Not anymore. Livingstone is now poised to become the first popularly elected mayor of London. Last week he broke with Labour to run as an independent against Blair’s choice, former Health secretary Frank Dobson, in the May 4 mayoral election. Riding a wave of popular support, Livingstone has gone from outdated socialist to folk hero. He appears to have won over the capital as much by his plain speaking and oddball humor as by his policies. According to one poll last week, Livingstone outpaces his rivals with 68 percent of voter support. “It must be my raw animal magnetism,” he deadpanned to NEWSWEEK.

For the Labour leadership, the Livingstone insurgency is no joke. “I believe passionately that he would be a disaster,” Blair said. To him, Livingstone represents the party’s former “Loony Left,” which modernizers blame for four straight election defeats. Blairites shudder to remember some of the GLC’s missteps, including boycotting Charles and Diana’s wedding. In the end, Margaret Thatcher’s exasperated Tory government abolished the GLC.

But Labour’s latest “Stop Ken” movement seems to have backfired. “The more the Labour Party tries to vilify him,” said Labour M.P. Paul Flynn, “the more he will be seen as some kind of victim and voters will come towards him.” In the highly spun world of New Labour, Livingstone is seen as a refreshing performer who sounds like he’s written his own lines.

The Labour bust-up delights its rivals. “This is proof that God is a Tory,” cheered Steven Norris, the Conservative Party’s mayoral candidate. Tory leader William Hague has described Livingstone as Blair’s “worst night mayor.” But Hague is in no position to gloat; the Tories’ first choice for mayoral candidate, the novelist Jeffrey Archer, was forced to quit in November because he allegedly asked a friend to lie in court about his relationship with a prostitute. Norris himself has been lampooned in the tabloids as “Shagger Norris” after a series of extramarital flings.

Whoever gets the newly created job, it won’t be easy. The mayor of London is now a high-profile office, overseeing 8.5 million people–and myriad problems. Public transport is a wreck. Crime is on the rise. Of England’s 20 poorest local authorities, 13 are in London. No candidate may be up to solving such problems. But the rise of Red Ken is at least providing Londoners with an entertaining distraction.