Ken Livingstone Goes On Stage In Chiswick

---

Former Mayor attends Stand Up For Labour event

Chiswick played host to an unlikely double act of Ken Livingstone and Arthur Smith.

Taking place at the George IV pub in Chiswick High Road, Stand up for Labour showed the local Labour Party's determination to win back the Brentford and Isleworth constituency from Mary Macleod.

Ken Livingstone told the 200-strong crowd that the next general election will be as important as the elections of 1945 and 1979 and that he believed Ed Milliband was the only leader who held the only viable long-term economic policy.

Livingstone also said he was sorry he had lost to Boris Johnson in the Mayoral election but was sure someone else will beat him next time.

Livingstone and another speaker, Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith, brought up the issue of NHS privatisation, the effect this will have on local hospitals and its impact on the cost of health care.

Emerging star Joe Wells raised the roof with his sharp political observations as did a character act based on Pauline Prescott, the MP's wife, performed by Lucy Beaumont.

Arthur Smith

But it was always going to be Arthur Smith's show. And his performance of one-liners, poetry and personal stories had audience members calling for more. Arthur Smith delivered the punchlines, while Ken Livingstone and Andy Slaughter, the MP for Hammersmith, focused on the burning political issues such as the closure of A&Es in west London.

Another Stand up for Labour event is planned for the autumn.

Crispin Flintoff

July 25, 2012