Sarah Wardle

Is It Deliberate that Ken Livingstone Continues to Create Controversy?

By Nadia Saint, September Issue 2006

In an interview with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast on LBC 97.3FM, broadcast on 6th September, London Mayor Ken Livingstone was typically outspoken about some of London and the UK's most controversial social issues. As well as speaking out about racial and religious prejudice, Livingstone fuelled the criticism of his recent comment that black Labour MP Trevor Phillips, of the CRE and Livingstone's mayoral rival, should 'join the BNP.'

It would appear that Livingstone is reluctant to learn his lesson after likening a Jewish Evening Standard journalist to a 'concentration camp guard' in February 2005. His comments in this interview suggest that he touts controversy as much as he seeks support.

On the UK: 'It's not a Christian Country'

NF: Why can't we have a culture that is a Christian culture in a Christian country, and then welcome and tolerate our happy Hanukkahs?

KL: But I'm not a Christian, what does that do to me?

NF: Then that's fine, we celebrate that as well, whatever you want to do. But we should know it's a Christian country.

KL: It's not a Christian country. I mean, the vast majority of people that you would categorise as Christian, or even, the majority of people
put down that they are Christian on the census form but they don't got
to church. I mean...I would have thought that most probably you've got about the same numbers of people going to pray each week for both Protestant, Catholic and Muslim and Hindus. A lot of people are
notionally Christian but we don't live a Christian lifestyle. We don't follow the ten commandments.

NF: But that doesn't mean that people feel excluded or wrongly in some cases. Let's just use the example of the Muslims. They're getting a better crack of the whip, whatever that means, than Christians. That's what happens.

KL: This is where people like the BNP score, this line. They won a lot
of seats in Baden by saying Labour councils are paying Africans twenty five or fifty thousand pounds to move into Essex. Completely untrue. But then the racial slurs often, I mean the things that the Nazis said about the Jews, they write some rubbish. But people believed them and they allow them to write about... and instead of saying people are worried... well, none of this is true. Muslims aren't getting anything. If you are a Muslim in this country you are two and a half times more likely to be out of work. There is still discrimination [but] we are making progress. The police are now beginning to look like London.

On 'Killing' Notting Hill

NF: Are you trying to kill the Notting Hill Carnival?

KL: Oh no. I mean, the.. all we want to do, I've been saying this for six years, is instead of the present thing which is almost like a horse-shoe type route, we want a straighter route. We want it to go through Notting Hill but we want it to then spread out and perhaps end up at Hyde Park, or start at Hyde park, so that you've got a line. At the moment, you know, half a million, three quarters of a million people turn up and you can't move. If one day someone fires a gun or something like that and there's a stampede, you'll get a lot of people killed. We just want to make the route safer.

NF: You're not trying to corporate it or put a lot of stewards in? There's a sense you are trying to take the spontaneity out of it.

KL: No, no. We pay five million pounds to police that and keep it safe. Now, if we had a straight route those costs would start to come down. You can't manage it. It's not like [there is] some carnival committee that organizes it. Broadly, people just turn up on the day with the work they've done and they take part in the parade. The only problem we have with [the] carnival is that I'd like to really advertise it round the world, perhaps get many more people coming.

NF: Do a Rio or something?

KL: Yeah, and already quite a few tourists fly in for it. We could do a
lot more with that, create more jobs, more money... but you've got to
get a straighter route so it's safe. I mean, I would love to be able to
take my kids there. You'd be terrified to take kids to it on the Monday because you'd...they'd let you go, and you wouldn't be able to get to them through the crowds.

On Trevor Phillips, the CRE, and the BNP

KL: I think that Trevor Phillips has played an absolutely poisonous role.

NF: Do you regret saying Trevor Phillips should join the BNP... might
be joining? That's offensive, isn't it?

KL: No, no, no. I mean, it's over stating the case, that's what you do
to make a point. I think that Trevor Phillips has played an absolutely
poisonous role. He has said and done things as chair of the CRE, um,
which have actually damaged race relations. He made a speech, 'we are sleep-walking into segregation.' Actually we are not. I mean, when we analyse the pattern of who lives where in London, I mean there's nowhere where there's a ghetto in the American sense. And if anything, what our figures show is London gets more mixed up all the time. Unlike America. I think frankly he's been put in to wind the CRE down. Now, a lot of people share Trevor's views, and I respect that we don't agree. But they wouldn't take the job of running the CRE. He's supposed to be there to challenge racism and lead the campaign against it. He spent all his time saying, 'there's a big problem here... I think you know people are worried.' He almost seem to be on the verge of doing what Mrs Thatcher said, which is being swamped by an 'alien tide.'

NF: Is he malevolent or ignorant?

KL: I think Trevor did very good TV programmes and I do love watching them. Trevor, he had a bit of a fling in his student days, but after that we never saw any of the campaigns. He was making a good television programme about it; he was never there on the streets. Which is why, although the Tory press have rushed to his defence, there's been a pretty deafening silence from London's black and Asian communities.

NF: We've heard from our news editor Tom Bateman that Trevor Phillips's office now will be studying the comments you've made to me. How do you respond to that response?

KL: Well I'm sure Trevor and I will bump into each other shortly and it will be a an interesting debate. We'll both be at the Labour Party Conference. I'd be quite happy to debate this issue of multiculturalism
with the media.

NF Will you offer a hand of friendship?

KL: None of this is personal. If I bump into Norman Tebbit I have a
chat with him, so I shouldn't have a problem with Trevor Phillips!

In Defence of Defence

KL: I think sometimes you do have to kill people.

Caller: It's a shame you can't live by the oldest moral code in
existence.

KL: I think sometimes you do have to kill people... in self defence. I'm not a pacifist; I've never been a pacifist. There are evil regimes in the world. I have great respect [for, although] I disagree with a lot of what he did, the late Pope John Paul. When the Nazis invaded Poland, he did not take armed resistance and there couldn't have been a greater
provocation.

Caller: And he was happy to stand by while all the Jews and everyone
else was killed.

KL: He wasn't prepared to use violence.

Caller: The Archbishop of Canterbury admitted the church stood by. That wasn't the main focus of my argument.

NF: When is it all right to kill people, Mr Mayor?

KL: Only in self defence.I...or, I'll give you the example, one of the few occasions where I've called for British troops to be used. When Slobodan Milosevic started the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and in Kosovo. I said it was right to use force to defeat him and if we hadn't done that there wouldn't have been a single Albanian left in Kosovo.

Were Jews Banned from Marching?

Caller: As I understand it in the Jewish press, Jews have been banned
from marching [and] from holding a protest in London, but you are very happy for Muslims to promote Jihad and murder...

KL: No one has banned Jews from marching anywhere in London at all.

Caller: Thats what we've been told.

KL: Well you've been told rubbish.

NF: Who told you?

Caller: This is something that was very widely reported.

NF: Who told you that you and your organisation had been banned?

Caller: Not our organisation, but we were been told that Jews had been banned from holding rallies and demonstrations.

KL: Well, yeah, if you remember during the Israeli invasions of the Lebanon a couple of months ago, there were some huge rallies, I think, in Brent or Harrow. The Chief Rabbi...there were thousands of Jews there expressing support for Israel during that rally. We've had, certainly while I've been mayor, there've been Jewish meetings held at Trafalgar Square. I mean, the only bit of London I control in that way is Trafalagar Square and we have a rule that we won't allow anybody to use it for preaching hatred. Al Mahajiroun wanted to have a demonstration there. We banned them. They turned up and did it anyhow and so we took them to court and had them fined. Um, if you want to have a demonstration in Trafalgar Square as long as you're not urging hatred of anyone else you can have one.

LondONErs, 'I Was Away on Holiday'

Caller: Why have you decided to put up 'we are LondONErs' banners all around London? One, how much is it costing us? Two, why are you telling us we are Londoners when we are already living in this city and know who we are?

KL: The same way after the July bombings we ran the '7 million Londoners' campaign which I think was very good. You've got to get out there and make the case and challenge the...

NF: ...Make the case for what? I know I'm a Londoner.

KL: Oh, come on. Everybody goes out there and advertises and pushes their message and so on, and here is one saying we stand together, um, and in the aftermath of the alleged plot in July, you go back out there and say it again and we will most likely do it everytime there is a big terror scare [...] irrespective of the origin of the
terrorists.

NF: How much is it costing?

KL: It wont be costing much because British Gas have come in and most of the sites we are using are ones that we already own.

NF: So do you have a ball park, hundreds of thousands, half a million?

KL: It was done while I was away on holiday so I can find out if you
are interested.

NF: One of your colleagues has those figures.

KL: The total price is 1.5 million pounds, the GLA is putting in
600,000 and most of that will actually be the use of our sites, we know what it would have cost if we'd had to buy them. I think that's very good value.

Evening Standard Congestion Survey

KL: [... ] if you erode it [bus lanes], there's no point in having them. And people are getting around London easier than they have done in very many years.

NF: That Evening Standard survey showed completely the opposite to
that.

KL: The thing is, the Evening Standard, usually with the RAC or something, get a few down-and-outs to stand there with a panned counter and make a rough old stab at it. We actually have cameras that count every car in and out, so we know exactly how many [are] coming in. We measure their speed electronically and by computer, so it's much better. Within the zone we immediately had a reduction of the number of vehicles coming in, 20% over the last year. It's gone down to 16 % so there's been some creep back. When we fashioned the change to the charge to take account of carbon emissions, we'll aim to make sure we achieve and keep that improved.

NF: When will that be?

KL: It can't be before the next mayoral election. I think for such a substantial change voters have got to decide - they either except it or
don't.

BOOK REVIEW by Nadia Saint, published in October Issue 2006

Katy Gardner, Hidden

Penguin/Michael Joseph

345 Pages

ISBN 0-718-14681-6

Katy Gardner’s third novel, Hidden, is described in the blurb as a ‘stunning psychological thriller’, but the magazines from which the book-cover reviews originate (Heat and Glamour) imply a different story. Hidden starts off as fairly standard chick-lit masquerading as crime fiction, and the conflation of genres comes across a bit like downing Lambrini at a murder scene.

The plot centres on Mel Stenning, her marriage, and the subsequent disappearance of her daughter. Her husband is the prime suspect, and the girl’s disappearance is linked with a year-old cold case of a murdered prostitute. To give the novel its due, it does succeed in creating the suspense, the red herrings, and the twists which form the basis of a good thriller. Moreover, Gardner’s use of language is atmospheric, so that parts of the narrative are as dark and eerie as the plot itself.

However, much of the story is told through Mel’s first-person narrative, and at times this reads like a crime version of Bridget Jones’s Diary. Her first-person narrative is full of shortened names and relationship psychobabble which unfortunately detracts from the otherwise reasonably impressive plot. While an understanding of Mel’s relationships with her husband ‘Si’ and her daughter ‘Pops’ is an important part of the book, these details are often self-indulgent, like a diary which should never be read by anyone other than its author. It is in this respect that the chick-lit/crime thriller dichotomy is irritating rather than chilling.

In spite of this, Gardner’s use of dichotomies actually facilitates the suspense of her thriller. The combination of the mundane and the shocking allows the enigma of the novel to be upheld. Conveyed through the partially retrospective narrative, Mel and Si’s pasts haunt their present, and thus their future is uncertain. The novel’s setting, alternating from urban London to a rural development opportunity in Kent, maintains the alternation between past and present. The twists in the novel’s denouement are shocking yet obvious, and this is where the author should receive the most praise.

Ultimately, while the combination of a thirty-something’s musings and murder thriller is sometimes uncomfortable, the novel succeeds in entertaining and captivating its reader. Formulaic at times, the plot is nonetheless an insightful exploration of paranoia, obsession, and the way in which destructiveness can originate from the human mind.

Review: Nadia Saint