Ken Livingstone and his top aides face being escorted from City Hall by security staff within minutes of the election result being declared tomorrow night, the Standard has learnt.

The Tories say they have been assured by Greater London Returning Officer Anthony Mayer that outgoing members of staff will be accompanied from the premises if Mr Livingstone loses.

Under the Greater London Authority Act, an outgoing mayor has 28 hours to vacate his office. In theory, that would give him until around midnight on Saturday to remain in City Hall.

But many Conservatives fear that allowing Mr Livingstone and his political staff more than a day could allow key documents to be shredded or embarrassing emails deleted.

The Assembly's Conservative group leader Richard Barnes said he had been told there would be a "complete security clampdown" following the result.

"Everyone knows what happened at the White House when George W Bush took over - all of the keyboards had the letter 'w' missing. We don't want anything like that in London," he said.

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