'Desperate' Ken plunders another Johnson policy

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Ken Livingstone said he thought a Mayor's Fund for London, through which business can donate money to charities such as victim support groups, was a good idea. Last week he attacked the scheme as "doomed to fail".

He said on Friday: "Boris Johnson's plan that our young people should have to depend on charitable handouts from the City of London for the investment they need is a throwback to Charles Dickens's 19th-century world and would be doomed to fail and disappoint them and the local community organisations who need support."

Yet by Saturday he had changed his mind, saying the idea would provide a "useful sum" but only if it was run by him. He added "I'll steal any good idea that Boris has got."

Mr Livingstone has been brazen about his willingness to take other candidates' policies. He has already adopted Mr Johnson's plan to make youths who misbehave on buses do community service and to give injured Army veterans free travel.

The U-turn came as Mr Johnson announced a line-up of advisers who would help run the fund including former Labour donor Sir Trevor Chinn, retired Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharpe and ex-prison governor Ray Lewis

On the adoption of his policy Mr Johnson said: "I'm delighted to hear what I think even by his own standards is one of the most astonishing political U-turns.

"Anyone would think, Ken, you're absolutely desperate. It's the only act of theft in London that I condone."