The Labour leadership's wish to prevent Ken Livingstone becoming mayor of London is understandable. Mr Livingstone is an ambitious politician and a poor (even treacherous) colleague. If he ran London, his capacity for mischief would almost certainly be turned against the government. Though he is now regarded as a genius of media presentation, his leadership of the Greater London Council in the 1980s allowed the right-wing papers far too many opportunities to elaborate the theme of "loony leftiness" which did so much to keep Labour out of power for so long. And ultimately his period in office did Londoners no service, because it allowed Margaret Thatcher political cover to abolish the GLC.
So by all means let Millbank and Downing Street say, loud and clear, that London Labour would be better off with another candidate: Tony Blair lives and works in London and is as entitled to a view as any other resident. But new Labour's attempts to keep Mr Livingstone off the ballot paper - most recently by announcing that the mayoral candidate will be selected by an electoral college, rather than a simple mass vote of members - threaten to cause far more damage than anything he could do. At worst, it could lead to mass abstentions of Labour supporters, leaving the capital to Jeffrey Archer. Perhaps that is Mr Blair's secret plan, since Lord Archer would provide what is lacking at present - an awful example of the alternatives to the present government.
Far more important, however, than whether the electoral college ruse succeeds - and the trouble with control freaks is that they usually get their way - is that it is wrong in principle, for two reasons. First, if devolution is to mean anything, it must mean allowing a genuinely independent politics to develop organically around the devolved bodies. Otherwise they become little more than executive branches of central government, subject to occasional plebiscites. If Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, is successful, Scotland, Wales and London will all be led by former members of the Blair cabinet.
The great weakness of British politics - a weakness that goes back at least 400 years - is its overcentralisation, so that any person ambitious for power or influence is compelled to become a courtier, which is what all the various contemporary species of special adviser, think-tank wonk, press assistant, lobbyist and so on amount to. Though several members of the present cabinet, including Mr Dobson, started as local councillors, the weakness of local government makes it increasingly hard to establish much of a reputation outside Westminster. It is already apparent that the next generation of Labour stars will emerge from the ranks of Whitehall advisers. In most other countries, it is quite common for politicians to become substantial local or regional figures before they become national figures. New Labour seems set to reverse this pattern, thus actually increasing the centralist forces in British politics. Mr Livingstone, whatever his other faults, was an authentic product of London Labourism who became an innovative GLC leader. A politics controlled from the centre makes it unlikely that anybody like him - or, indeed, like Mr Dobson - could ever rise again.
The second point is that the electoral college device - a third of the votes to party members, a third to London MPs, MEPs and adopted candidates for the London assembly, a third to affiliated unions - allows precisely the kind of machine politics for which old Labour was rightly reviled. Its use to achieve a stitch-up in both London and Wales almost takes the breath away. The weight allowed to adopted candidates - who, if elected, will have to work with the mayor - can be justified, though it is hard to see what business it is of MPs and MEPs elected to serve in quite different capacities. But the survival of the union block vote into the 21st century, without any requirement to ballot members, is simply scandalous. While on the one hand Blairite ministers suggest that Labour should break its union links, on the other they allow the unions disproportionate influence when it suits them. This is called hypocrisy or humbug.
And Mr Livingstone? If the Labour leadership really believes that he is so at variance with party policy as to be utterly unfit to carry its banner into the London elections even if the members want him, they should stop twiddling the rules and, instead, move to expel him from the party. That would be unjust and oppressive and it might fail. But at least it would be honest and logical.
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