Brown and Red unite against blond threat

Gordon Brown and Mayor Ken Livingstone let bygones be bygones on Thursday and joined forces to deal with the increasing threat posed to Labour's hold on London by Boris Johnson, the Tory candidate in the coming mayoral election. The two men weren't exactly throwing their arms around each other, but it was a show of solidarity that a few years ago would have been unthinkable.

Visiting Canary Wharf together, Brown called Livingstone "an inspirational figure in London, a crusading mayor, and one that has made a huge difference". In contrast, he said, Boris Johnson planned to cut police and transport funding.

This is the same Gordon Brown who said in 2000, when Livingstone left the Labour Party to run as an independent mayoral candidate, "Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter... He's anti-jobs and anti-business."

And it's the same 'Red Ken' who said of the then Chancellor's squeeze on town halls in June 2000: "For years the Treasury has been run by aliens whose objective is the destruction of all life on this planet and they're just starting with local government services."

But then neither man had Boris to contend with then. Ken, who went on to win the 2000 election and was readmitted to the party before his second victory in 2004, now faces the unthinkable. The mop-haired former Spectator editor and Daily Telegraph journalist is ahead in the opinion polls and looks like a serious contender.