Mary Reid

I've just seen Ken Livingstone on the news telling the elected GLA members that they are a bunch of "sanctimonious hypocrites". Assembly Chair Sally Hamwee asked him, very calmly, to treat people with respect, and he shouted that they didn't deserve respect.

The London Assembly was then suspended.

And what was that all about?

For some weeks a story has been emerging about Lee Jasper. Jasper is employed as a senior civil servant in the role of equalities adviser to the Mayor.  Substantial grants - about £2.5million in total - have been made by the London Development Agency (Livingstone's business arm) to organisations that Jasper is personally involved with. The claim is that some of these organisations have apparently done nothing in return for the cash. Where has it gone?

You can read the background story in the Evening Standard and you can play the BBC news item from this page. 

Livingstone claims that this concern is being kept alive because of the forthcoming Mayoral election. Well, frankly, yes: the voters of London need to know whether Livingstone and Jasper are blameless or not.