I've known Ken for more than 25 years - has he still got the hunger for power?

Campaign trail: Ken Livingstone canvassing in Lewisham earlier this week

Ken Livingstone was on confident form. When the election is over, he told a roomful of elderly Labour supporters, fix up a meeting, come and see me at City Hall and we'll sort out that new bus route. It was late morning and he was in south-east London, in a church hall in Eltham.

It was the first time in nearly 30 years I had been in the same room as Ken and I'd almost forgotten how charismatic he can be. The old magnetism is still there, and as he talked in that strange but infinitely persuasive voice I found myself thinking of our last encounter, in May 1981.

Labour had just won control of the Greater London Council in an election as exciting as the one being fought now. It was a triumph for the Labour group leader, Andrew McIntosh, who had led a brilliant campaign, but there were rumours he was about to be deposed in a Left-wing putsch.

I confronted Ken at County Hall and asked him if it were true that he and his cronies were indeed planning to rob McIntosh of his famous victory. He wouldn't say, of course, but a few hours later he did exactly that. Many thought it was a shabby trick, but it launched Ken's political career.

The penultimate week of his current campaign seemed a timely moment to see how much, if at all, he has changed. On BBC TV's Question Time last night, we saw flashes of the old Ken, upbeat and witty. But he looked lame, too, when forced onto the defensive over suspicions that his much vaunted triumphs are not all they seem.

He says he has put more police on the streets, someone asked, but where are they? And why did he mislead Londoners over plans to bring in bus and Tube fare increases after the election?

For the first time, as the Standard has revealed, Ken has peered into the abyss of defeat. He has described his main rival, Boris Johnson, as "formidable" and he has never faced a challenge of this magnitude before. So how is he coping?

Cut to the restored splendour of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Less than eight hours have passed since Ken's bubbly performance in Eltham but he seemed dramatically changed. He was sharing a platform with Johnson, Brian Paddick and the Christian Choice candidate, Alan Craig. The event was organised by the Evangelical Alliance and many of the audience in the church were committed Christians who can be expected to use their votes with care.

Craig, a straight-talking local councillor, was given a warm reception. Next to him, Boris Johnson was attentive and quick. On the end was Brian Paddick, alert and lucid. Then there was Ken.

He was slumped in his chair, rubbing a hand often over his face. He seemed drained and it was hard to reconcile the image he presented with the self-assured persona of the morning. What had happened in the intervening few hours?

Whatever it was, the body language spoke of a deep weariness. The impression was reinforced by the proximity of Paddick, ramrod-straight and looking freshly scrubbed. Ken is about the same height as Boris, but as Ken sagged in his chair Boris's shoulders were at his eye-level. In an uncharacteristic lapse Ken rambled on about how, in an age of anxiety about carbon emissions, people were going to have to forgo holiday trips by air.

Boris retorted that rather than picking on family holidays, Ken should address the profligate use of aircraft by his City Hall officials, 318 in the past year alone. As a murmur ran around the church, Ken seemed to sink even lower in his chair.

Then, half an hour before the scheduled end, Ken left for a pre-arranged private commitment. He exited the church flanked by his aides. He seemed to shuffle and his smile was distant and fixed, his eyes rheumy. Was he ill? His team says he has been fighting a cold.

Ken will be 63 in June and, like all the other candidates, he has been pursuing a gruelling schedule. Some days he seems to defy the passing of the years. He is sharp, funny and brilliantly in command of the detail. You feel the old fire burns as brightly as it ever did and that even the rich political diet of City Hall has failed to take the edge off his hunger. Then there are moments, like at St Martin-in-the-Fields, when Ken seems vulnerable. Indeed, at times he seems heartily sick of the whole business, wondering why he has to go through all this when, as everyone knows, he is the only person who can run London. What a tiresome distraction, his occasional impatience seems to suggest.

There is something else. Labour canvassers are bringing back a message that has given Ken pause for thought. One told me: "Generally, support is holding up quite well. But people are fed up with politicians. There is quite a lot of uncertainty and anger out there. They see the cost of living going up, council tax going up and maybe they haven't seen any benefits. It's tough trying to explain to them that Ken has done a good job."

Others in Ken's camp say that as the election nears, minds are being concentrated. "The last thing they want is to take a chance on Boris," one said.

BUT how much of a chance would they be taking on Ken? As he himself said after being tackled about breaking his promise not to raise the congestion charge: "I do not ask them to trust me. I do not go into an election saying, 'Trust me, I am a politician.' I go into an election saying, 'If I'm elected I will do what I think is right. You may not like it."

And many don't. Ken was in Lewisham this week, trumpeting the success of his bus policies. "We have massively expanded the bus service," he said, reeling off figures to show that there were more buses on more routes than ever before and many more people were taking advantage of them. "This is the only city in the world where there has been a shift from cars to buses," he said.

No doubt. But the car-bus equation may be more complex than Ken imagines. A few hundred yards from Lewisham bus station, where Ken was speaking, Mark Saville runs a shop he opened in 1998. Saville is a tailor, specialising in high-quality bespoke menswear. He has been in business since 1975 and from the crisp, beautifully finished look of the jackets and coats in his shop he is very good at it. That is not to say his business is a success.

"I'm only just hanging on," he said. "We all are, round here." He opened the door of his shop and gestured down the road, Loampit Vale. "See all those shutters? They should be open now, but there is no one to open for."

Saville explained that Loampit Vale is a red route and a year ago a nearby car park was closed down. "You can't get here by car now," he said. "My business is down by 70 per cent. People want to use their cars. The politicians should try to understand that. I'm trying to hang on for another two years until I retire, then this place will be gone. Other shops around here will be as well. This used to be a thriving little spot. Now it's a bus route."

Ken will probably never know about the fate of the small businesses on Loampit Vale, or the dehumanising effect their disappearance will produce. But his trip to south-east London did reveal pockets of discontent in an unlikely place: among his own supporters.

The Middle Park Community Centre in Eltham is a triumph of local energy and resolve. The community recently acquired a redundant Catholic church and volunteers have turned it into an airy meeting hall with a newly sanded parquet floor and gleaming paintwork.

Ken turned up for what was meant to be a friendly chat with mainly elderly Labour voters. He gave them his usual message about how he'd improved the buses, boosted welfare and increased police numbers. It seemed to be going well - until some hard questions emerged. Where, one Eltham resident asked, were all these police Ken was talking about, a question Ken faced on television last night? We see community officers, he said, but real policemen? Never.

There was some embarrassed shuffling among the local Labour councillors and Ken assured him that the policemen were there all right, he'd just missed them.

Linda Corbell was not so easily placated. She runs a breakfast and after-school club from the community centre and has 151 children on her books. "We have had to put our charges up from £3 a child to £6.40," she told Ken. "Why? Because we can't get funding."

Ken said he had put extra funds in place for local councils, but the money was available only to new initiatives. This is unlikely to help Ms Corbell's long-established project. A local resident said: "Lin does a fantastic job. God knows what would happen to those kids if that club wasn't there. They get picked up from school and given a proper tea and they are looked after until 6pm. But they struggle to manage on the money they get."

Ms Corbell said: "I've got one woman with five kids. She's at her wits' end. She won't even open her door. We had another lady of 78 who couldn't get into her bath. We organised a bath seat for her. We are doing work that needs to be done, but we can't get help with our funding."

At this, one's mind strays to the excesses of Ken's office at City Hall, the £3,200 a day paid to Bob Kiley for doing nothing, the army of press officers and the £2 million a year spent on The Londoner, Ken's vehicle for self-promotion. It seems unwise to mention any of this to the feisty Ms Corbell.

She has been organising the after-school club for 26 years and thinks Labour politicians should be doing more to help. But that does not mean she will be running into the arms of Boris.

Indeed, talking to people in this part of London, one finds little support for him or the Conservatives.

"Boris? He's just a joker, isn't he?" an elderly lady told me. "He doesn't inspire confidence in me." This view was echoed by others who said that, for all his faults, Ken was their man. One had to take into account, of course, the fact that Ken had just told them Boris will probably take away their free travel passes, something Boris vehemently denies. But it is a proposition as terrifying as one can imagine for people for whom the bus is a lifeline.

Ken knows this. That's why he promised to help them get a new route when he's safely back at City Hall. It will all help next Thursday. Ken will need every vote he can get. Boris is ahead in the polls and the bookies think he will win.

But as I learned all those years ago, it is unwise to underestimate Ken Livingstone. Once he'd recovered from the jaded look we saw at St Martin-in-the-Fields he seemed remarkably spry and in good shape for a man who qualified some time ago for a bus pass of his own.

Indeed, when someone asked him how he was handling the strain of the election campaign he quipped: "I feel I'm just getting warmed up."

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