I've been amazed over these last few years at the scale of ballot rigging and fraud in internal Labour Party operations

Ken Livingstone

The former Greater London Council leader won 40% of the vote when he ran as an independent in the mayoral election, beating Labour's official candidate Frank Dobson into an embarrassing third place and triggering his own expulsion from the party.

He told the capital's Time Out magazine: "The main thing is to get re-elected. What you call me is much less important than that I should keep the job."

Mr Livingstone has already previously announced he will stand down as an MP at the next general election, describing it as "not really a job for grown-ups".

The mayor also weighed in once more against the "Millbank Tendency", New Labour apparatchiks based at the party's headquarters, for having failed to heed the lessons of last May's events.

Plans for a huge New Year's Eve fireworks display were cancelled

"They shut down debate and change the voting rules for everything virtually all the time. They rigged the ballot for the London mayoral election," he said.

"I've been amazed over these last few years at the scale of ballot rigging and fraud in internal Labour Party operations.

"It has just become so blatant: the sort of thing that when the Militant Tendency used to do it everyone denounced it. Well, people don't turn a blind eye to it.

"The reason I was voted in, in such numbers, was a way of saying they didn't like it."

Mr Livingstone also attacked the way his plans for a spectacular New Year's Eve fireworks celebration in London fell apart amid what he said was official and legal intransigence.

Fears of overcrowding were mainly to blame, but the mayor warned that without solving such problems in future a similar fate could befall other events such as the Notting Hill Carnival.

"It's quite clear now that anything you try and get over a million people to is going to get lawyered out of existence," he said.

Mr Livingstone attacked Underground managers

The Greater London Authority is currently drawing up recommendations for the future of the carnival, which was thrown into doubt after two men were murdered and a woman gang-raped at last year's event.

Mr Livingstone also used the interview to pledge that funds raised from his proposed congestion charging scheme would be ring-fenced for public transport.

And he restated his lack of confidence in the managers of the Underground system to ensure public safety or value for money.

"I think these civil engineering firms have got into the habit of thinking they're dealing with patsies on the Underground who'll be prepared to pay for crap work.

"The problem is the dullards who have been running the Underground so badly in recent years are the people who are negotiating these contracts for us, so we haven't got a chance."