Anti-Semite defeated by cartoon character

Credit to Londoners. Faced with the bigot, they’ve elected the Tory.

For anyone who still considers the leftism defined by internationalism, solidarity and anti-racism as refuge of honor, there’s nothing ironic about welcoming the victory of Tory Boris Johnson. The truth is: the choice could not have been simpler.

The blue corner offered voters a candidate the goofish company of whom holds less appeal than entrapment on the inside of an Underground restroom festooned by a backed-up toilet bowl and an unopenable door knob.

Yet challenging this amadán and making this a ‘surely-not?!’ contest, the so-called red corner offered what?

A dried up old Jew-baiter whose all-too-enthusiastic attempts to buy thirty votes here and there were pursued at the seemingly (to him) knock-down price of slandering a whole group of Londoners in terms of historic, epic shame.

This is a “Labour Man” whose various public statements of bigotry included a pitch that he’d little prospect of Jewish votes since…”the Jewish community is rich, [and therefore] simply wouldn’t vote for him”.

While it’s disturbing – particularly on the back of Galloway’s bi-election embarrassment – that a national Labour figure seemed to have identified latent political capital in such filthy rhetoric, London should take some heart from the rejection of this gargoyle on a night where the temptation for voters to echo and reinforce the national anti-Toryism, anti-austerity mood must have been very tempting indeed.

And let’s note: The seeds of Livingstone’s rejection, defeat and consignment to the dustbin of shame should have generated much more mainstream coverage in the British press than was garnered by the dour, part-predictable, part-impenetrable ramblings of France’s neo-fascist poster girl Le Pen. Whatever else is Jean-Marie  Marine, at least she’s a  fundamentally marginal figure.

A topic for another day.

One can only hope Red Ken gets the pillorying he deserves in the hours ahead. After all, how bigoted, cranky, and out-of-touch must one be to lose to a Tory on this night, in this year and during this administration?!

Ken: You’re done.

London: Well done.

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