Burning underwear?

Andrew Gilligan has a very interesesting article in the Standard. It analyses the answers given by Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson during their separate interviews on Radio London's Vanessa Feltz programme. Andrew Gilligan reports that "Allowing for the questions, news and travel bulletins and station promos, Mr Livingstone spoke for approximately 35 minutes. In that time, he said 36 things that were untrue or misleading, an average of one every 58 seconds. Over the same length of time Mr Johnson said 11 things that were untrue or misleading, an average of one every three minutes 10 seconds."

So is Ken more than three times as dishonest as Boris? Read the article and decide for yourself, although I must say that some of Ken's remarks are so wide of the truth that you have to admire his nerve. Here are just three example:

"The Mayor was asked about how he justified The Londoner, his official newspaper. Was it “propaganda”?

It has to be objective [in fact, it is produced by the Mayor's communications team. Headlines in the current issue include: “Transport upgrades across city”, “Crime falls to nine-year low” and “Feeling happier and feeling safer”]. This close to the election, there's no reference to me anywhere in there ... I don't think [this month's issue] even mentions the word “mayor” [it mentions the word 14 times, including on the masthead] … I don't think in the last one it mentioned me [Mr Livingstone is mentioned 43 times, is the bylined writer of the front page lead story, and is given a further nine quotes and his own column inside]. I know in this one it doesn't mention me at all [it includes a quote from Mr Livingstone and refers to him 11 times]."


"On TfL's spend on marketing

This idea that there's a vast number of people just being press officers has always been rubbish [TfL has 27 press officers — by comparison, the Prime Minister has 14]."


"On mayoral candidate debates

We're having real trouble pinning down Boris to these debates [in fact over the last month Johnson has done at least four joint debates with Ken and is scheduled to do several more]."



I also bring to your attention a comment from a reader:

"In an interview in the Sunday Times Ken claims that the Standard was out to get him for:
1 25 years
2 20 years and
3 that he did not go to swanky Restaurants.

So far as I remember he was the Restaurant critic for the ES before he became Mayor.

- Dave, London, UK"

Is this true?