ConservativeHome's London Mayor blog

Lee Jasper is either lying to Livingstone, or Livingstone is lying to us

Says Boris, who is calling for Jasper's dismissal following today's Evening Standard story that he admits but denies previous knowledge of a £18,000 donation given by City Hall to one of his companies, Ethnic Mutual:

"Ken Livingstone has completely lost control of his inflated empire. For weeks, we have heard nothing but denials and contempt for those who have been trying to uncover the real goings on at City Hall. Lee Jasper has now admitted he knew of the loan back in October 2007 and yet the Mayor has been claiming Mr Jasper has no financial link to the companies in question.

Mr Jasper has either lied to the Mayor, or else the Mayor is deceiving Londoners. This charade cannot continue. It is now time for Ken Livingstone to sack Lee Jasper and allow a full and properly independent inquiry to go ahead so the full extent of the waste at City Hall can be exposed once and for all."

Round up of latest Ken V Boris stories

Polling: UK Polling Report has commentary on a new poll that puts Livingstone on 44% and Boris Johnson on 40%.  That compares with a 45% to 44% advantage for Mayor Livingstone at the start of the month.  All of the recent examination of the Mayor's conduct doesn't appear to have exacted any poll effect - not yet anyway.  This page from PoliticalBetting.com summarises what punters expect in May.

Boris under fire from The Guardian: The Guardian leads on a negative story for Boris Johnson this morning:

"Boris Johnson's London mayoral campaign is receiving financial support from a controversial Japanese company that has clashed with the current mayor Ken Livingstone's office over multimillion-pound plans for development in the capital."

Boris doing well with fundraising: The newspaper also reveals that Boris Johnson is doing much better with fundraising than his rivals.  The Tory mayoral candidate has raised £243,000 so far.  Lord Marland, former Tory treasurer, in charge of Boris Johnson's fundraising operation and, with George Osborne, critical to the new year strengthening of the campaign, hopes to raise £1.25m in total.

Are we seeing Labour desert Livingstone? Over at CentreRight.com Greg Hands MP notes that three-quarters of London's Labour MPs declined to back 'Red Ken' in a letter to The Guardian.  Earlier this week Gordon Brown declined to mention Ken Livingstone's name when asked about him.  Kate Hoey has criticised him and, worst of all, he's won George Galloway's backing.  Galloway, Chavez and Castro.  What a support base!

The Left's desertion of Ken Livingstone accelerates

Peter Hain has resigned to "clear his name" - Guido is celebrating his own role in the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions' downfall.

The pursuit of a much bigger name is now well underway...

A number of key centre left figures have been deserting Ken Livingstone in recent times.  Even Gordon Brown refused to name Livingstone yesterday in a very weak endorsement.  This afternoon the Livingstone-sceptics been joined by John Rentoul.

Over at The Independent's Open House Rentoul writes that "Ken must go too"...

"One of Livingstone's staff has resigned, admitting she lied about a free trip to Nigeria. And Livingstone can be judged, not by the Channel Four programme, but by his own interview on the Today programme this morning. He admits that he runs the London mayoralty as a "personal fiefdom", and admits that he used his publicly-funded staff to run a campaign against Trevor Phillips, a one-time rival for the job of mayor.

Only it wasn't a campaign against Phillips "but against what he was saying". In other words, it was a campaign - something that Livingstone's spokesthings had denied. And his staff did it only on their own phones when they'd left the building, says Livingstone. Except when they were using the mayor's phones and computers and were in the office, as many journalists know...

If Livingstone has misused public money on political campaiging against a rival, the voters of London should take him up on his offer to them on the radio this morning: "If they don't like it they'll get another mayor.""

Read the whole post here.

Live blog: Court of Ken

Tonight's Despatches will be about the less than squeaky clean office of Mayor Livingstone. It starts at 8pm on Channel4 and promises to be worth watching.

We'll be liveblogging it using this new software. If you're online at the same time you can comment on the show live as if it was a chat room built into this post. If it works without any hitches we intend to use it for future PMQs, elections etc.

You can set an email reminder for yourself in the form below. Please join us..

9.15pm: Liveblog now ended. The CoverItLive software worked very well and we look forward to using it during PMQs, elections, and other important programmes. Thanks for your comments everyone, we had over 200. The comments made by us are in black and a slightly larger font.

Tuesday morning: Boris' reaction...

"This programme is a damning indictment of a man who has been in office for too long. Londoners are now paying the price for a tired and out of date administration and a discredited Mayor. It is high time proper accountability was introduced to the office of Mayor of London and I pledge to start that on day one of my administration".

Channel 4's Dispatches programme accuses Livingstone of "astonishing and shocking" drinking habits

Channel 4 tomorrow night - 8pm - will be broadcasting a documentary on Ken Livingstone.  It will, according to the Mail on Sunday, accuse London's Mayor "of "astonishing and shocking" drinking habits and being "a law unto himself"":

"It shows him allegedly drinking whisky at a public meeting in London and at a 10am meeting at his office.  The programme-makers say they secretly obtained a sample of Mr Livingstone's drink and had it tested at a laboratory which said it was 47 per cent alcohol, stronger than most whiskies."

ConservativeHome will be live-blogging the programme tomorrow night:

It's not just the Mail on Sunday that's on Livingstone's case.  The Observer also carries two stories likely to trouble 'Red Ken':

1. Reporter Jamie Howard writes: "A former key adviser to Ken Livingstone today tells how he and others breached the strict rules governing political campaigning, including raising money from donors for the Mayor of London's election campaign.  The claims have prompted a ferocious rebuttal from the mayor's office, which yesterday described Atma Singh, 47, Livingstone's policy adviser on Asian affairs between 2001 and 2007, as an 'embittered ex-employee' who was 'removed' from his job."
2. But most powerful is a piece from Nick Cohen on why Livingstone is "not fit for office".  Mr Cohen begins his piece with these words: "To understand why Ken Livingstone is unfit to be the Labour candidate for mayor of London, you have to grasp that he has never moved away from the grimy conspirators of the totalitarian left, who have always despised the democratic traditions of the Labour movement. There is a queasiness about dragging them into the light because so many of the baby boomers now in power wasted their youth in Marxist-Leninist politics. But it is better to overcome queasiness than fail to treat a sickness and Ken Livingstone began by travelling with the sickest sect of them all: the Workers' Revolutionary party."  Carry on reading by clicking here.

Boris Johnson joins with other candidates to oppose third runway for Heathrow

The advert below appears in a number of national newspapers this morning.  It's the work of enoughsenough.org whose website (which is described as "solar powered") includes a large number of hard-hitting ads on climate change.

Opposition to a third runway is the consensus position amongst London Conservatives.  Zac Goldsmith has written for the London Evening Standard and argued that the "world's busiest airport" doesn't need to get busier.  Justine Greening MP has been campaigning against it.  In an article for The Times GLA candidate Kit Malthouse advocated relocation for Heathrow.

There is no mainstream candidate representing those voters who think London needs a third runway at Heathrow but, then again, there's no mainstream candidate representing those Londoners who want the congestion charge abolished.

Ken Livingstone can't take criticism

Ken Livingstone's taxpayer-funded propaganda has long been a scandal.

Yesterday Guido Fawkes revealed how the Mayor's Londoner newspaper is distributed far and wide - including to Scottish parliamentarians.

Part of Livingstone's desperate use of Londoners' money to sell his controversial policies (remember the posters advertising his congestion charge?) reflects his intolerance of criticism.   On BBC London News last night he was asked about the alleged misuse of taxpayers' money by London Development Agency funded projects.  He responded sharply by shooting the messenger - calling London's Evening Standard the London Evening Boris.  What a childish man we have as mayor.  Thankfully he doesn't have the powers of his friends in Cuba.  If he did have them The Londoner would probably be the only newspaper we ever got to read.

If you want to watch Ken Livingstone's 'London Evening Boris' remarks click here and slide the viewer to about 5 minutes and 50 seconds.

Boris courts the cabbie vote

Boris Johnson went to the Royal Oak Taxi Centre today to tell fifty-odd cab drivers about several specific measures that he wants to introduce to make their lives easier, including:

• Putting a representative of the cab trade on the board of Transport for London
• Scrapping the unnecessary burden of mid-year inspections
• Scrapping PCO Notice 44/06 that penalises cabbies for stopping at red routes to allow passengers to use cashpoints
• Working with local councils to standardise the varying rules regarding bus lane use

Boris touched all the right buttons in the Q&A too - tackling unlicenced cabs, exporting the "scourge" of the bendy buses to Scandinavian airports, live CCTV on buses so "cops" can see what's going on, the "good case" against the Western expansion of the congestion charge, the unacceptable "Wild West free for all" caused by rickshaws, looking at reform of the unpopular Carriage Office, and keeping the distinction between minicabs and black cabs.

In asking questions the confident cabbies did well to compete with the sound of frying pans and meal orders being shouted out. Boris shook his head in solidarity as they recounted various anecdotes about being unfairly fined, and then said Livingstone was "sitting like a lizard" on top of all the fine revenue.

Encouragingly, Boris got the biggest cheer when in answering a general question about the cost of motoring he said: "You've gotta get rid of this Labour government!".

Police investigate LDA-funded projects

Boris Johnson reveals this evening that three London Development Agency funded projects have been referred to the police for investigation. A fourth is under consideration and a fifth is already under police investigation:

1. European Federation of Black Women Business Owners - with whom Yvonne Thompson is linked
2. Deshbangla Foundation - with whom former Mayoral Advisor Kumar Murshid is linked.
3. Diversity International
4. Brixton Base - under consideration for referral to Police
5. Green Badge Scheme - already under criminal investigation, referred by Labour MP Kate Hoey

Boris said:

"I'm glad the Police are involved so they can get to the bottom of this, once and for all. This internal investigation has been toothless - their remit meant they were unable to make a decision on some of the most serious allegations. This continues to taint the Mayor's credibility and does not ease my concern in any way that a misuse of public funds has occurred."

Win a bottle of champagne signed by Boris

If you live in London you must tune in to ITV1 at 11.05pm tonight.  Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick have taken part in a pre-recorded debate and it's being broadcast tonight.  Background here.

Apparently Ken Livingstone is very backward-looking with countless references to Thatcher/ Thatcherism and the 1980s.  Well not quite "countless" as we want you to count them!

Please leave a comment in the thread below after the programme and the person who supplies a number closest to the actual number of references to Thatcher/ Thatcherism and the 1980s will win a bottle of champagne signed by Boris himself.

The Editors' decision on who has won is final.

PS GLA candidate and blogger James Cleverly was at the pre-record and wrote a fun post about the LibDems and Boris wrote his final column for The Telegraph today.  Read it here.