London: Mayor & More

Ken Livingstone's First 100 Days

As articles about Mayor Johnson's first 100 days start appearing - even though we're still somewhere in the 90s - Recess Monkey has discovered that a list of actions taken in the first 100 days of Livingstone's first administration has disappeared from the relevant press release in the GLA website archive.

This does seem odd. I am launching an immediate probe. However, before we get too sold on the idea that all online documents potentially inconvenient to the Johnson mayoralty are being systematically shredded, I'm pleased to announce that the Back Boris website - containing all his election manifestos and press releases - has been reactivated.

UPDATE, 12.04: I can sensationally reveal that the mayor's office believes the missing data dropped off the press release in question during a website reconstruction in 2002. It was just too big. They can't restore, but note that it is archived elsewhere.

Ken Livingstone's Future

He'll be your host on LBC from 10.00 until 2.00 every Saturday from 30th August. Meanwhile, just heard on Five Live, he told the presenter to "ask me again in 2011" about whether or not he'll run in 2012. Well, that's a bit of a row-back! And won't Labour have already picked their candidate by then?

Liberal Conspiracy & Ken Livingstone

Still catching up, I see the Conspirators have been musing on Ken 2012. Sunder Katwala is measured:

"Should Livingstone maintain his interest, he would certainly prove a formidable opponent for anybody else in a contest to be Labour candidate. Right now, he must start the favourite, not least because it will probably remain difficult to guess who the other candidates will be until after a General Election in 2010."

But Sunny H is firmly against:

"I realise what he symbolises for the left. Granted, as Sunder pointed out, he has name recognition and will be a popular choice among many. But I think he will lose us the election and we need to think this through with our heads not hearts."

Funny, but I've no appetite yet for this debate. We still don't really know where Mayor Johnson's regime is heading. Until we do, it's hard for anyone to know how best to challenge him. And the question remains; if not Livingstone then who?

Livingstone & Election 2012

The most interesting thing about this piece by Veronica's cat is his wanting to write it at all. Like most of the coverage of the FAP report in last week's Standard it suggests a rather too-eager desire to have yet another go at Livingstone. I don't know to what extent all this has been driven by an urge to take Londoners' minds off Mayor Johnson's early difficulties, but it's hard not to suspect it. And if Livingstone challenging in 2012 is such a joke, why get so worked up about it?

As it happens, I share Gilligan's analysis to the extent that Livingstone will have to redefine himself in several important ways before 2012 - perhaps before 2010, when Labour chooses its candidate - if he's to defend himself against some of the most damaging attacks he faced during the 2008 campaign. But I also share Livingstone's view that a six percent defeat was not a hammering. All else remaining the same a mere four percent swing away from Johnson - or whoever the Tory candidate is - towards him in 2012 would return Livingstone to City Hall. Whatever the wisdom of his activities since the election, that alone makes him a strong contender at this stage. My guess is that Mayor Johnson would agree.

Ken Livingstone Will Not Be Helping Patience Wheatcroft - At All

My dear little news story arising from Tim Parker's Politics Show interview yesterday mentions that Mayor Johnson's Forensic Audit Panel will be publishing its final report shortly in advance of Mayor's Question Time on Wednesday morning. It also mentions that Ken Livingstone was formally invited to meet the panel to help them with their work. There had already been an informal approach, rebuffed by Livingstone in clear terms. But last Tuesday Patience Wheatcroft wrote him this note:

"Dear Mr Livingstone,

You will be aware that the current Mayor asked me to chair a Forensic Audit Panel looking into the operations of the GLA and the LDA. During the course of our work we have interviewed many members of the Assembly, LDA board and executives and GLA executives. It would be helpful if we were also able to talk with you. I know that an informal invitation to you has been extended and rejected but I would now like to issue a formal invitation to you to meet with the panel."

Livingstone has sent this reply:

Dear Ms Wheatcroft,

You are a member of the Conservative Party. Two of the other members of your body are members of the Conservative Party - Stephen Greenhalgh and Edward Lister. A fourth, Patrick Frederick, is Chairman of Conservative Business Relations - South East England & Southern London, and therefore presumably a member of the Conservative Party as well. How can any body of which 4 out of the 5 members are members of the Conservative Party be considered impartial and objective in any way? It is evidently not independent or objective but a Conservative Party body.

I note that when you were appointed you did not bother to state that you were a member of the Conservative Party, nor did you state it in subsequent television interviews. Your membership of the Conservative Party was revealed only in your Declaration of Interest to the GLA. It is evident that it if it was intended to have an independent investigation into any matter it should not be headed by a member of a political party. Any person who wished to lead, and wished to be seen to lead, an objective and impartial enquiry would clearly have refused to chair a body with such a composition.

I also note the further irregularities that have occurred during your being chair of this body. First your son Kelham Salter was appointed to a post in the GLA – even though journalists have been informed he is not paid this is not an action of the type that would be expected from the chair of an independent 'forensic' body. You attended the Mayor's Press Conference on 3 July, held to defend Ray Lewis, sitting in the front of the audience with Tim Parker, First Deputy Mayor, and also a supporter of the Conservative Party – not an independent chair.

There were clear irregularities in the procurement of PWC to do £50,000 of work for your committee. The contract was awarded by your committee which includes Andrew Grove, who is a partner of PWC – a clear conflict of interest and meaning that the auditors used were not independent of the Committee. No other companies appear to have been invited to tender.

In light of this it is evident that one of your recommendations should be that the amount paid annually to PWC in consultancy fees in the last four years be published and a record of how much is paid to PWC in consultancy fees each year in the next four years should also be published.

I also note that the genuinely independent inquiry into issues raised in regard to Lee Jasper headed by Rabinder Singh QC, of Matrix Chambers, was abolished by the Mayor to be replaced, as stated, by one in which 4 out of 5 members were members of the Conservative Party.

I am of course completely willing and keen to work with any genuinely independent body, such as the London Assembly or independent auditing companies, which are looking into any matters of public interest that relate to the time I was Mayor. In regard to present matters they would record, for example, that I suffered only one enforced resignation of any of my most senior officials during eight years – a record that compares very favourably to national governments of both parties, while the present administration has suffered the enforced resignation of two of its most senior officials in only two and a half months in office.

Such objective investigation would also reveal the incredible costs being imposed on London by the new administration which far exceed any issue you were asked to look into – the £30 million a year extra cost to TfL for implementing the cycling programme now that the income to cover it from the £25 a day CO2charge on gas guzzling cars will not be received, the embarking on a programme for a new Routemaster bus with conductors which all independent transport experts estimate will cost over £100 million a year, the loss of £15 million to pay for half price travel for those on income support from Venezuela with the result Londoners will have to pay for any scheme for subsidised travel, and the £400,000 legal fees paid to Porsche. As a result of this Londoners will be hit by tens of millions of pounds worth of unnecessary new charges.

To cooperate in any way with your purely Conservative Party dominated body would be to lend it a facade of independence and objectivity which it clearly does not possess. I regard the fact that your body has no objectivity and independence as a matter of public interest therefore I am releasing this correspondence to the press."

I'd say that was a "no".

Ken Livingstone On LBC

Did you see him on the Andrew Marr Show? Most journos were excited by his not blaming Gord for his defeat but I was more struck that he referred to Ian Clement as a "bovver boy from Bexley." Bit rude, wasn't it? The "bovver boy" has always spoken very highly of him - to me, anyway. The interview also previewed the start of Livingstone's LBC phone-in show today, initially filling in for someone else. It runs from 1.00 till 4.00 and I'll be listening on behalf of the Guardian.

UPDATE: My Guardian piece

Sugar Rush

Just heard on the Vanessa programme:

"The story is that Gordon Brown is so terrified that Ken Livingstone will run again in 2012 that he's approached Sir Alan Sugar to run for Labour instead."

Crazy.

The Cuban Festival That Isn't, Wasn't & Won't Be

Conservative Home claims:

"Ken Livingstone was planning a 'massive festival' across London next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution. It was to involve street parties, sports venues and some of London's leading museums as well as the closure of Trafalgar Square."

Was it? I asked the Mayor's press office. I was told that Livingstone had said he'd have liked one, but that no announcement had ever made and that no such event will be taking place. Never mind, Peter, I'm sure another communist plot will come along soon...

At Guardian Politics: What's Ken Up To?

Just gone live at Guardian politics:

What’s he up to? The question is asked in spite of – in fact, because of – the impressive array of activities Ken Livingstone has committed himself to since his defeat by Boris Johnson three weeks ago. The latest is to host from next month an afternoon phone-in on London radio station LBC, where he looks likely to become a sort of inner-city left counterpart to the seething suburbanism of breakfast show host Nick Ferrari. (The contrast could be constructive: as Ferrari’s frequent guest during his mayoralty, Livingstone seemed to savour the abrasion.)