I spoke with Brian Paddick at a Polish restaurant in Blackfriars Road where he also did an interview with a Polish TV company and we both sampled the deluxe vodka. The interruption near the start is the TV crew asking if they could film us in conversation for a bit of added ambience. There also a moment when the sound quality becomes more boomy - that's me plugging in the external mic. Here are the main points:
On policing (Start-11.00): He reiterates his dislike of Rudi Giuliani's zero tolerance approach rejecting "this soft policing-hard policing dichotomy" and stressing the need to get back to policing by consent. This, he says, depends on "the active support and cooperation of citizens," which has been lost. If he became mayor he'd chair the MPA and insist on concentrating on local peoples' priorities, demonstrate this, and solicit community support. Mutual trust is the key. He wants to employ more "civilian support" to reduce the bureaucratic burden on officers. He argues that the police culture prevents the Safer Neighbourhoods Teams from working as well as they could: "You can't just throw police officers at it."
On his campaign strategy (11.00-13.20): Acknowledges that Livingstone seems more damaged than he'd expected by bad press. But despite Johnson's apparently growing support he sticks to his line that Johnson cannot be taken seriously, and that if voters want Ken out they should turn to him instead.
On getting noticed (13.20-15.45): Acknowledges that concentration of attention on the other two is frustrating but, "When people find out more about he they realise that I'm a serious and credible candidate." The longer the campaign goes on, the less attractive the other two will seem.
On his photo in the Evening Standard (15.45-18.00): He wore a pink tie, blue shirt and blue jacket (and a rather handsome ring) in the picture. Some friends had done the shots a while ago and the Standard used them, though not at Paddick's suggestion. It is not his regular attire. "What I was told was that straight women thought it was a fantastic photograph, gay men thought it was a fantastic photograph, but straight men didn't quite see the appeal."
On fostering multicultural harmony (18.00-21.20) He is scathing about Ken, alleging that he "tried to get lion dancing banned from Chinatown so that there was no distraction from his set piece political event in Trafalgar Square to celebrate Chinese New Year." But would he be proactive on the issue? "We need to support minority communities' celebrations rather than trying to hijack them by having these one-a-week festivals...I would work with ethnic minority communities and the white majority community and see what can we do to try and promote a more coherent and harmonious London, rather than some of the things that Ken has done....we were at a Jewish community centre this afternoon, and they were describing Ken Livingstone as anti-semitic." He acknowledges that not all were, but questioned if it was the role of the mayor of London to get involved in contentious issues such as Israel-Palestine and take sides.
On anti-gay sentiment (21.20-22.53): "When people understand who am, the fact that I'm good at my job, that I'm a decent guy, my sexuality fades into the background."
To listen to the whole interview CLICK HERE.
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