OUTSIDE of London, the race to be its mayor is of no direct concern for voters. But, already shot through with farce over the choice of runners, it promises to be a fascinating sideshow for the whole country now that Labour rebel Ken Livingstone has kicked over the traces completely and decided to run as an independent.

It is a move that is said to have opened up the deepest split in the Labour Party for years.

But this, surely, is hyperbole.

Anyone who imagines a credible Left-wing alternative to Blairite New Labour building up around 'Red' Ken's breakaway need only look as far as Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party to see that Livingstone has taken a similar step into the wilderness as far as being a new force in British politics is concerned.

But even so, he could be Mayor of London - elected precisely because of his maverick posture and in order that Downing Street is taught that voters will not be dictated to, as they have been with the Labour leadership's manipulation to exclude Livingstone.

This has given the rebel the opportunity to renege on his repeated assurances that he would never stand against a Labour candidate by claiming that he is defending the principle of London's right to govern itself.

But even if there is plenty of sympathy for this posture and the antipathy for the control tactics of Tony Blair the outcome will depend on how Londoners treat this contest. Either they will see it as the serious business of choosing the best person to run their city or regard it as a cudgel of the sort that voters use at parliamentary by-elections to give the government a clout.

Indeed, the Labour leader has invited one with the sort of interference that demonstrates his idea of devolution is one that comes with puppet-strings attached to Downing Street.

But will this itch blind serious voters to Livingstone's dreadful past when he ran the city in the 1980s as leader of the old Greater London Council?

The loony Leftism in 'Red' Ken's baggage - the peacenik propaganda, support for the IRA at the height of its terror campaign, backing for feminist extremism, hostility towards the police and, above all, the nigh-doubling of London's rates - provide mountains of ammunition for his opponents to hurl at this now-isolated figure.

The mud will fly in what is sure to be a dirty campaign.

But has voter revulsion at Tony Blair's insulting control-freakery handed Ken a Teflon coating to withstand it and win?

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