If the facts change, then Mr Tony Blair believes one should be “big enough” to change one’s mind. After showing exemplary steadfastness with such things (or nothings) as weapons of mass destruction, Mr Blair has now shown exemplary adaptability with admitting Mr Ken Livingstone back into the Labour Party. But such big-heartedness could well look like opportunism to less generous political animals. Mr Livingstone had been expelled from the Labour Party in 2000, and banned for five years, for standing as an independent mayoral candidate against the official Labour candidate, and then flamboyantly defeating the latter. At that time, Mr Blair and most of his colleagues were frothing at the mouth with Mr Livingstone turning disloyalty into mass appeal in such style. The prime minister had then believed “passionately” that Mr Livingstone would be a “disaster”. And Mr Livingstone, until as late as 2003, believed, just as passionately, that he would remain an independent at the next mayoral election. In the mean time, “Red Ken” has continued to be the “cheeky chappie” (Mr Roy Hattersley’s phrase) that he has always been, on top of being a very good mayor. He has opposed England’s involvement in the Iraq war, and declared Mr George Bush “the greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen”. He has also successfully introduced London’s traffic congestion charge in the teeth of a concerted media and political campaign against it. In housing, transport and policing, he has managed to push through equally contentious, but successful, schemes.

Quite evidently, Mr Livingstone is a winner, and is likely to be one in the next mayoral elections, with or without the Labour Party. Now the Labour Party could well do with a winner — and there is more in common between Messrs Livingstone and Blair than either may care to admit. Both are making a second election victory their priority. Besides, the European elections happen to be on the same day as the London mayoral ones. A Labour candidate coming through with flying colours would certainly help matters there. Mr Livingstone must therefore be taken in again, and if this shows Mr Blair up as a more humble and noble human being, in admitting that he had been wrong about his colleague, then all the better. Messrs Hattersley and Gordon Brown (the chancellor) have chosen to remain tight-lipped. The former is talking of compromised principles, and the latter is still raw over his nasty brawl with Mr Livingstone about the privatization of the London Underground. But Red Ken is certainly looking forward to having the last laugh.