In Britain, the media operates on the assumption that the British public is every bit as interested in this year’s US presidential election as the American public itself. It’s an assumption that some British people resent. Among other things, it perhaps exacerbates their sense that a once proud imperial nation is now little more than America’s 51st state.

The resentment of such Britons is hardly assuaged by the knowledge that far from reciprocating British interest in American politics, the US media pays scant attention to British elections, or indeed to British affairs in general. They will have to get used to it, since voluminous coverage of the US election in Britain, as elsewhere, is going to be the order of the day during the coming months. How could it be otherwise when the 2008 presidential contest is by common consent the most enthralling in many years, with its outcome plainly mattering more than that of any other election?

Still, this spring, Britain, or its capital at least, will be holding an election which British people can call their own and which is likely to have more than a little to offer by way of drama and controversy. In May, Londoners have the chance to elect a new mayor of their city or to extend the tenure of the current incumbent Ken Livingstone, who has now held office for eight years. Livingstone is the great survivor of British politics, a former left-wing firebrand who has long since reached an accommodation with big business and nowadays boasts of London’s status not just as the engine of the rest of the British economy but as a financial centre capable of generating more wealth than many national economies.

Livingstone has not been a bad mayor, even if his popularity is scarcely what it was in 2000 when the creation of the office of Mayor of London by the New Labour government of Tony Blair gave him an unexpected chance to resurrect a political career that seemed to have become terminally stalled. As an old-style socialist who never concealed his dislike of Tony Blair’s centre-right politics, the politician once known as ‘Red Ken’ was seen by the prime minister as a political dinosaur and was never going to be invited to serve in the Blair government. The extraordinary irony was that by creating the post of mayor — after years during which London was denied a civil authority of its own — Blair enabled Livingstone to make a political comeback that few thought possible and which was the very last thing Blair himself wanted.

In the 1980s, Livingstone was the leader of the Greater London Council, a body which Britain’s then Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher summarily abolished, regarding it as a publicly funded advertisement for ‘loony left’ politics and therefore urgently needing to be removed as part of her comprehensive program to purge the public mind of the very idea of socialism. A politician to the roots of his being, Livingstone went on to become a Labour MP but he had been for all practical purposes emasculated. No longer able to grab the headlines by making grandstanding overtures to Irish ‘terrorists’ (an initiative in which he proved to be ahead of his time), he subsided into being a bon viveur, writing lucrative restaurant reviews for London’s evening paper.

What was perhaps not grasped by the Blair government was the extent to which Livingstone had established himself as a folk hero during his time as leader of the GLC. Many Londoners had been appalled by the arbitrary manner in which he was ousted from office and were eager to avail themselves of the opportunity to strike back against the establishment forces that had undermined him. When he stood as an independent for the mayoralty, Livingstone effectively eclipsed the official Labour candidate backed by the Blair government, winning the election with almost contemptuous ease. He began his inaugural address with a typically cheeky sally: ‘As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted 14 years ago...’

Few will dispute that Livingstone has tried hard to improve London transport, putting buses galore on the roads, while the Congestion Charge that he imposed on motorists who drive through central London set an example of how to cope with urban traffic that has commanded world-wide attention. Indeed, the Mayor — who lately established a special relationship with the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, offering British expertise on transport policy in return for cheap oil — can claim to have exercised an influence that has been felt far beyond London. If his achievements have otherwise been limited, the reason is that Tony Blair made sure the mayor’s powers would be heavily circumscribed. Increasing the supply of buses was one of the few things that Livingstone was actually able to do; he was powerless to stop the profoundly misguided privatization of the tube. Nor has he been able to stop London’s roads from being endlessly dug up by sub-contracting private utilities companies. Livingstone is being challenged on behalf of the Conservative Party by the former editor of the Spectator magazine Boris Johnson and on behalf of the Liberal democrats by the former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Brian Paddick. They have plenty to challenge him about — not least the current epidemic of gun and knife crimes in London, especially among black teenagers. They have potentially devastating ammunition at their disposal, too, in the shape of the scandal that has broken out regarding Livingstone’s pugnacious ‘Director of Equalities and Policing’, Lee Jasper, who is alleged to have made improper grants of public money to black organizations. Where they will not be able to score points against him is over the Mayor’s stand on security. There has been no hint of ‘loony leftism’ in the unequivocal stance he has taken over the terrorist threat to London; the Mayor has pledged unconditional support to the authoritarian Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, despite the damaging controversy that has dogged Britain’s top policeman over the execution-style killing by his officers of an innocent Brazilian who was mistaken for a terrorist. The problem for Boris Johnson is that he is regarded as a professional buffoon; indeed, this old Etonian, whose trademark is his mass of unruly blond hair, made his name as a clown, regularly taking part in frivolous television shows. He is also afflicted by an extraordinary proneness to gaffes — which have included referring to blacks as ‘piccaninnees’. A former policeman of progressive views, Paddick is a more substantial candidate. As an avowed gay will be seeking to win the backing of the British capital’s large gay community. At all events, much is at stake in London’s impending mayoral election, for its outcome will have large implications for British national politics. If Johnson were to win, his success would hugely boost the cause of the Conservative Party leader David Cameron and further injure the credibility of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown, who has been at least as hostile to Livingstone as Tony Blair, will be particularly anxious to see him prevail.

No one will be greatly surprised if Livingstone survives. Dedicated to nurturing his grass roots support, he has assiduously cultivated the many minorities that make up the population of today’s vastly cosmopolitan London. In recent years, he has gone to great lengths to affirm his commitment to the Muslim community, enduring excoriating criticism over the hospitality he extended to the Egyptian cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. At the same time, he has missed no opportunity to proclaim his sense of kinship with blacks and Jews. Not long ago, he shed tears at an event held to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, and since outraging Jews over a rude remark he made to a Jewish journalist he has spared effort to demonstrate his extreme attentiveness to Jewish concerns, even hinting that he may have Jewish ancestry.

Livingstone’s opponents need no reminding that they are up against a truly formidable political operator.