Afternoon:
10°c
Over the past two months, the Standard has written a lot about the Mayor's race adviser, Lee Jasper - in particular his position at the centre of a network of projects run by his friends which have received millions of pounds in City Hall money, yet appear to have done remarkably little in return.
Finally, last week, amid kicking and screaming probably audible on Pluto, Mr Livingstone suspended Jasper and referred him for investigation to the police. Said Ken: "There's this drumbeat: 'It's all corrupt, it's all corrupt.' It's time for the Evening Standard to put up or shut up." Said London's growing band of Kenosceptics: at last. Now the police might finally get to the bottom of this.
I bring bad news to the latter group: for the police, as they confirmed yesterday, Lee Jasper is not in the frame, and never has been. Before anyone cries "fix", let me explain. The Standard does not withdraw a single word it has printed about Mr Jasper. But in all those thousands of words, one word we have quite deliberately never used about him is "corrupt". (It was used, once, in a quote by somebody else, not referring specifically to Mr Jasper.)
Mr Jasper's alleged offences are not criminal. They are offences of misconduct in public office. We have not, so far, accused him personally of anything the police might be interested in.
Our charges against Mr Jasper are of cronyism and misuse of public funds. We do not claim, and never have claimed, that he has been lining his own pockets. What we say is that he has been lining his friends' pockets, with your money, and protecting them as they, shall we say, lose it.
These charges are extremely serious: the same sort of thing that brought down Shirley Porter, albeit on a smaller scale. There may well be corruption and fraud in this story: some of the Jasper cronies may seem entirely worthy of the police investigations now being conducted into them. But for Mr Jasper, as for Dame Shirley, this is a matter for the District Auditor and the voters, not the Met.
If our stories are the lies that City Hall says, it could also be a matter for the libel courts. More than two months ago, Mr Livingstone threatened to sue us. Why hasn't he? It's because, for all his endless claims that there is "no evidence" for our charges, the evidence is overwhelming.
Take the fact that one of the projects, Brixton Base, run by Mr Jasper's close friend Errol Walters, received £287,000 over two years from Ken's London Development Agency for "premises", even though it occupied an LDA-owned building, was charged no rent for the first year and failed to pay the rent for most of the second year. The evidence for that is answers to the London Assembly by the Mayor himself.
LDA officials didn't want to fund Brixton Base at all, regarding its proposal-as "vague" and "not in line with our objectives", but then handed over half a million pounds after pressure from Mr Jasper. It wanted to evict Brixton Base from its building after raising serious concerns about it but was prevented from doing so by Mr Jasper. The evidence for that is more than a hundred pages of leaked emails.
Take that £300,000 contract awarded outside the normal tender process to another Jasper friend, Joel O'Loughlin, to run a London website, even though his company had no web expertise and was based in Liverpool.
The LDA wanted to sack, and even sue, O'Loughlin after he lied to them and failed to deliver, but after an intervention by Mr Jasper it ended up offering him another £250,000 and a lucrative consultancy. The evidence for this is yet more leaked emails, plus the on-the-record testimony of the LDA programme manager responsible for the contract.
Take the European Federation of Black Women Business Owners, run by yet another Jasper chum, Yvonne Thompson, who accompanied him on a free trip to New York at the LDA's expense. The Federation received £36,000 from the LDA, but not a single penny of that money has gone through the company's accounts. This evidence is on file at Companies House for anyone to see.
Take the Green Badge Taxi School, run by two close associates of Mr Jasper, which received £280,000 thanks to him. We have in our possession copies of bank statements showing that literally within days of the grant being paid, almost all of it was siphoned off to front companies run by Mr Jasper's associates. That, Mr Livingstone, is evidence.
Over the past two months, City Hall has tried every possible tactic to get out from under this story. After straightforward lying, personal smears and the unabashed deployment of the race card failed to work their usual magic, Planet Ken hit on the alternative technique of erecting an Aunt Sally allegation never made against Jasper by anyone, which they hoped the police would then pronounce to be unfounded.
Luckily, the Met has rumbled this clumsy attempt to manipulate them, making plain that it is not its job to "clear Lee Jasper's name", and doing so with a speed that has obviously caught Mr Livingstone out. As the Yard spokesman said: "Matters of alleged misconduct that are not supported by evidence of criminal wrongdoing are not a matter for the police."
The real Met inquiry, into the cronies, rightly continues. Worryingly for Mr Jasper, yesterday's Yard statement raised the possibility that this inquiry could eventually come to include him. And Mr Jasper, equally rightly, remains suspended, because someone with his record should not be allowed back into the building until the questions about him are answered.
Now, having disposed of Ken's criminal red herring, we can get back to the real issue: the integrity of the Mayor and his senior adviser. The Evening Standard has put up, and you can be sure it will not shut up.
Reader views (9)
Something is seriously wrong with London if Livingstone stays in power. He represents everything that is wrong with London:
Fuelled by greed, selfish, rude and bent.
- Andrew, N1, UK, 11/03/2008 19:38
Report abuse
Ken may have made some errors of judgement, but hey - he's human after all. He's also the best candidate by far to be Mayor.
- Norm, Dagenham, 28/02/2008 08:32
Report abuse
Ken is a bully and master of the straw man argument. But while Jasper and his pals were 'losing' cheques and money how many worthy and honest African-Caribbean groups were not getting funding as a result?
Anyone who thinks that Ken is on the side of the ethnic minorities should have a think about that.
- Sally R., London, UK., 27/02/2008 16:49
Report abuse
We need to get this message across to every Londoner, mainly in Islington, Hackney and any other Ken Livingstone hot Beds that are blinkered to the truth.
- Mark, Barnet, 26/02/2008 13:00
Report abuse
Problem for Ken is that I think he means well, but he has shown that his judgement of other people is seriously flawed, which has allowed him to surround himself with some incompetent or downright dodgy characters!
- Daveo, London, 26/02/2008 00:44
Report abuse
Excellent. We are in continuing need of this sort of journalism to smoke out the NuLab politicians in this country. Their technique of "denial, rebuttal, smear, then offer a review" has reduced the level of political debate in this country to the level of a Punch and Judy show. It is nice to see the real issues set out so clearly. When are you going to pick on a senior government minister?
- John Of Enfield, Enfieild, UK, 21/02/2008 13:38
Report abuse
Does anyone else feel truly upset, desolate and embarrassed by these articles about Ken? We voted him in because we believed he was a true Londoner who would listen to us and act in our interests. Instead, he took our trust and loyalty and abused it.
Thanks to the work of the Evening Standard there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that if we give Ken another chance to run London for us he will continue to abuse our trust and loyalty. We can also be assured of threats and smears against anyone who dares to question him.
I hope people listen to all the facts and vote with their heads when polling day comes.
Ken surely cannot be the answer to London’s myriad problems (in fact, he is the architect of many of them). Anyone brave enough to try to clear up his mess deserves our vote.
- Disheartenedofislington, London, 21/02/2008 13:27
Report abuse
Brilliant piece of meticulous forensic examination of the evidence, some of which is now in the public domain.
Some more questions here for the Mayor to answer. Well done Mr Gilligan.
- Tcbh, London, 21/02/2008 11:07
Report abuse
More Gilligan magic. I hope that Jasper and his merry band get exactly what they deserve.
- Mary Ann, London, 21/02/2008 10:34
Report abuse
