London candidates clash in TV debate
Crime, bendy buses and the congestion charge were among the issues riling the leading London mayoral candidates in last night’s TV debate.
BBC2’s Newsnight programme hosted the three-way debate between the incumbent Labour mayor Ken Livingstone, Conservative candidate Boris Johnson and Liberal Democrats’ Brian Paddick.
Mr Livingstone faced pressure from both his main challengers on his record as mayor since 2000, being attacked by Mr Johnson for his “maladministration and waste” in his budgets.
But the mayor, who told a confused Mr Johnson “you can call me Ken after all this time”, said he had acted in Londoners’ interests and had “never introduced a policy where a poll showed a lack of support”.
That applied to the congestion charge, he insisted, after Mr Johnson told him Mr Livingstone had broken his promise to “act upon democratic consultation”. Mr Paddick said he would abolish it because “two-thirds of people in the western extension zone said they didn’t want the charge”.
Mr Johnson was vociferous when the issue of London’s bendy buses, a pet hate, were raised. He described them as a “danger to people outside” as well as inside the buses and pledged to stop the financial “haemorrhage” caused by people using them without paying.
But Mr Livingstone denied a link between the type of buses and increased fatalities on London’s roads.
On crime, the mayor pointed out a 28 per cent reduction in murders had been achieved in the last five years and said funding from central government would help tackle the “horror” of teenage crime.
Mr Johnson said it was “time for a mayor who will give a lead on the number one problem in the capital” and pledged more policy on the streets, a focus on the voluntary sector and a clampdown on disorder on the city’s buses.
“If you drive out minor crime it will make a difference to more serious crime,” he explained.
Mr Paddick, who was a Metropolitan police officer for 30 years, said: “Nobody is saying how we’re going to get the guns and knives off the streets.”
The Lib Dem candidate struggled against the constant bickering of his two rivals but, apart from one remark, avoided direct criticism of Mr Johnson.
When asked which would receive his second-preference vote, he said: “I think they’re bad in different ways.”
