- guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 February 2000 15.29 GMT
His closest political intimates think he is already 95% certain about standing, but wants solid confirmation from several opinion polls that he would be likely to win.
Splitting the Labour vote and letting in a Tory or Liberal Democrat mayor has never been part of Livingstones game plan. He will run only if his lead in the opinion polls is commanding enough to survive a likely weakening of his support during fierce campaigning against him from the massed ranks of all the official parties in the run-up to the election on 4 May.
Livingstones probable calculation is that 44-50% support would be enough if the other candidates are fairly evenly split. Todays poll in the London Evening Standard satisfied that test by giving Livingstone 50%, with 22% for Labours Frank Dobson, 15% for the Tory Steven Norris and 8% for the Liberal Democrats Susan Kramer.
The question for Livingstone is all about political arithmetic. He long since passed the psychological barrier of conceiving the possibility of running against the party he has served for more than 30 years. If Tony Blair had refused to let him fight for the Labour nomination, he would have been an independent candidate already.
Blair has nothing to offer now that could conceivably be attractive enough buy his continued loyalty. Any doubts that the prime minister might have had about this must have been dispelled when the two men held private talks at Chequers on Saturday.
Livingstone will be spending much of this week working out who might run on his slate of independent candidates for seats in the Greater London assembly. He will also be looking to raise at least £500,000 to fund his campaign - way beyond the £70,000 spent by his organisation so far.
But I dont expect the announcement for a few more days.
John Carvel, the Guardians education editor, is Ken Livingstones biographer. You can buy his book, Turn Again Livingstone, online here for £6.29, a 10% saving on the list price.
