London Assembly Lib Dems and Greens cosy up to Red Ken

The refusal of Ken Livingstone to condemn the tube strikes is no surprise. What is a bit more disappointing is that the Lib Dems on the London Assembly should do the same.

Red Ken's extreme left wing and sectarian credentials alienate many in his own Party. Yet despite this the Lib Dems and Green Party seem t be falling over themselves to do deals with him. The Mayor of London Question Time ths morning saw Labour, the Lib Dems and the Green all repeating the same slogans.

Conservative mmemer of the London Assembly James Cleverly reports:

 It has become increasingly clear that the Greens and Lib Dems were gravitating towards Labour by all the back room deals that have been done to exclude Conservatives from committee chair positions, to jointly draft politically motivated motions and their refusal to oppose the transport unions' mindless strikes.

A quick look at the conference speaker list for Livingstone's front organisation Progressive London, shows both Lib Dem and Green party Assembly Members on the line up not only with Livingstone himself but with militant union bosses and the organisers of the London demonstrations which became so violent and damaging.

This cosying up to Livingstone has new led to a co-ordinated attack on Boris at this morning's MQT, which was so transparent and amateurish that the whole meeting descended into farce. It became clear that the attack was to take the form of accusing Boris of "misleading Londoners". The phrase was repeated verbatim by each of the left wing Assembly Members in turn as part of their questions to the Mayor. After the third or fourth outing it was greeted by laughter and derision from both the Conservative members and many people in the gallery. It was particularly amusing because time after time the Mayor showed that the facts and figures behind their questions were wrong.