Why are they allowed to screw up the streets, the air and the buses for the other 87 per cent? Even if you live in Pinner or Bromley, the well-to- do are suffering from London’s ills too. He says cabbies and coppers and all sorts are telling him to go for the job, so he will.What does he stand for? An apocalyptic sense that London no longer thrives, but chokes on its own filth and pollution, and is in danger from rack- rent landlords, social strife, and fear of crime everywhere; its street life is dying and, above all, its transport system is a creeking, failing disaster “Only 13 per cent of commuters come into London by car. Psephologists reckon the chances are stacked against any Labour candidate, let alone Livingstone who, though still much loved, is the least likely to attract wavering Tory votes. For the first London mayoral election will hit mid-term, in the middle of an as yet unquantifiable downturn in the economy.The heart sinks at watching this bright new idea already mired in the stale old Westminster mind-set. How are Londoners to be ignited by a new municipal enthusiasm if it’s all just a dreary re-run of national politics? What’s more, Labour is likely to lose.The deadly secret that emerges from Labour’s private polling is that Londoners passionately do not want a party-political candidate.

Labour is pondering over how to stop Livingstone sweeping the board in a primary, which their secret polling indicates. He laughs that they are trying to draw up a special London constitution that would ban him from standing (“No one with a nasal voice from south London, for instance,” he suggests).
This is not just spite on Labour’s side, but good sense: he might win the primary but couldn’t win the election. There will probably be a Labour and Tory primary – (there’ll be an outcry if either party tries an inside fix). That will leave just one candidate each, with the others banned from running against their own.

But putative Tory rivals include Chris Patten, Steven Norris, Alan Clarke, David Mellor. On the Labour side candidates may be Ken Livingstone, Glenda Jackson, Margaret Hodge, Tony Banks, and The Independent’s own Trevor Phillips. Then there are a few non-party names – Fred Housego, Richard Branson and Peter Stringfellow. The idea that this could be a non-party campaign is fast fading. Belatedly it has learnt from the French that if you talk the right talk, you can get away with Euro-policy murder. Oiled by a practised Whitehall machine, the British EU presidency has made an efficient start, and will doubtless continue in that vein But the presidency lasts only until June 30. Then it will be back to business as usual, and all the positive talk in the world will not conceal the fact that Britain is on the outside of the most ambitious project in Europe’s post-war history.

Life in “Brussels” will chug on of course, increasingly in the English language But Brussels’ soul, if not its body, will remain foreign.. Until now, the only hat definitely in the ring for Mayor of London has been Jeffrey Archer’s shiny topper. His campaign team is already chasing about glad-handing anyone in sight. The rest of the possible party candidates are more circumspect – won’t say yes and won’t say no. A single currency will give the EU a larger role in the IMF, a reserve currency to rival the dollar, and a louder voice in global financial diplomacy.

Had the euro been up and running now, Europe’s visible involvement in tackling the Asian problem would surely have been much greater.And what of the British in all this? Despite the fuss over Britain’s vain demand to be represented on the “Euro-X” council of single currency finance ministers, the shine is still largely on the Blair government. A common monetary policy will, as a result of the Maastricht criteria, perforce bring more closely co-ordinated fiscal policies in its wake. And come 2002, when euro notes and coins are circulating, it will surely be too late to dismantle the single currency.By then, the indirect, political consequences will be kicking in. In that case public opinion could force governments to turn against the project But none of this is happening yet.