Ken Livingstone was left deeply embarrassed yesterday after a “joke” in which he declared that his proudest political achievement was “smashing” new Labour spectacularly backfired.

During an interview for his website, Mr Livingstone described the pleasure he took when he “ground” the Labour Party “into the dust” as an independent candidate in the 2000 London mayoral election.

The release of the footage, to the Red Box blog on TimesOnline, was planned by a handful of members of his current mayoral campaign team but others who were unaware of its existence until yesterday morning, including Tessa Jowell, Mr Livingstone’s campaign manager, were horrified.

Its release prompted a day of briefing and counter-briefing from different arms of the Labour Party as it tried to deflect the growing sense of disorganisation and lack of political antennae within the campaign.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayoral candidate, condemned the remarks, saying that Mr Livingstone’s failure to nominate a serious improvement to London as his greatest achievement was a sad indictment. This came as a new panel of 100 MPs, think-tank leaders, party strategists and political journalists on the website PoliticsHome.com revealed a significant shift in Westminster insiders who think that Mr Livingstone will win the May 1 election.

The panel, known as Phi100, revealed that only a quarter of opinion formers in Westminster think that Mr Livingstone will win, down from just under a half a fortnight ago.

Last night the Livingstone campaign team were trying to play down the significance of the footage. It shows Mr Livingstone being asked: “Looking back on your political history, what would you say was your proudest moment?”

He replies: “Oh, it’s taking on and smashing the new Labour machine in 2000 when Tony Blair wouldn’t let me run for mayor and just grinding them into the dust.” Laughing, he then adds: “But you won’t be able to use that one.”

The clip infuriated members of his campaign team, particularly Ms Jowell, an arch-Blairite. “Sometimes things may seem funny in advance but they fall flat when they become public,” her aide said. Mr Livingstone’s team defended the video as an April Fool’s joke initially, but admitted later that the footage itself was genuine and formed part of a longer interview filmed ten days ago and due for release on the Back Ken website.

Aides from the London Labour Party told ITV London that the entire thing was a hoax filmed specifically for April Fool’s Day but this was denied by Mr Livingstone’s campaign team. A spokesman for Mr Livingstone said: “In the course of 30 to 40 minutes of filming Ken made a flippant off-the-cuff joke. It was just a bit of fun. Ken is most proud of being elected Mayor of London twice, but being mayor means you don’t need to drop your sense of humour.”

His remarks are thought, however, to reflect his personal anger towards Tony Blair, who insisted that the Labour party select Frank Dobson over him for the 2000 campaign.

Mr Johnson said: “What a sad indictment that when asked to describe his greatest political achievement, Ken Livingstone cannot name making the streets safer, improving public transport, protecting open spaces or providing value for money. What more evidence do Londoners need that this mayor has had his day?”

What readers said

“We voted for him against new Labour. Now he is new Labour, how are we going to vote next time?” Horrid Harold

“I almost spat my tea out . . . It’s why Londoners love Ken — he’s one of us and he says it like he sees it” Graham

“Calling it an April Fool is a pretty weak defence. This is a man who is interested only in playing politics and winning petty battles — not the needs and concerns of ordinary Londoners” jeh

“Voting for mayor is not about politics, it’s about personalities” ShkTrgr

TimesOnline’s Red Box blog

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