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Livingstone attacks TV probe into his drinking
Ross Lydall, City Hall Editor17.01.08
Ken Livingstone has complained to the media watchdog Ofcom about an "explosive" TV documentary rumoured to focus on his drinking.
The Dispatches programme, due to be broadcast by Channel 4 on Monday evening, is also understood to make claims about his senior aides - whose salaries are paid by London taxpayers - exceeding their powers.
Today the Mayor revealed he had complained to Ofcom, suggesting it was unfair for a broadcaster to target just one Mayoral candidate so close to May's election. Speaking on LBC radio, Mr Livingstone said: "If they [the producers] had phoned me and said 'Do you want to come in next Monday and we're putting these questions to you for the next hour?' I'd have said, 'Yes'.
"But that's not what they've done. They've spent a year preparing a documentary, interviewing all my enemies, it's going to be all dramatic music and gloomy shadows and all they're offering me is the chance they'll flash up a sentence saying 'I don't believe a word of it' on the back." Asked by LBC presenter Nick Ferrari whether he had a drink problem, he joked: "Well I'm concerned about the amount I'm drinking because it's nothing like enough!"
He added: "I should imagine I get a couple of glasses of wine down me at any reception - I suspect I most probably drink about half of what I did when I was an MP. A couple of bottles of wine a week in total. I'd like to drink a lot more!"
The Mayor went on: "When this programme goes out on Monday, it's all just the old rehashed charges that we've had over the last few years.
"What's striking about this is that it's the first time ever this close to an election a television company has produced a programme which is a hatchet job on one candidate and not on the others."
An Ofcom spokeswoman said it had not received a complaint from the Mayor. She said: "We are a post-transmission regulator. We would not be able to take any action until the programme has been broadcast."
