Doreen Lawrence, Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone

No one has done more than Ken Livingstone to give aid and succour to the enemies of the Welfare State, workers' rights, progressive taxation, full employment, and the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. And no one has done more to undermine London's character as an English-speaking, monarchist city with a Christian heritage.

Don't these things matter to the Afro-Caribbean community at least as much as to several others? (For that matter, no one has done more, in his day, to make life difficult for Londoners from Irish backgrounds.) Being "more British than the British" was what brought them here in the first place.

But Britishness is at least as much a Keynsian and Beveridgite concept as anything else. Look at Gibraltar, where by far the most strongly pro-British party is an outgrowth of the T&G, describes itself on its own website as "Old Labour", and takes greatest pride in two things: having seen off successive Spanish threats, and having secured for its trade union base wage parity with Britain. Hear, hear!

Or look at the arguments rightly advanced in favour of the Union in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: as long ago as the 1940s, Sinn Fein was fretting that its support was being eroded by the Welfare State; if Labour had had the wit to organise in Northern Ireland, then just consider what we all might have been spared.

And look at the West Indians: English-speaking, monarchist, church-going, and Old Labour in not just the pre-Blair, but the pre-Scargill and pre-Militant, sense. They'd fit right in in the whitest parts of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the North and the Midlands.

But everybody knows about Livingstone, and even so he's already won twice. Bringing up anything about him now, as if anyone didn't know it, would just be silly, and if the specific instance had never been mentioned before, would raise the question of why not.

Meanwhile, Boris is dead in the water. A Tory was never going to win an all-London, one person one vote ballot anyway. They might as well lose with dignity, around and behind a serious candidate, which Boris simply isn't. Only a buffoon casts himself as a buffoon, and that is what Boris has done. And only an Old Etonian or a member of the Bullingdon Club (and he is, of course, both) would, or even could, still have the Whip after this.

But even if he did stand and win, then he'd only have the job for about six weeks, after which there'd be no such job to have. The position of Mayor of London was invented specifically for Livingstone, in order to get him out of the Commons and thus prevent him from standing against Brown when the time came.

There had to be some official Labour um-ing and ah-ing when he put up as an Independent, but everyone knew that he was going to win. And then he re-joined Labour, which, if it ever now lost the mayorality to a Tory (or a Lib Dem, come to that), would follow the precedent set by Thatcher over the GLC, and simply abolish the position.

In the meantime, where is the Independent candidate of black and white unity on the basis of the Welfare State, workers' rights, progressive taxation, full employment, the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government, and London's character as an English-speaking, monarchist city with a Christian heritage?

That candidacy is key to the national building of a new political movement, so do get in touch: davidaslindsay@hotmail.com