Ealing Bus Lanes

Ken Livingstone has threatened to withdraw over £4m of funding from Ealing Council simply because the elected body has said it wants to remove two bus lanes that are empty for up to half an hour at a time and cause jams and localised pollution.

It really astounding the arrogance of this man. It's quite clear that the bus lane doesn't work and he rolls up on to TV to say the Council is "attacking" him and he'll have to "consider" their funding. He's hasn't even bothered to address the very reasonable argument Ealing Counil has put forward. But wait, the council is run by Tories, no wonder. If it was a Labour Council I imagine it would get away with it.

Roll on 2008.

No Such Thing as a Free Concert

All the press releases call it a free festival.

The free festival is organized by London Mayor Ken Livingstone to combat racism and celebrate diversity in London.

I wonder who will pay for it all then?

Ken's "green" credentials in tatters

Yesterday, Ken Livingstone's "green" credentials were exposed as worthless for all see in City Hall. Under questioning from Green Party London List member, Darren Johnson, the Mayor admitted that London was going to miss it's target of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2010.

What's more, he admitted that the money for the scheme was being used to fund the 2012 Olympics (that's on top of our inevitable Council Tax rises). Is it really a surprise that the Tories on the GLA opposed the Mayor's budget when he can't even stick to it?

In true Stalinist style though, Ken has moved the goalposts. He's set a new target to cut London's emissions by 60% by 2050. A totally meaningless move given he'll very likely be dead by then, but it get's him off the hook for the rest of his life. It certainly makes a mockery of his assertion that

"Climate change is the biggest single problem facing all of us, all over the world, we can't carry on polluting the atmosphere with carbon emissions in the way we've been doing,"

Ken's claims to be an environmentalist always appeared a little suspect. Now that he's changed a target he only set two years ago in his "Energy Strategy" to one that he never has to actually meet that suspicion is well and truly confirmed.
Quote taken from edie

Livingstone's nuclear straw man

One might think that our man at City Hall had enough to keep him occupied without venturing into energy policy, but apparently not. The front page of this month's Londoner deals with a poll on attitudes to nuclear power. The issue of nuclear is far too dull to get into at the moment, but why on earth is money being spent on polling that has a clearly ideological dimension?

Note the loaded way these sentences have been phrased: "Supporters of nuclear power argue that these could provide a third of future energy needs. Others say nuclear power will do very little to cut carbon emissions, is by far the most dangerous and expensive method of electricity generation and that its radioactive waste will be with us for 300,000 years.In the poll, 45 per cent of Londoners oppose building new nuclear power stations and believe they are not the way to tackle climate change. Only 34 per cent actually support building them.".

However, this is my 'favourite': "Unsurprisingly, three quarters of Londoners also say they do not want nuclear power stations built in their local area".. It has always been national policy to build nuclear power stations in comparatively underpopulated areas like Dounreay, Windscale, erm Sellafield and Sizewell and on the coast, so asking this question is idiotic: there is never going to be a plant built on Hampstead Heath, or come to that, in Croydon.

Livingstone New Town

From Burning Our Money

Good to see King Ken keeping up the fine tradition of tin-pot demagogues throughout the ages. The man voted in by just 16% of Londoners has now pledged he will build a shining new city truly worthy of his memory.

All tyrants like their momuments after all.

Ken's Venezuelan Friends

Read This and tell me it doesn't make you think that Aleksander Boyd might be in with a chance. It is the crude bullying and incoherence we expect from supporters of tyranny.

Quote of the Day

From Michael Gove:

How can the man responsible for the busy task of running multicultural London be expected to know that a name like Reuben might suggest a particular faith or ethnicity? These PC zealots will be expecting poor Ken to know the difference between a mosque and a temple next. The mayor was just unlucky in his choice of words — as he has been before.

Spot on.

Livingstone let off from new anti-Semitism charge

Amazingly, Livingstone has got away with a fresh charge of anti-Semitism in a report by the GLA. Back in March, he told Jewish brothers David and Simon Reuben to "go back to Iran and try their luck with the ayatollahs". Apparently this wasn't anti-Semitism, and Ken "had good reason to be strongly critical of his understanding of the Reuben brothers' conduct, and that his criticism, whilst robust, was reasonable in the circumstances." So that clears that up then.

If anyone is upset with anything any of us ever say about Ken on this blog we think we have good reason to be strongly critical of Ken because of our understanding of his conduct, and our criticism, whilst robust, is reasonable in the circumstances..

Bob Neill asks a sneaky question!

Bob Neill has put down a sneaky question to Ken asking whether he,

"plans to meet with the newly elected President of Peru, Alan Garcia?"

Should be interesting to see the answer, after all Garcia is a populist left-winger (most famous for destroying Peru's economy with 1000% hyper-inflation in the 1980s) so you'd expect Ken to be falling over himself to meet him.

There is one slight problem though. Whilst Garcia remains a left-wing socialist, he also publicly attacked Ken's other best friend in Latin America, the populist dictator Hugo Chavez. During the election campaign Garcia called Chavez "a little dictator with money". In another interview he said,

"There have been dictators without money in the Americas. This one had it easy because he has $70 billion a year just from petroleum"

Garcia may be a left wing loony, but's he 100% on the money about Chavez. Whatever will Ken do? Support Garcia and annoy Chavez? or support Chavez and snub Peru? Such a bind!

Livingstone's Lawyers

Red Ken is preparing his defence against the charge that he slandered Blogger Aleksander Boyd.

"Dear Mr Boyd, (Yourself v Ken Livingstone) We confirm that we have been instructed on behalf of the defendant in relation to this matter and attach a copy of the acknowledgment of service for your information. We understand that, on this basis, the defence will be due to be served on 6 July 2006."

The aforementioned Mr Boyd has a few questions he would like answering.

How can Livingstone afford such an outfit? I don't think his income as Mayor permits for such extravagant expenses.

Good Question, I assume Berrymans Lace Mawer don't come cheap.

Would it be correct to assume that the Greater London Authority (GLA) will foot the bill?

Bearing in mind what we know about Mr Livingstone's taxi bills, I wouldn't be surprised.

Taking into consideration that my claim is specifically against Ken Livingstone, and not with the GLA as he has falsely and repeatedly tried to imply, and supposing that indeed the GLA will pay for Livingstone's defence, is it lawful that the Mayor of London uses Londoners' taxpayer money to resolve legal issues of a personal nature?

I would love to know what the rules are concerning this, and how decisions are made. Bearing in mind that public figures are at risk from spurious lawsuits, there must be some provision. However, seeing as this incident, like so many others, are a case of Ken placing his own foot in his mouth, I don't see why the public should pay the price.

Cost effectiveness over safety

In an email reply on behalf of Ken Livingstone from Kevin Austin, Head of Transport, the Mayor has stated that he believes all school children should use public buses to get to school, simply because they are free.

In response to an inquiry by a Canning Town resident about why the Mayor does not implement US-style yellow school buses in London (a policy put forward by Policy Exchange and the Conservative Party), the Mayor's office responded that such a scheme was not "cost effective" and it was more "effective to allow children to travel free on the existing bus network."

However, parents of children cannot travel free, and two bus journeys a day equates to around £40 per month. There are many families that simply cannot afford that sort of extra expenditure. As the Mayor offers no solutions for them we presume he thinks they should put their 6 year olds on to public buses alone.

It seems for the Mayor that cost effectiveness is more important than the safety of school children.

More opportunism from Ken

"If anyone threatens public confidence in the Met it is those who are running the open campaign in the right-wing press against the police commissioner,"

Errr... it's the right wing press that has supported the Met's action when dealing with the very difficult issue of terrorism. The right wing press are the ones that understand that sometimes tough decisions lead to unfortunate tragedy but tough decisions still need to be taken.

Unlike Ken, the right wing press does not use the tragedy of July 7th for politically opportunistic comments.

The best way to choose anyone but Ken

In an interview for the Evening Standard it has been revealed by David Cameron that the Conservative Party plans to let all registered voters in London choose the Tory Mayoral candidate to challenge Livingstone in 2008. Not only will the race be open but anyone can apply to be the candidate and face the selection panels which lead to the Open Primary.

"Too many people are fed up and disillusioned with politics. I hope that doing things differently will fire the public's imagination and get them talking and thinking about politics again. Somewhere in London, there's a Mayor in the making. If its you, please consider applying today.... The Mayor's decisions have a huge impact on the lives of everyone who lives in the city, so it makes sense to give everybody the opportunity to have a say in choosing who they think is best suited to the task."

London deserves better than Ken Livingstone, and now we have a chance to pick the very best person to take him on and represent the true voice of London.

More insanity at City Hall

As though we weren't suffering enough already, Ken has decided that London needs a food strategy. Uh-huh... Read the release to take in the full extent of this particular piece of empire building idiocy.

This, however, is the prize pearl:

Developing a kitemark to be used to brand locally-sourced, sustainable food

Well, I'm sure the owners of the rolling wheat fields of Lambeth, the orchards of Wandsworth and the ranches of Tower Hamlets are keen to see their produce identified as hailing from London.

This month’s ‘The Londoner’

Ken is a big fan of revisiting his old tricks, and those of us of a certain vintage will remember how the GLC used to inflict propaganda on the rates on the denizens of The Great Wen. Anyway, ‘The Londoner’

is London’s very own version of The Peoples Daily, in which all is sweetness and light and Livingstone is a combination of Thomas Jefferson, Father Christmas and Nelson Mandela, and we lucky people get a copy through the letter box once a month. As the title contains very little advertising other than from the wholly captive like London Transport, we also have the pleasure of paying for this bilge. With Pravda at least one had to elect to read it and fork out some kopecks for the privilege. The site seems to be acting up at present, so I have been unable to find any mention of the cost of publishing it.

So, without further ado, onto this month’s 12 page issue:

Mentions of Ken Livingstone – 9

Photos of Ken – 1

There is plenty of material in the current issue to raise the blood pressure, but for now I will focus on a staggeringly misleading item on the extension of Oyster to overland rail services:

“Passengers will be able to use pay as you go Oyster cards on all of London's overground suburban trains within two years. Oyster makes travelling easier and faster and reduces queues at ticket offices. Many single fares and Travelcards are also considerably cheaper by Oyster. Since the card was brought in, it has only been accepted at a handful of rail stations while all Tube, bus, tram and Docklands Light Railway passengers are able to use it. This means London's six million Oyster card holders have to buy costlier paper tickets for daily travel when using overground mainline trains”.

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Well, this year’s fare hikes saw Oyster and paper ticket prices move out of sync, by virtue of a massive rise in the cost of paper tickets and now they have the audacity to spin it as Oyster being cheaper, rather than acknowledge that differential pricing was introduced to pressure users into using the pre-pay card rather than conventional tickets.

Imagine, if you will, this parallel: Apu owns the Kwik-E Mart, where I pick up a newspaper, a Mars bar and a packet of fags every morning as it is the monopoly supplier. For this I hand over six quid. Then Apu devises a Kwik-E mart card, for which one has to pre-pay, and if using this I can continue to pay £6 for my purchases, or if I want to use cash, £9. Would Apu have the brass neck to tell me that his availing me of the use of Kwik-E mart card constituted a bargain?

Because that is the nature of this Oyster / ticket stitch-up. Furthermore, this smart card has a unique identifying number, and should she get hold of it, whoever has the misfortune to be Ms Croydonian this week could data mine my purchases with it and then berate me for buying cigarettes when I swore blind I’d given up.

Enjoy the drink!

Apparently, at the same party for London council leader's where Red Ken had a go at Scotland he also told his distinguised guests.

Enjoy the drink, it's on the council tax

Is there really need for further comment from me?

See You in Court

When the enlightened and progressive Caudilo Hugo Chavez visited London, Ken was attentive to his every need. He even insulted Hugo's critics for him and made wild accusations about them.

He forgot that even in the People's Republic of London, we still have a working justice system.

I just got back from the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division where I presented a claim with the number HQ06X01639. In it I claim
a) an injuction to prevent Ken Livingstone from further tarnishing my reputation by making defamatory remarks against me and
b) £100.000 in damages.

Lets hope the chap is successful. Using a bully pulpit to smear people who lack the ability to answer back is typically Ken. It shows once again what an odious person he is. Lets hope he has to pay for it.

Ken has a pop at Scotland

Ken has managed to insult the entire Scottish nation this time. What is it with this man? He's had a pop at Jews, praised Chairman Mao, given hospitality to a Latin american dictator and now he's having a pop at the Scots.

"We need Crossrail to keep London's Economy ticking over so that we can continue to pay for the Scottish to live the lifestyle to which they are accustomed."

Whilst he may indeed be right about London (and the south east) paying for Scotland, he's supposed to represent the city to the wider world. How can he claim to be a champion of London's diversity by insulting a nation and many of London's population?

No Diversity, of Opinion

Another little story that shows so much about the man's character. Commenting on a report prepared by the Equalities Review Panel, Red Ken has this to say:

“It is bizarre that a report meant to examine the causes of inequality barely mentions discrimination and comes close to implying people choose to be unequal or that their culture somehow holds them back…this report is a travesty and should be withdrawn.”

Focus on the last bit. I have no idea whether the report is a travesty or not and I don't really care. I just love the fact that certain kinds of people want to supress reports that they don't agree with, simply because they think they are wrong.

Its all a bit totalitarian isn't it.

Anti Ken Videos

I have been sent these videos by fellow conspiritor Red Ken.

1. Ken Livingstone's Congestion will be pointless in Chelsea - WE'VE PROVED IT
2. Ken what have you done?

Red Ken can be found here

No Investment in Roads

We all know that Ken is anti-road, and we may be about to get a little extra proof.

Transport for London (TfL) is attempting to quietly drop a multi-million pound scheme to improve congestion on the A406 North Circular Road.

Because in his twisted logic, car drivers deserve to suffer. The problem is it seems, a new law currently passing through parliament.

A parliamentary bill to give TfL a range of new powers, which is currently making its way through the House of Commons, includes a clause which will allow it to revoke orders brought in by the Department for Transport (DfT.

The only scheme that would be affected is this one.

So once again, the major will get a chance to use his powers to work against the needs of ordinary Londoners.