TERRY DIGNAN: County Hall, former home to the GLC. Today it indulges the desires of the consumer age. In the eighties it was a left wing stronghold. Now New Labour's painful memories of that era are being revived. Preparing to test his political strength is County Hall's most famous former occupant. His aim - to be candidate for London mayor. His name - Ken Livingstone. NICK RAYNSFORD: He's been shredding policies like there's no tomorrow. MARGARET HODGE: Ken is deeply stuck in the past. JOHN CARR: He's politically untrustworthy and very opportunist. ALAN SUGAR: He's a very, very dangerous character to have such an important position. LORD MCINTOSH: I'm afraid I'm quite depressed about the prospect if Ken Livingstone were to be elected as mayor. DIGNAN: One of London's latest attractions, near the River. Ken Livingstone's already taken this ride and from this vantage point has surveyed the city he hopes to run. The thought of Ken Livingstone becoming the first ever elected mayor for London sends a shiver down the spine of just about everyone in Labour's leadership. They regard him as the symbol of all that made Labour unelectable in the 1980s. He may have been the darling of the party activists. But according to his critics as leader of the GLC he was a disaster, going out of his way to antagonise precisely those voters that Labour needed to win over to achieve power again at Westminster. Livingstone's enemies warn that if he gets the chance to run London again he'll bring chaos to the capital and send Labour voters running to the Tories. Ken Livingstone shot to fame eighteen years ago on becoming GLC leader. He had a genius for attracting publicity good or bad. As London was bombed he met with Irish Republicans. But there was never a dull moment with Ken Livingstone in charge. His antics angered Labour MPs and Mrs Thatcher who ditched the GLC. On his first visit back to County Hall since abolition, Labour's Lord McIntosh, who Ken Livingstone overthrew to become GLC leader. He recalls Fares Fair - which cut bus and tube costs and sides with those who attack Livingstone as financially reckless. LORD MCINTOSH: What people don't seem to realise is that, that policy was actually opposed by Ken Livingstone. The papers that he produced for the election policy were not so much for a Fares' Fair policy but a Fare Free policy, in other words, no fares at all. And I had to get that defeated before we could get down to business of Fares Fair. Apart from that, I don't think there's anything that is of lasting significance that comes out of the Livingstone regime. HODGE: They had an economic development policy which they pursued through the Greater London Enterprise Board. Something like eighty million pounds of London ratepayers' money was spent by that enterprise board acquiring businesses - that was a lot of money, you know, fifteen years ago. None of that money created jobs. None of that money saved jobs. None of that money helped actually those most disadvantaged in the labour market which was, it was supposed to, particularly people from the black and ethnic minorities or indeed women. It was complete wasted money. DIGNAN: While Neil Kinnock fought to make Labour electable, Ken Livingstone continued to attract publicity - of the wrong kind say Labour's leadership. County Hall's basement now houses exotic marine life. Former colleagues remember how every species of Labour's left once flourished here. CARR: Ken Livingstone represented a key bit of that hard left - loony left, whatever you want to call it - in London that was a major obstacle to Labour under Neil Kinnock, winning enough credibility with the voters to win a general election. And all of the moves that Kinnock made to try and reform and modernise the party - expelling Militant, expelling Derek Hatton and people like that - Ken Livingstone opposed. HODGE: Ken has opposed every single one of those reforms that have been put through to modernise the Labour Party and to create the New Labour Party which is now the new Labour Government. So his whole instinct, his whole philosophy, his whole values, his whole experience, is rooted in the past. Ken is a character of the past. He is not somebody who is competent to be the first London mayor of the future. DIGNAN: If Ken Livingstone becomes the mayor for London it could provide him with the perfect platform to launch attacks on the Government at Westminster. The nightmare scenario for New Labour is if Mayor Livingstone becomes a magnet for all those left wingers who remain bitterly opposed to the Blair philosophy. It's feared that instead of addressing London's needs Livingstone and his allies would be too busy picking fights with Ten Downing Street. On the stump he doesn't exactly go out of his way to play down fears he's hankering to have a go at New Labour. KEN LIVINGSTONE: If I am elected as mayor next year I recognise that my duty is to speak for London and to tell the Government what London needs. It is not to tell Londoners what a difficult time the Government is having. CARR: Let us be absolutely clear. Ken opposes everything that Tony Blair and New Labour stands for. The party nationally would never forgive us if we gave him another chance to wreak havoc in Labour Party politics. HODGE: We don't want somebody who thrives on conflict, whose really greatest motivating force is to promote himself. DIGNAN:: If Ken Livingstone does become Mayor there'll be no room for him at County Hall now this area's designed for tourists not political visionaries. The Government has plans for a state of the art mayoral home just down the river. Desperate to get here, Livingstone, say critics, dreams up policies - then drops them as unworkable. NICK RAYNSFORD: He used to believe in increasing the frequency of trains. Now he realises he can't afford it, so that policy has become inoperative. He used to believe in bringing back Routemaster buses with conductors. Now he knows he can't fund it so that policy has become inoperative. He used to argue for an airport tax, to fund free access to the zoo. But now he concedes that's a non-starter - another policy that's become inoperative. Frankly, he is not credible. He hasn't got serious policies and that is why he's trying to run this campaign purely on issues of personality and attacking the process of the election. And that is, quite simply, the response of a candidate who knows he has not got credible policies and the people of London will not support him. CARR: He used to have a great throwaway line when he was leader. He used to say that consistency is overrated - well, that's certainly true with Ken. Ken can perfectly happily believe something today and junk it tomorrow. DIGNAN: But Livingstone has consistently opposed Government transport policy in London. He rejects privatised rail companies running the tube. His alternative is to invest in the Underground by raising money from selling bonds. RAYNSFORD: A local authority or a city-wide authority like this can only gain the confidence of investors and attract money through bond issues if it's seen as a credible body that will repay its debt. And I'm afraid Ken Livingstone simply doesn't have the confidence of business, and the likelihood of him being able to establish a bond issue is frankly laughable. DIGNAN: Just below Ken Livingstone's former office is football's Hall of Fame. Football today attracts powerful figures from business. There's a warning they could cool towards New Labour if Livingstone is allowed to become mayor. ALAN SUGAR: There was a kind of scepticism, so to speak, when Tony Blair said that his New Labour was going to be new, but you know, we are now, you know, two and a half, three years into it, are we not, and, you know, the signs we see are that it is genuine and that it's working and I think - I talk from my point of view and I'm sure I talk from a lot of other business people's point of view - if the policies remain the same as, as they have promised, then it's quite good. Something like this fellow coming in - as the mayor - could actually clobber the goodwill that, that, that has been established." DIGNAN: County Hall's most feared residents have little to teach New Labour. Could Livingstone be its next victim?. Labour Party HQ is alleged to be pulling out all the stops to make sure Ken Livingstone doesn't become Labour's candidate for London mayor. Livingstone's supporters say even the rules of the contest have been changed to make it harder for him to win. Yet even if he does lose the battle to be Labour's candidate he could still become mayor - but that would mean standing against Labour as an independent." RAYNSFORD: He has on several occasions given very clear hints that he would stand as an Independent. I certainly wouldn't rule out that possibility. He is, of course, temperamentally a loner. It's one of the characteristics of Ken. HODGE: I have heard that he has been at meetings with business people and others where he has said privately that if he is not successful in coming through as Labour's candidate he will stand against the Labour Party. And I think that says it all about his obsession with his own future rather than his loyalty to the party. DIGNAN: Today it's the tourists who flock to County Hall. In Ken Livingstone's day it was left wing activists with the media close behind. New Labour blames Livingstone for helping to make the party unelectable in the eighties. Give him another chance and Tony Blair fears he might do the same again.