Ken Livingstone's eight political aides get £1.6 million payoff

Eight 'cronies' of Ken Livingstone are to receive £1.6million in pay-offs following his defeat in the London mayoral elections, it emerged yesterday.

The City Hall advisers will get an average of £200,000 after threatening to sue Tory mayor Boris Johnson for unfair dismissal.

They were forced to step down after Mr Livingstone was voted out in May.

As they were political appointments, not permanent employees, they would not normally have received a penny.

But they will now get six-figure pay-offs after Mr Livingstone changed the rules last year to make his advisors eligible for the same severance payments as permanent staff.

Last night critics condemned the payments, revealed in the London Evening Standard, as a 'merry-go-round of excess'.

Tony Travers, local government expert at the London School of Economics, said: 'I think most people will be shocked. You could do quite a lot about knife crime £1.6 million.

'It is odd indeed that the full benefits of labour laws designed to protect the vulnerable are being claimed by courtiers who knew they would lose their jobs if their master lost the election.

'I don't think people inside the system understands how this merry-go-round of excess looks to outsiders.

'It is, to put it kindly, generous for Boris to be paying this - but it also unquestionably damages Ken.'

Those getting payoffs include John Ross, Mr Livingstone's economic advisor; Redmond O'Neill, his transport advisor; Simon Fletcher, his chief of staff; and Mark Watts, his climate change advisor.

All are current or former members of Trotskyite group Socialist Action.

Each was paid a minimum of £121,000 while in their Greater London Authority jobs, amongst the most generous salaries in local government.

They will receive the payoffs, which are calculated according to their length of service, whether or not they get a new job. None is believed to have found alternative employment since the May election defeat.

Last night a spokeswoman for Conservative mayor Boris Johnson said he was 'dismayed' to have been forced to make the payments but had been advised that there was no alternative.

'The legal advice was that their rights under employment law outweighed the provisions of the GLA Act,' she said. 'The Mayor feels that the law is flawed on this issue.'

Lib Dem assembly member Dee Doocey said the payments were 'completely inexcusable'.

'I used to be finance director for the Liberal Democrats and I dealt with the secretaries and researchers of MPs who lost their seats,' she said. 'They got little or nothing.

'It seems like there's one law for the ordinary working person and one law for the political class.'

Last night Mr Livingstone said he had not been involved in his advisers' legal discussions with the GLA.

He said: 'It's a question of what the law requires. Either there's a legal responsibility or there isn't.'