Who do you believe?

The Evening Standard are running with this and this, "Secret emails expose Mayor aide scandal" "Ken Livingstone faces mounting questions as the City Hall grants scandal deepened.

• Leaked emails show that the chief executive of his London Development Agency expressed "the deepest possible concern" about a £345,000 grant to a close friend of the Mayor's senior aide, Lee Jasper.

• The emails - obtained by the Standard - show that Mr Jasper's friend, Joel O'Loughlin, grossly overcharged, deceived the LDA and failed to provide any of the services he promised.

• The LDA chief executive, Manny Lewis, wanted to sack Mr O'Loughlin, claw back all the LDA's money and even talked about suing him.

• But within days, after Mr O'Loughlin contacted Mr Jasper, the LDA performed a 180-degree turn, offering Mr O'Loughlin another £250,000 and a lucrative consultancy."

etc., etc., etc. Do read the rest.


Ken Livingstone has countered with a call for the sacking of ... No not Lee Jasper or Joel O'Loughlin but "Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said Veronica Wadley, editor of the Evening Standard, must sack Andrew Gilligan". Read the press release and you decide...