Andrew Gilligan on Ken Livingstone, again

Andrew Gilligan isn't going to let go, is he? From yesterday's Standard come a piece entitled "How much longer can Ken's greenwash last?". It starts "People sometimes ask me why, as a self-proclaimed Lefty, I am so hard on Ken Livingstone. I answer, perhaps a little priggishly, that it is our job as a newspaper to apply scrutiny to power - and if Boris Johnson should ever attain power, he can expect much the same treatment.

But the other part of the answer is simpler. Like many people, I used vaguely to admire Ken, but that was before I started to look more closely. And after several years of looking closely at Mr Livingstone, I have reached the considered conclusion that he is a phoney, a charlatan and a fraud.

Let's just take the past three weeks. Within that time (could there possibly be an election coming up?) we've seen no fewer than three big Mayoral announcements: each, on the face of it, extremely good news, and each winning what seemed well deserved good headlines. The problem is that every single one of those announcements was a deceit."


Do read Andrew Gilligan's article in full for details of Ken Livingstone's deceipt over the "1,000 more police for London", the reworked £25 congestion charge and the 12 uninterrupted "cycle superhighways".


Poor Ken, he's been found out at last and I don't think he likes it.