As Livingstone reverts to type, the Tories look at London with justified ambition

Say what you like about Ken Livingstone, you can’t accuse him of failing to spot a political opportunity. When the position of mayor of London was created in 2000, other possible contenders turned up their noses, saying its powers, finances and staff were so limited it was a ‘non-job’. But Livingstone — please don’t call him Ken, it turns him into a folk icon — realised it was just a starting point. He realised that if the London mayor — who has the largest directly electoral mandate of any politician in Britain — behaves himself, then it would be impossible for MPs in that English gothic palace a mile or so down the Thames from City Hall to resist giving him new powers.

And on Tuesday night, his strategy bore fruit. The New Livingstone, still a man of the people but now also a man of reason, got within grasping distance of a range of new powers over planning, waste, health, culture, housing and tackling climate change when the embattled Greater London Authority Bill was finally passed by the House of Commons.