Ignoring for now the implications of that throwaway label, just note that it was all he had to say about the campaign as such. But "where is it?" demanded Crick. Anyone who's bumped into Johnson as he tours the country, or found a lonely handful of leafleters in a shopping centre somewhere might have noticed that Labour is running a campaign, but for many of us it's just the occasional media interview with Johnson himself or some random Labour MP who's clearly not devoted much time to the question.
The other insights I got from Livingstone before I turned off in exasperation were:
- he thinks the EU is pretty useless but we should stay in to improve it (probably using the "Make it so" method of those who can criticise at the drop of a hat but have nothing but slogans to replace the various evils they identify)
- he reminded us that there are more pressing votes before 23 June, and that Labour will turn its attention across the Channel after 5 May (when they will be celebrating/lamenting their results in English councils, Scotland, Wales and London) and "get the core vote out".
Your core vote, Mr Livingstone, isn't big enough to win the referendum, and a third of them are talking to UKIP anyway. @lbc— Ed Wilson (@eddwilson) March 26, 2016
Three months to go before the referendum, and I see a Remain campaign presented by Tories who otherwise don't deserve support and minor figures who are either unprepared or so obviously public relations types that they deserve to be ignored.
Grassroots Out was reported yesterday to have spent £7 million already (spending is not properly controlled until the regulated 10-week campaigning period. This is a grassroots organisation of people who only really care about this referendum.
There's still a good chance of legal battles when one of the rival Leave organisations is designated as the lead campaign, but it's time people like me did something useful rather than just moaning about the pitiful inadequacy of Ken Livingstone's "core vote strategy".
