Livingstone's shredding period

We're loathe to be presumptive about the mayoral contest, the outcome now depends on the ground war which means all of us getting out to campaign for Boris.

But it's worth pausing a second to consider the difficult days that would follow a Boris win. Something not generally known about is that Ken Livingstone and his cronies have two whole days - starting from the result being announced on Friday evening - before they have to leave their offices. By way of contrast, if David Cameron wins the next General Election he would take control of the levers at 10 Downing Street the next morning and the whole process would be overseen by the cream of Britain's civil service.

So assuming there are no recounts Boris' team will have to wait until Sunday evening before getting the keys to his offices.  What controls are there to prevent industrial-scale shredding of paperwork that Livingstone and his Socialist Alliance inner circle might want to keep away from the incoming administration?

We understand Boris HQ have been taking calls from GLA insiders anxious to declare themselves as allies should he win, but they are undoubtedly outnumbered by Livingstone's cronies. Estimates of the size of his "hardcore" vary from thirty to eighty employees, although the Mayor is only supposed to handpick a dozen for his personal team. Boris may face some tough decisions in identifying staffers who are nominally public servants but are, in reality, Livingstone placemen.

If the busiest period of Boris' working life ends in success, his most difficult challenges will only have just begun.

Comments

[Londoner]

No need for shreading. You haven't failed to realise the real reason for the flood down there have you? All of his compromising papers are a thick soup in the basement already. I can hear the lament on Saturday morning already "It is so sad that the record of all our good work will now never be able to be written, such an unfortunately accident...Oh, and by the way, where is the new Mayor going to have his office as it's going to take six weeks to dry the place out". A spokesman afterwards clarified that they were not talking about the outgoing Mayor's drinks cabinet...

[Ephraim Gadsby]

Two days before they have to leave their offices - so what? American presidents get two months (it used to be four). There is a similar time lag in most other democracies, it usually helps ensure a smooth transfer of power.

By contrast our system whereby the prime minister is out by lunchtime on the day after the election seems rather brutal. Not that I'm advocating changing it, I quite like the way we just get on with it.

My point is really that there's no real point here - what the outgoing Mayor does with his grace period is his business, what's the point in complaining about it?

If Boris wins this week, will he change the system to ensure he must clear his desk within 12 hours when he gets booted out in 2012? Of course he won't.

[dream on...]

Like he is really going to be able to manage it.... Boris can't even run a bath on his own. Anyway, except for a few Mayoral appointments, they can't be sacked, they are public servants. Dream on....

[Northernhousewife]

You one of them then are you dream on...that can shred but not be sacked.

[IRJMilne]

"Anyway, except for a few Mayoral appointments, they can't be sacked, they are public servants."

They are employed by the state. Presumably, the state can sack them, then, surely?

[Adam-]

My dear "dream on...", many of those posts I'm sure could be considered surplus to requirements anyway. Have you not heard of compulsory redundancy...

[englandism]

Have you not heard of compulsory redundancy...

Or falling into Olympic sized swimming pools where the archives used to be?

[William Lundy]

I understand that Conservative Central Office has been in touch with a great many Livingstone staffers to reassure them that their jobs were safe. Apparently they don't want Boris naming his own people. When the Tories chose Boris as their candidate they never expected him to win let alone become the second most powerful Conservative in the country. Now that that's become a real prospect, they're worried.

[David Belchamber]

Ephraim Gadsby at 15.20 notes:

"Two days before they have to leave their offices - so what? American presidents get two months (it used to be four)".

Although I would like to see Brown gone tomorrow, I do think with a change of government, purely for the sake of good order, there should be a month or so between the winning of an election and taking up of office. At the moment, the day following an election is probably an excellent time for a terrorist attack.

[Richard]

Serious question - do the Tories have some lawyers on standby to deal with any postal vote fraud?

[John Wilkin]

@William Lundy

What do you mean by "second most powerful Conservative in the country". The Mayor of London has more power than the Leader of the Opposition. It could be an interesting relationship between Boris and Dave

[David Wearing]

So the nice fluffy New Tories are putting up a candidate:

* who has called black people "picanninies", and only saw fit to apologise when he needed said "picanninies" to vote for him

* who said "If gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."

* who, when he was editor of the Spectator, was happy to employ a columnist (Taki) who blamed urban violence on "black thugs, sons of black thugs and grandsons of black thugs [who] were allowed to immigrate after the war, multiply like flies and then the great state apparatus took over the care of their multiplications", and who said that Enoch Powell, who predicted that immigration would cause a race war and the domination of white people by black people, was "right";

and

* who has spoken of the "paranoia of the Muslim mind" and said that Islamophobia is "a natural reaction [to] any non-Muslim reader of the Qur'an".

I won't pretend I'd ever dream of voting Tory, but I'm sure many of you are perfectly decent folk. Aren't there some red lines in politics that normal, decent folk just don't cross? Wouldn't you find it easier to live with yourself if you just stayed at home today?

Don't tell me every one of you can vote for this man in good conscience. I don't believe that for a moment.

[Jimmi]

David Wearing - I hardly know where to start with the lies and spin you have just written. Quotes out of context and total fiction - I feel like I've just read one of MAguire's blogs.

Do you swallow everything Ken gives to you? Or just at weekends?

[Boris fan]

"Don't tell me every one of you can vote for this man in good conscience. I don't believe that for a moment."

That's exactly what I'd say to Labour supporters about Ken. A vote for Ken is a vote for endemic corruption and abuse of power in City Hall,

As for the racism accusation, let's not forget that it's Ken who deliberately uses ethnic minority projects as vehicles for his corrupt activities so that when he gets accused of wrongdoing he can try and scare away the accuser by hysterically shouting him down as a racist.

You also seem to have forgotten about Ken's latent anti-semitism David Wearing - though for you lefties anti-semitism is fine isn't it? It's only Islamophobia that you protest against - though I'm sure that's nothing to do with the fact that constituencies with a high Muslim population tend to vote Labour.

[David Wearing]

Thanks for these responses

Jimmi - if you can identify an innacuracy in my post I'll happily retract it, of course. I've made sure that I've made what are accurate quotes to the very best of my knowledge, but I accept that with the best will in the world mistakes are always possible.

However, to be honest, we both know that Johnson's record on this is pretty clear, don't we?

Take equating homosexuality to bestiality. There are plenty of Tory homosexuals (and Tories who have homosexual friends). How do they feel about having their love lives equated with bestiality? Its actually not that funny, is it? Its backward, thoughtless, and quite nasty. I thought you guys were supposed to have changed under Cameron. Is this really how you want people to see you? Its the 21st century now, you know.

Livingstone a "latent antisemite". Not that convincing is it? Its well known that he's got a record of actively opposing racism in all its forms that goes back decades.

Now imagine if he'd said about Jewish people anything like what Johson said about Africans when Blair visited Congo:

"No doubt the AK47s will fall silent and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."

Again, its not funny, is it? Nor is it latent. Its overt in a way that I personally didn't think was possible in 2008. I haven't heard this sort of thing outside of the hard right since I was a kid in the 1980s. And I can tell you that if you're non-white, and this guy could be mayor, quotes like these actually quite intimidating. Surely you don't want people to actually be a bit frightened of your candidate?

On Ken, there's been a lot of noise about corruption, but I don't see that a huge amount of substance has been turned up. But look - Jaques Chirac, by contrast, was hugely corrupt; but when he went head to head with Le Pen for the French Presidency, people across the political spectrum - left right and centre - turned out to say "Non". Why? Because decent human beings know, deep down, that while many politicians are bad to a greater or lesser extent, some things are just absolutely beyond the pale.

I'll be honest. I didn't expect to come on to Conservative Home and convert people en masse to my general world view. I expected some hostile response and I can live with that. I just think that there are certain basic principles that all decent folk can agree on whatever their broader political shade. I'm certain that many of you have serious doubts about your candidate, on good principled grounds. I simply ask that you think hard about this.

Many of your fellow Londoners are seriously dreading tomorrow, and what sort of city they might wake up to find themselves in. Surely that can't be right?