Dyke rejects offer to run for Mayor of London against Livingstone
Thursday, 19 April 2007
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Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, pulled out of an ambitious plot to stand against Ken Livingstone for mayor of London after the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, vetoed an alliance with the Tories.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, went to see Sir Menzies in his private room at the House of Commons after Prime Minister's Questions yesterday in the hope of brokering a deal to allow Mr Dyke to run as an independent with the backing of both parties.
Sir Menzies rejected the plan, after making it clear that adopting Mr Dyke would breach his party's selection rules. Disappointed Tory aides accused Sir Menzies of pulling the plug on an "experiment in new politics".
Mr Cameron was prepared to shelve primary elections for a mayoral candidate. Now the Tories are looking again at a range of celebrity candidates to stand against Mr Livingstone next spring. They include the actor Tom Conti, who has campaigned against the congestion charge, and the DJ Mike Read. The next mayor will have the added bonus of inviting the world to the capital for the London Olympics in 2012.
The colourful former director general of the BBC said: "I was approached by somebody from the Conservative Party and asked would I have a chat with David Cameron, who I quite like and think has done quite a good job. He said would I be interested in standing for the Conservatives? I think I was one of many they were talking to.
"I said I am not interested in standing for the Conservatives. So I said if you can get a deal with the Liberals, there's a possibility.
"He [Mr Cameron] went into to talk to Menzies to see if there's a possibility and I suspect not. It's too difficult for political parties to break those sort of things."
Mr Dyke, a former Labour supporter who was forced to resign over BBC allegations that Downing Street had "sexed up" the Iraq intelligence dossier, gave money to the Liberal Democrats before the last election because of their opposition to the war on Iraq.
"I would not have stood for either party," he said. "I would only have stood as an independent, but I don't want to stand as an independent when you are clearly going to lose.
"I had a number of people asking me would I be interested. I had a couple of chats with people and I think it's quite clear it's not a runner."
He added: "Ken is a pretty good campaigner. I don't think he has done that bad a job. We live in a world where parties win elections, not individuals. What I was trying to do was change that - it would have been quite interesting new politics.
"I think our political system is going to have to change radically in the next few years, and I wanted to see if anyone was interested but no one was interested so I disappeared."
Conservative sources said Mr Cameron was "deadly serious" about wanting to back Mr Dyke as a joint candidate because it symbolised the "new politics" that he wanted to bring about. The Conservative leader believed that Mr Dyke would have been, "an ideal candidate", said one senior aide, although it would have put some prominent Tory noses out of joint.
"David has been in discussion since last November-December with Greg Dyke, talking about a number of options. One idea Greg had was for him to stand as a joint candidate. This was an idea we were willing to explore. David went to see Sir Menzies but he said they couldn't do this because their constitution doesn't allow it."
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, said: "We are very happy working with the Conservatives on issues such as pensions, but preventing the parties from campaigning would be absolutely wrong.
"We have been talking to Greg Dyke in the past few months. The idea that he would support the Conservatives hadn't occurred to us. Greg was very against the Iraq war."
