Still an Apprentice

It is not news to learn Ken Livingstone wishes to be London Mayor again. It is also hardly a revelation to discover the London Labour Party has been trawling the lists of members for a suitable figure to prevent Ken being the candidate again.

Alan Sugar is the latest name. But we've been here before. Greg Dyke was proclaimed by the Evening Standard in 2007 as the perfect 'stop Ken' candidate. This is nothing more than wishful thinking. Had Dyke been selected or if the LLP really loses its marbles and selects Sugar then Ken will, as before, stand as an independent, split the opposition vote and win.

I'm not sure there is much political acumen being deployed when a party is even contemplating adopting Sugar or 'Sir Alan' as he fastidiously prefers. He has a few positive attributes; high public profile, successful, decisive. But to even appear as a competent candidate for such a responsible position requires political skills Sugar patently does not have.

The following quote captures his approach to problem-solving, "Common sense prevails that someone like me who tends to cut to the chase, so to speak, would be the right kind of person to look after a city like London .... I've always been one of those people that walks in the office in the morning and says 'this is what we're going to do'."

A job like London mayor is not simply about strong, unbending leadership. It requires experience in judging what is good advice and having the humility to take it. How would Sugar's billious and often personal attacks on his colleagues lead him to make the right choices on nursery care provision?

Ken has a long way to go to climb back into the Mayor's seat especially when 'Bonkers' Johnson has been preceived to be making a fair fist of the job so far. Livingstone ran a pretty lacklustre campaign last year and yet came quite close (53% to 47%) despite Labour going 'below sea-level' in the simultaneous local elections. William Hills are offering Ken at a tempting 14/1 for 2012 while Boris is evens and Sugar a measly 10-1.

Sir Alan enjoys the political insult too much to succeed but certainly he has a memorable turn of phrase. Asked about Lib-Dem MP Simon Hughes's chances in 2004, he looked deadpan as usual and exhaled, "If thirty-five years in business has taught me one thing - you can't polish a t*rd."