining as Mayor as an independent.

He has not been the disaster for London predicted by the Blairites. He has been a disappointment to his hard Leftist backers who deluded themselves that he would bring the sky down on New Labour. He has been a letdown to the Londoners of many different political persuasions who thought that he would radically transform the city for the better. Ken knows it will be tougher for him to secure a second term as Mayor than it was to win the first. Having prospered by running against the party machine, he appears to think that he now needs one.

Myself, I'm not convinced that either his personal prospects or those of Labour would necessarily be enhanced by a remarriage of convenience. Voters are not idiots, especially not the voters of the capital. I suspect the capital would react very negatively to a masquerade that Ken and Labour had kissed and made up.

And what a masquerade it would be. Most Londoners agree with the Mayor that the Government's part-privatisation of the Underground is a disaster which will end up making Railtrack look like the acme of success. Just imagine what will happen if Ken is allowed back into the Labour Party. Some of the unions with votes on the NEC say they will support his re-entry if he swears a loyalty oath to abide by party policy in the future. So does he sign up to party policy on the Underground and swallow all his previous hostility to the Tube scheme? That will make Ken look absurd. He will have sold out Londoners in order to slither back into the Labour Party.

Does he carry on with his court challenges and public antagonism to government policy? That will make Labour look ridiculous. They will have a candidate for Mayor running on a manifesto diametrically opposed to government policy. That was, of course, one of the reasons why Ken and Labour fell out in the first place.

Ken isn't a natural fit inside a party and it is rather strange that he should want to return to Labour. Rejoined with Labour, he would be more cramped than he is now. He is one of nature's solitarians, a lone wolf. He is not a party animal; not, at any rate, in this sense. That's what Londoners liked about him. They elected him because they were looking for someone with a touch of flair, a bit of vision, and the boldness to think outside party boxes.

I can't really say whether Ken's congestion charging is going to work. If it is a success, then London will be a pioneer for similar schemes elsewhere in Britain. Even if it is a disaster, then at least we can learn from this effort to reduce the gridlock. Of one thing, I am pretty certain. Had there been a party machine Mayor in charge of the city, there would have been no attempt at all to stop London choking to death on fumes.

An independent Mayor has mainly worked out quite well for London. Unable to call on a block vote in the Assembly, Ken has been forced to build alliances. Having a Mayor detached from party but answerable to the Assembly builds in some checks and balances. He has been able to think freely but not allowed to run wild. Which is precisely, I think, what Londoners wanted.

Ken ran as an independent. He was elected as an independent. Independent is what he should stay. It would be better for London and, funnily enough, I suspect it would turn out to be better for him.