I t is an odd feeling to be the target of
the Mayor’s hostility. Could it possibly be that Ken Livingstone, former London Evening Standard magazine restaurant critic, is still riled by my refusing, three years ago and a few hours after my appointment as editor of the Standard, to go and have lunch with him? One of the things you learn as an editor is that people can take umbrage at the most peculiar things. Alas, my weekday lunches consist overwhelmingly of Associated Newspapers’ finest salads taken at my desk among a sea of changing page proofs and executives demanding instant decisions in mid-bite. It’s a far cry from the days (on another title) when one executive was heard to mumble, ‘There’s not enough lunching on this paper,’ to which his colleague replied, ‘Yes, only one a day.’ Nevertheless Ken evokes some admiration — which is why we supported him for Mayor in the 2004 election rather than Steve Norris, whose involvement with Jarvis would not sit happily with the Mayor’s job, or with thousands of readers who endure the twicedaily misery of rail travel. Behind Ken’s cheeky chappie persona is an effective operator and he has not, as was predicted by the Standard’s previous regime in May 2000, turned out to be a serious embarrassment. Livingstone’s vision (congestion charge), his persistence (another scheme in the pipeline to provide cheap housing for key workers) and his championship of London have rightly won him mass popularity. The downside is his financial recklessness.
Londoners may welcome extra buses although outside the rush hours most seem to be empty and clogging up the city — but they and all Ken’s projects are very expensive. Transport for London will have to borrow £3.3 billion over the next five years to keep its overall budget in balance. The cost of running City Hall is expected to rise in the Mayor’s new budget from £56.3 million to £60.9 million. Previously His Honour was satisfied to be served by 287 staff. Now he demands 682. The bill will be borne by Londoners. To sustain Ken’s fiefdom, modest Band D households will have to pay a massive increase in their council tax. In 2000 it was £123. Now it’s £241, and he’s demanded another increase, to around £250. Is all that extra money for the benefit of London — or for Ken’s image?
One clue is the monthly publication of the Londoner, a newspaper published by the Mayor and printed by his new best friend Richard Desmond. An odd alliance. The reason for this free newspaper, printed and delivered at public expense to every household, is Ken’s fear and loathing of the Evening Standard. It is true that we occasionally criticise the Mayor. In particular, I didn’t like his behaviour after a party punch-up at which a member of my staff was pushed over a wall. The Londoner, at an annual cost for taxpayers of £3.27 million, is Ken’s Pravda. Londoners are regaled this month with no fewer than 40 mentions of the Mayor but, modestly, only two photographs, down from the normal six (perhaps he should seek Mr Desmond’s advice on flesh tones). Shouldn’t the Mayor be making London work better for less money, rather than pumping out propaganda at the public expense?
Home to Hampstead, just in time for University Challenge. But I no longer have the pleasure of being soundly beaten to the answers by the children. They have gone their separate ways, to boarding school, university, business school and the City respectively. I find myself missing all those dirty football boots, the clarinet case and school bags that used to clutter the hall.
Igrab a cab and settle down to read my papers — but, this being London, the driver was keen to talk. Where are you from? I asked. Southwark, but originally Uganda, was the reply. I told him I had tried to drop by some years ago when driving from London to Johannesburg but Idi Amin decided that Brits weren’t welcome. The routes by which people end up in London and their stories are fascinating. What does my driver think of Gordon Brown’s Mother Teresa trip around Africa? An ego trip, he replied. Perhaps Gordon’s porkies to Robert Peston will not be atoned for by his missionary visit after all. Having lived in South Africa during the apartheid years, one of my heroes is Nelson Mandela. But I am opposed to Ken’s proposal to put the great man’s statue on the last empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. Quite simply, it would sit more happily across the square outside South Africa House. I am not alone in this. Westminster Council, the National Gallery, Brian Sewell, the popular vote and even Ken’s own guru Richard Rogers agree. Yet as usual Ken presses on regardless. This is one battle, I predict, he will lose. English Heritage will have the last say, using their little known ‘right of direction’ powers. Quite right too.
First of our paper’s five daily editions dispatched to the printers by 8 a.m., to the Savoy for breakfast. Thanks to Ken’s congestion charge, it takes only 15 minutes. I am hosting our NHS Champions Awards, an event I am proud to have brought to the paper. London hospitals have huge problems but the staff are nothing less than saints. First up on the platform is the dishy Casualty actor and playwright Kwame KweiArmah, one of our judges, who hands a cheque to the winning ambulance officer from Friern Barnet. Outstanding nurses, doctors, midwives follow. Naturally we run the pictures in the paper. Who says newspapers don’t publish good news? Still, the legendary Daily Mail editor David English had a point: would you buy a paper with the headline ‘Hollywood actress returns home to her own bed’?
One of the hazards of working on an evening paper is the early morning dress code. It is dark when we get up, even in the summer. Men turn up for work in odd socks and shoes. Try as I might, I still seem to end up wearing the same old pair of black trousers every day, alternating with a different coloured jacket. But now the trousers are fraying at the hems — so too are the jackets, but I think that’s the fashion. How I miss the harsh judgments of my personal shopper, my daughter, who has just gone to university, and would greet every safe choice with a withering, ‘Oh Mum, that’s SOOO BORING.’ As for lunch: I confess I made one exception this week, for David Blunkett. We made the date before Christmas but he rings to see if I still want to meet, given, well, the change in his circumstances. Yes, of course, but I cannot bring myself to tell him that dinner would be more convenient. And yes, as I am sure you are about to ask, he is looking a lot less peaky. Dinner with Ken? Now here’s an idea, but only if Petronella comes too as chaperone. On second thoughts, perhaps not. I might turn up for work with a black eye.
Previous page
