Looking back, it's hard to remember what all the fuss was about. There was the Labour leadership, hell-bent on stopping Ken from becoming the official Labour candidate, then doing all it could to beat him when he ran as an independent. And for what? Those arms were twisted in vain, they needn't have smashed all those kneecaps, and Tony Blair's personal humiliation was pointless.
For, rather to everyone's surprise, the streets of London have not been running red with rampant socialism. Mayor Ken has not been constantly locked in battle with the Labour government. Indeed, the only institution under any threat at all during Ken's brief reign has been the Trafalgar Square pigeon. And even on this most trenchant of political issues, he backed down in the face of a popular outcry.
So what is Livingstone up to? What has happened to the left-wing firebrand, who struck such terror into the hearts of new Labour? There are, as always with this most complex of politicians, several theories. The first (and it is one shared by some who observe him daily on the Greater London Authority) is that he has been overwhelmed by the scale of the job he has taken on, and is now simply knackered. Unlike the old Greater London Council, which had a huge infrastructure, and virtually ran itself, this new authority is taking a while to find its feet.
Livingstone has surrounded himself with many from his campaign team: Simon Fletcher, his chief of staff, John Ross, Redmond O'Neill and Lee Jasper - all from the old left, and all, according to one critic, so amazed to find themselves in power that they have no idea what to do with it. The sheer number of decisions to be taken is the reason, some claim, for Livingstone's exhaustion. At a recent meeting of the GLA, where he was being cross- questioned about the disastrous flop of this year's New Year's Eve celebrations in London, he completely lost it, letting fly at his questioners and threatening to walk out.
The second theory is a little subtler. Livingstone is letting his left-wing prejudices lie for now while he concentrates on the one subject that led to his expulsion from the Labour Party - the financing of the Tube. For Livingstone, as indeed for many Londoners, this is the big issue and the one that the new mayor has expended most of his energies on. The hiring of Bob Kiley, the man who saved New York's subway, as his transport commissioner, was, even Livingstone's enemies admit, a masterstroke. Kiley is in many ways the ultimate Blairite, a tough-nosed businessman, not afraid to take on the unions, who has put his business acumen into reforming and improving public services. Yet he backs Livingstone's view that the government's public-private partnership plan for the Tube is "fatally flawed".
Kiley is already being lauded around the Labour insiders' dinner-party circuit. How can Blair resist him?
Whether Livingstone has really succeeded in beating the government on this issue remains to be seen. Certainly, John Prescott seems to have retreated somewhat. Livingstone boasted just before Christmas in his regular column in the Independent that Prescott was coming round to his way of thinking. Prescott has now asked for more information about Kiley's own ideas for rescuing the Tube, and has two meetings fixed with him later this month. What is less clear is how far the Chancellor is going along with this dramatic conversion. Gordon Brown and Ken Livingstone have a particular mutual loathing. Livingstone has always been publicly ingratiating towards Tony Blair, claiming, to the latter's irritation, that he is closer to him than many members of his own Cabinet. But Livingstone has not shrunk from lashing out at Brown. He has savaged his economic policies and called for his resignation several times. Brown is unlikely to accept anything that can be presented as a victory for Ken over Gordon.
One who has been following the situation closely says simply: "Ken may think he's won, John [Prescott] may even have been persuaded, but Gordon hasn't noticed yet that there needs to be a change to the PPP."
Whether or not Livingstone wins this struggle over the Tube, it is still odd that this is the only battleground where he has chosen to take on the government. Look at some of his other pronouncements. He wants to invest £60m on bringing police back to the streets of London - more than 1,000 officers to be recruited by next year, with 200 uniformed officers returned to beat policing. No sign there of an anti-authoritarian revolutionary. Livingstone also wants more affordable housing in London, which new Labour recognises as essential if there is to be anywhere to live for the teachers, nurses and other public sector workers who serve the capital. Then there was his "London house sparrow action plan" - an undue softness for small creatures, perhaps, but hardly a cause for conflict with new Labour.
Which brings us to the third theory as to what Livingstone is up to. He wants to get back into the Labour Party. Desperately.
This is a strange wish in many ways. He undoubtedly has more freedom as mayor while he is not a party member. He might also, given the electorate's apparent enthusiasm for anti-party politicians, win more votes when he is up for re-election in 2004 if he stands again as an independent. Yet though the party may not love him - many, particularly in the parliamentary party truly loathe him - he claims to love the party.
There has recently been something of a rapprochement between Livingstone and the London group of Labour MPs. It has been noted that he has determinedly not rocked the boat for Labour, with an election in sight. There is still no personal love lost between him and the party leaders, but, having had their fingers burnt once, it would be surprising if they did not admit him back into the party before the next mayoral election. The first step has been their lack of enthusiasm for expelling those party members who supported him against the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, last year.
In some ways, Livingstone's readmission would make sense. If he is guilty of anything, it is of the very charge that is constantly hurled at new Labour: that he stands for nothing. Even his friends remark on how readily he can change with the wind; his enemies call him downright two-faced, prepared to say one thing to one audience and quite the opposite to another. So unideological is Livingstone that he's got himself an even bigger tent than Blair. He has extended the hand of friendship and indeed a place in his advisory cabinet to Glenda Jackson, a Labour MP and one of the original mayoral candidates; to the Labour peer and architect Richard Rogers; to Darren Johnson of the Green Party; and to Angela Mason of Stonewall. Both the Liberal Democrat, Susan Kramer, and the Conservative, Steven Norris, who stood against him, have been welcomed on to the board of Transport for London.
This is no longer Red Ken of the sectarian left. This is New Ken. Despite the obvious strains of office, he remains one of the few politicians guaranteed to charm a crowd. Put him in front of a microphone and all the bad temper disappears: his slightly self-deprecating humour is a sure-fire winner. It is going to be very hard for Labour to continue to paint him as the villain.
What has really happened to Livingstone is no doubt a combination of all the above theories. But the more you look at what he has done so far, the more two things strike you. He is a pragmatist, not ashamed to bring in arch-capitalist businessmen if he thinks it will help; and his personal style allows him to reach out to some people who in other circumstances would never dream of voting Labour.
Who does this remind you of? As Tony Blair looks out of his window across London, he must surely see, not the leering, devilish visage he had been expecting - but something not unlike the image he sees in the mirror.
The improbable truth - one that Blair would hate and Livingstone would laugh off - is that the two men, in office at least, are not so very different.
