Seumas Milne: The national fallout from London will be felt for years

For all Ken Livingstone's accommodations with the City of London and Boris Johnson's jokes and floppy hair, the dividing lines could not be clearer. This is a battle between a veteran radical who has used his powers to redistribute, to protect the environment and help make London one of the most successful multicultural cities in the world, and a Thatcherite privateer and opponent of the Kyoto treaty who backed the Iraq war and has managed to alienate almost every one of the ethnic minorities who make up 40% of the capital's population.

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