It was a bit like school really. Naughty Ken was hauled before an emergency sitting of the Assembly, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what had really gone on at the 40th birthday party of his pregnant partner’s sister.
Excitement mounted. Would Ken be forced to resign? Did he push Robin Hedges? Had Emma smoked a cigarette? Was there a fight? Was the Mayor drunk? Excitement – or what?
Innocence personified – that was Ken’s performance. (Please read the following aloud pinching nose to give imitation of the Mayor’s somewhat nasal delivery).
‘No – I didn’t push him. If anything he assaulted me. I only had three glasses of Sauvignon and then slept for 3 hours because I find parties boring’.
Hmmm – my mind briefly touched on the possibility that Ken might have mistaken the word ‘glass’ for ‘bottle’ as images of Ken at the GLA Christmas party, at which he looked neither bored nor sober, flashed across my memory – but Christmas parties – hey, he’s a fun type of guy!
Ken went on: ‘I’ve been in the public eye for 30 years and no stories of me being drunk or badly behaved have appeared.’ Looks like luck’s run out then, finally.
And so on… I won’t bore you with all the details – particularly the bizarre spat as to whether a wall was 10, 12 or 15 feet high – shame I couldn’t frogmarch all the interested parties off to the said wall, give them a ruler and make them sort out the silliness once and for all!
Ken’s line was that he was innocent and much maligned and it was all a plot by the Evening Standard, which didn’t like him and anyway wanted a fuss to boost its sales.
So what of the Assembly’s performance at the ‘trial’? The Tories who started it, wimped out completely, with only their ex-leader making an effort by asking Ken why he didn’t sue the Evening Standard – which would seem to be the obvious course of action.
Labour were even more feeble with only one contribution from their Leader, Toby Harris, to ask if drugs had been involved. The Greens, as usual, said nothing except to venture that unless the Archbishop of Canterbury had told us that he saw what happened, we shouldn’t really trust anyone else’s version of events.
It was left to the Lib Dems to put the only real questioning to the Mayor- not only why didn’t he sue the Standard, but on whether he had spoken to the police or ambulance men (no he hadn’t), on whether he should subject himself to the National Standards Board (no he shouldn’t), on whether the case should go before the Press Complaints Commission (no it shouldn’t). And on and on. You get the drift. Only the court of public opinion should be his judge according to him.
To me, suing the Standard seemed the obvious course of action open to him to clear his and consequently the Authority’s name – which he said he wasn’t going to do because last time he went to court “it hadn’t worked out that well.”
So I thought I would appeal to his conscience. (I live in hope!). ‘Did he feel that there had been anything in his behaviour which might have brought the GLA into disrepute and did he feel there was anything in his behaviour that he should apologise to London for?’. No – was his answer, what he did regret apparently, was believing his partner had smoked a cigarette.
The media feeding frenzy was satiated for the moment – but as for the truth – well I suspect as ever – it was somewhere in the middle. The whole business has undoubtedly brought the Authority into disrepute – but whether this is the fault of the Mayor or the Evening Standard is as clear as mud.
The issue is really one for the National Standards Board – and taking the bull by the horns, LibDem Leader Graham Tope has subsequently referred the matter to the Board. We wait with baited breath…………
