Ken Livingstone
| Ken Livingstone | |
| In office May 4, 2000 – May 3, 2008 | |
| Succeeded by | Boris Johnson |
|---|---|
Member of Parliament for Brent East
| |
| In office June 11, 1987 – May 14, 2001 | |
| Preceded by | Reg Freeson |
| Succeeded by | Paul Daisley |
| Born | June 17, 1945 (age 78) London, United Kingdom |
| Political party | Independent |
Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born June 17, 1945) was the first elected Mayor of London. He was elected Mayor as an independent candidate on 4 May 2000 and was re-elected (this time as Labour Party candidate) on 10 June 2004;[1] in the May 2008 mayoral election he was defeated by Boris Johnson.
Livingstone was elected to the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1973 and became Leader of the council in 1981, ousting the existing Labour Party group leader in a 'palace putsch'. As GLC leader he pursued a high-profile campaign of opposition to government policy, so infuriating Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that she abolished the GLC and six other metropolitan county councils in 1986. Between 1987 and 2001 Livingstone was MP for the Brent East constituency in north-west London, for most of that period as a Labour MP. He was expelled from the Labour Party in 2000 for standing for the newly created post of Mayor against an official Labour candidate (the luckless Frank Dobson), but was readmitted in 2004.
