Tessa Jowell launched a vigorous defence of Ken Livingstone last night after his record at City Hall came under sustained attack. The Minister for London admitted the Mayor was disliked by many Londoners - but insisted his Tory rival Boris Johnson would be a disaster for the capital.

She urged voters to base their vote on Mr Livingstone's policies, which she said had helped Londonbecome a worldclass city, rather than his personality. Ms Jowell admitted that she and the Mayor had not always seen eye-to-eye but was "proud" to be his campaign co-ordinator.

At an Evening Standard debate on whether he deserved a third term, she criticised "completely unjustified abuse" of the Mayor during the campaign.

"I'm certainly not going to pretend that Ken deserves a third term because he's universally adored by every citizen in London but I am arguing that Ken deserves a third term because he has been an extraordinarily successful Mayor," she said.

"Ken may not be your favourite dinner party companion. But being Mayor of London is one of the biggest jobs and most difficult jobs in public life. Over the next four years there will be enormous and difficult contracts to manage, in particular Crossrail.

"Boris is an amiable entertainer but when his policies come under serious challenge, I would say he is not up to the job and London would be put at risk if Boris Johnson was Mayor. "He is simply not a serious candidate."

She listed Mr Livingstone's achievements including increasing public transport use, the C-charge, building more affordable homes, establishing neighbourhood policing, tackling climate change and winning the Olympics.

But shadow schools secretary Michael Gove launched a strong attack on the Mayor. "There are two great charges against Ken. He has treated London as his personal fiefdom and he's using our council tax as his personal kitty," said Mr Gove, a close ally of David Cameron.

"Ken has taken a city which is the most multicultural in the world, and he has divided the city, community against community, in order to ensure that he comes out on top," he said.

"He is playing a very dirty political game, seeking to ramp up sectional, cultural appeal. His divisive agenda has no place in a vibrant, modern, multicultural city. You can see it in the shameless way that Ken tries to paint Boris as a racist."

The Tory MP, who has known Mr Johnson since Oxford, added: "Ken has now become the symbol of the very things he ran against in 2000 - complacency, arrogance, taking it for granted. It's time we did to him what he did to the political establishment in 2000. It is true that Boris has less experience but we've all had experience of Ken and that experience has been of grotesque mismanagement and setting London's communities against one another."

But Ms Jowell denied the Mayor had tried to divide and rule London's communities: "Ken's view that London is a place for everybody as long as they live by the rules has been very important in defining what kind of city London has become over the last eight years."

Historian Tristram Hunt, a New Labour supporter, claimed that major projects could be at risk if Boriswere to win.

He added: "You only have to look at his election campaign where he crawls the outer edges of the Central line, down the dark alley of the District line, with his dog whistle sort of touching up people's concerns about feral youths and bureaucracy at City Hall.

"This is no way to run a city." Both Mr Livingstone's and Mr Johnson's exponents attacked the BNP, with Mr Gove emphatically rejecting any collaboration between the party and the Tory candidate.

Ms Jowell said: "London is perhaps the most international city in the world certainly in the terms of nationality. Three hundred languages and 200 nationalities and we are seeing a fall in racist attacks. The degree of cohesion in London meant in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in London there was not a single attack on a Muslim person in London.

"London came together under Ken's leadership. Ken has campaigned his whole political life against racist extremity. But we all have reason to be worried and whatever party you decide to vote for vote against the BNP."

Mr Gove said Boris renounced any endorsement from the BNP: "He regards the BNP as a disgusting group of human beings. He is horrified that anyone that would vote for the BNP would vote for him and has made it perfectly clear where they can stick their endorsement."

He said Mr Johnson would rather a non-voter voted for Mr Livingstone than not at all to lessen the chance of a BNP candidate getting enough of a vote to win a seat on the London Assembly.

The panellists virtually came to blows over Olympic funding and regeneration of the East End.

AndrewGilligan said: "Ken's Olympics will be one of the biggest turkeys of all time. It's a disaster. if you want to spend £10 million or £20 billion pounds on regenerating the East End, spend the money on regenerating the East End - don't spend it on a load of stadia that will be used for 16 days. It's a terrible disaster waiting to happen the Olympics."

But Ms Jowell insisted that 73p of every pound going to the Olympics would be spent on developing the land.

However, this figure was disputed by Andrew Gilligan.

Watch video from the Evening Standard debate here

SO, DOES KEN DESERVE ANOTHER TERM? WHAT THE PANELLISTS SAID...

YES

TESSA JOWELL - The Minister for the Olympics is also the Mayor's campaign manager

MS JOWELL said: "London is a world-class city and Ken has become a world-class mayor. That is widely recognised by leaders of other capital cities around the world. He has been extraordinarily successful in building the reputation of London and making it a great city to live in. The challenge of the next four years is to make it even better."
She said Mr Livingstone's greatest achievements include: increasing investment in public transport by 50 per cent; doubling the stock of affordable housing; introducing neighbourhood policing across London and drawing up "the most comprehensive plan ever" to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
She dismissed Boris Johnson as an "amiable entertainer", adding: "When his policies are put under serious scrutiny, like the actual cost of replacing bendy buses or tough sentences when dealing with gun crime, I see he's not up to the job.
"Ken may not be your favourite dinner party companion but he deserves a third term and, more importantly, London needs Ken.
"I would go for experience and invite Boris Johnson for dinner instead."

NO

MICHAEL GOVE - Shadow secretary for children, schools and families

MR GOVE condemned the Mayor for inviting controversial Islamic preacher, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to City Hall, for spending taxpayers' money on fact-finding trips to Cuba and Venezuela and for blighting London's landscape by granting planning permission for tower-blocks and skyscrapers.
He added: "What has Ken ever done for the poor? He's patronised them and used them as a stage army in order to cast himself as a crusader.
"He's been in Caracas when he should have been concentrating on helping the poor in our own boroughs who have been so grievously let down."
Rebutting Tessa Jowell's claims about the Mayor's achievements, he said: "On his watch, violent crime has increased and the proportion of affordable housing in new developments has dropped and not increased."
He added that Mr Livingstone had reneged on his pledges to keep Routemaster buses and respect public consultations.
"Ken has now become the symbol of the very thing he ran against in 2000: complacency, arrogance and taking us for granted.
"If Boris does nothing other than get rid of Ken, he will have done all of us a favour."

YES

TRISTRAM HUNT - Historian, author, columnist, broadcaster and Labour supporter

DR HUNT dismissed Michael Gove's attack on the Mayor as "what the mid-Victorians would have called the voice of the reactionary shopocracy".
He said: "London is at its best when it is governed from the centre, when we have a strong, progressive administration working from the centre. We need a powerful hand on the tiller, a City Hall of leadership that Ken has and Boris would put at risk."
He added: "The Congestion Charge didn't happen by accident. New York and Edinburgh have just flunked it. It takes political balls to deliver.
"The same is true of Crossrail, Oyster Cards and the Olympics. To deliver the policing reforms meant taking on the borough commanders. All this is at risk if Boris wins."
Defending Mr Livingstone against allegations of cultural and ethnic "divide and rule" he said: "You just need to leaf through the pages of the Spectator in the Nineties - when Boris edited this magazine - and you would have more than your fair share of sectarianism and division. Do you want that running London? No!
"Ken deserves a third, but in my view, final term."

NO

ANDREW GILLIGAN - Columnist and reporter for the Evening Standard

"I AM a Lefty," said Mr Gilligan, "and like so many people on the Left I had a political crush on Ken, I wanted to have his babies, metaphorically speaking - unlike so many women who want them in the literal sense. Then I joined the Evening Standard and started to investigate his record.
"The most telling words ever spoken about Ken were said by Neil Kinnock. They were: 'Everyone likes Ken except the people who know him.'
"What happened when I joined the Standard was I got to know him - not personally but politically.
"Most of Ken's achievements are little or nothing to do with him, or just lies. The economy was already booming when he came into office, as was bus travel. The percentage of new housing that was affordable was 34 per cent and it is 34 per cent now. CO2 emissions have risen in the last two years whereas they have been static in Britain as a whole.
"Ken said he would seek only to serve one term in office before he became Mayor. What we have seen since is decay and atrophy."
On Boris Johnson, he said: "When he was editor of the Spectator he was crap at the general day-to-day stuff but he's not going to have to do that.
"But he was brilliant at strategic decisions."

Watch video from the Evening Standard debate here

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