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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Another one of your promises
there you see
Ken Livingstone - the sun's going to shine! I mean we heard there from
Tony Travers that they'd been an amazing silence, that you weren't courting
controversy. That's sort of gone by the board in the last twenty-four or
forty-eight hours hasn't it? We've had another sort of long list of the
things that Ken would like to do: relaxing drug laws, gay marriages, raising
ethnic quotas in business, joining the..... I mean, a lot of this simply..
doesn't it, disguise the fact, disguises that fact that, that you don't
have much that you actually can do, there isn't a lot the mayor really
can do so you are making an awful lot of promises that you cannot do. Why?
Why do that?
KEN LIVINGSTONE: The one thing that most of my
time is spent on is preparing for the London Transport issue and we have
created a structure there. I brought in Steve Norris and Susan Kramer,
very few politicians would bring their two major critics and likely future
rivals right into centre of power. When I come to appoint the new directors
of London's buses and underground over the coming months, they will be
invited to join in that committee as well. I have a job which is to try
and get London Transport running. I think that is the key number one priority.
If I fail on that I won't be re-elected. The other things are important,
I mean we have a huge lesbian and gay community in London, they want to
be able to register their relationships to see that the city that they
have chosen to live in, or grown up in, recognises and respects their choice.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't have the
power to make that happen?
LIVINGSTONE: No, but you can lead the public
debate, some borough councils have been happy to get involved with it,
others will step back. But I can see no reason - many American and European
cities now have civic registers where couples that wish to commit themselves
to a loving relationship are able to get the acknowledgement of the city.
It doesn't have any legal standing but gradually I'm sure it will. Insurance
companies will change their policies and things like that.
HUMPHRYS: What about this comment
you had to make about drugs. I mean I'll quote for people who don't know
what you said 'you shouldn't be bothering to arrest the girl with one E
tab in her handbag on the way to a rave.' Now you do have some power here
because of the police committee and all the rest of it and the influence
you can bring to bear on the London police. Is that what you are going
to say to them, say to them leave kids alone, if they are just carrying
the odd drug because you know we are talking about 'A' Class drugs here.
LIVINGSTONE: But this is effectively the
policy that the Metropolitan Police has been operating long before I was
elected. They target the drug dealer. It's an absolute waste of police
time to concentrate on trying to pick a guy wandering down the street with
a spliff in their pocket or a girl with an E tab.
HUMPHRYS: ....one is you know a
very serious drug and the other is a less serious drug and one regards
that as being the case.
LIVINGSTONE: And you spy hundreds of thousands
of kids in London and that's the reality of it.
HUMPHRYS: As a serious politician
shouldn't you be trying to stop that rather than...
LIVINGSTONE: No, you've got limited police
resources, do you target the pushers, the people that actually recruit
new kids into drug taking, or are you going to waste police resources which
are stretched on pursuing a few kids which will then get a criminal record.
I mean the police have already made that choice in London. They know the
real danger comes from the pusher, that's where they concentrate their
efforts and they've got my backing in that.
HUMPHRYS: Talking of the police,
two thousand extra police you want, we heard the cost, seventy to eighty
million pounds a year. Well now, nobody is going to give you that money...
LIVINGSTONE: ...you've got to get out there
and fight for it. But let's be honest...
HUMPHRYS: ...well fight for it,
meaning what?
LIVINGSTONE: ..you've got to persuade the
government that that is required in London. We used to have six and a half
million Londoners and we had twenty-six...twenty-eight thousand police,
now we're down to under twenty-six and the population has gone up to over
seven million. We are becoming a more dense, a more sort of pressured city.
We most certainly need more policing. All I am saying is let's get back
to the levels that we used to have and I can't see how a government can
resist that demand. That seems to me only reasonable. We're not just asking
for money. I mean one of the reasons I asked Toby Harris to chair the
police committee is because he, of the twenty-five members of the assembly,
is I think the person, with the best talents to actually get in control
of the net budget- archaic old thing that has gone back to 1829, all sorts
of oddities and Sir John Stevens the new commissioner and Toby Harris and
myself will be looking - how we can turn that budget round so we shift
away from bureaucracy and into more frontline policing.
HUMPHRYS: But isn't it a bit na�ve
to say they can't refuse us this, of course they can, Gordon Brown can
refuse all sorts of people all sorts of things and does so every day of
the week, he perfectly well can and what he calculates that you will not
do, is say to the people of London, alright we can't get it from the Exchequer
so I, the Mayor of London, will raise your taxes.
LIVINGSTONE: Well I don't really have the
power to do that. There's a very small amount of the council tax that comes
to the mayor and you couldn't possibly, I mean the total budget of my GLA
as opposed to the subsidiary budgets of police and transport and fire brigade
is thirty-two million and you'd have to treble the budget. I mean it would
have a devastating effect in terms of people's... what they would pay.
You've got to make the case to Jack Straw. I mean in private the meetings
I've been having with government ministers have been fine. I mean they
all recognise London has particular problems, it's the most expensive city
in Europe. I mean the cost of land because we are the key financial centre
in this time zone, I mean has pushed the price of everything up so it
isn't just police, it's doctors, it's nurses. We are going to have to do
something around the issue of London Weighting or further subsidies for
housing or we won't have the people in our city that make it run.
HUMPHRYS: But you see that police
commitment was just that. I mean it was a manifesto commitment and...
LIVINGSTONE: And it stands...
HUMPHRYS: .... But it doesn't though
does it because what you're saying to me is that it will only stand if
the government will let me. I can't do it without the government....
LIVINGSTONE: ...well Londoners aren't fools.
They knew when they were voting for the mayor that the mayor had very
limited powers: no separate power of taxation, the only extra stream of
income I can get is from the congestion charge and by law all that has
to be spent on Transport - we can't use it for anything else. So it is
a question of persuading and arguing. I have no doubts about that. I
just would to say that irrespective of what people are going to say in
public, for consumption, the working relationships I've had with government
ministers so far have been excellent.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah but nonetheless
you should really have said shouldn't you 'I've tried to get you twenty
thousand extra police on the streets of London but I may not be able to
because it rather depends on....' Two thousand rather......
LIVINGSTONE: Well twenty thousand would
just take us up to the level of some cities like York (both speaking at
once). We have a very small policing establishment in London, a largely
peaceful city.
HUMPHRYS: But .... Unless you believe
the Americans who have a strange way of looking at these things, but nonetheless,
what you should have said was - 'I'll try and get two thousand extra police
if the government will let me but I can't promise you'.
LIVINGSTONE: Yeah - but in my interviews
with you before the election before all the speeches I said it's a question
of mobilising support to say 'Government's ignored London for too long.'
And the key thing here is if you neglect London, if central government
doesn't give London the resources it needs then it becomes an unattractive
city, firms won't go to Manchester or Birmingham instead, they will go
to Paris or Frankfurt. We're not competing with other cities, we're competing
with our most dangerous rivals in that sense and the jobs will go from
here to there and with it that impact we make on the economy. The government's
got an interest in making sure our capital city can compete with others.
HUMPHRYS: Well here's another reason
why they might go to Paris or somewhere else and that is your congestion
charges. It's a manifesto commitment this was. The truth of this is that
you're not actually going to be able to do it because the voters won't
let you will they? They hate the idea. I mean they're already bowed under
the pressure of high petrol prices which you don't object to so ......
LIVINGSTONE: No, I stated absolutely clearly
that if people voted for me I would introduce the congestion charges -
so did Susan Kramer, Steve Norris honestly said he wouldn't, Frank Dobson
said he'd take a bit longer. There was a clear majority in terms of how
the votes were cast. In the opinion polls public opinion was evenly split.
I recognise this is going to be the most difficult task I face in my life
to persuade people that this is actually in the interests of London and
being able to get around London.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you're going to
have to persuade them.
LIVINGSTONE: You've got to persuade.
LIVINGSTONE: Well what if they say, what
if you do a focus group or an opinion poll or whatever or stop people in
the street who say -'No way! We're not going to have this'? Will you do
it anyway?
LIVINGSTONE: I've said I won't do it unless
we can improve public transport. I've got two years to improve public
transport and my intention is that then we should have congestion charge
sometime between August 2002/January 2003. If I get it wrong I won't get
a second term so I have a real interest in getting this right.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but who makes that
judgement as to whether you're going to improve public transport or not
because that's the key thing because you could.... I mean it's your kind
of fallback position or your opt out position isn't it.
LIVINGSTONE: I'll be sitting here in two
years' time and you'll be saying - 'There aren't any more busses being
run.' I'm sure you'll be able to remind me at that stage. If I hadn't
been able to improve public transport in two years, I would have failed
as Mayor and my political career will be over. I've got to get that public
transport improving then the congestion charge gives us the money, that
extra two hundred and fifty million pounds we get from that to actually
continue to expand it further as people switch.
HUMPHRYS: Ah but you see, back
to public transport, staying with the tubes, and that's something else
you're not going to be able to do is it because you wanted to fund improvements
in the tube by issuing bonds - you're not going to be able to do that,
the government's going to go ahead with its own scheme.
LIVINGSTONE: Well we're not yet certain.
The government, by law, has to consult the Mayor. Now I've not said I
need to see all these papers and documents because I know that will be
a problem for them. I will ask Will Hutton, a very distinguished former
editor and the Industrial Society to do an independent analysis. I'm asking
the government now to give them the information, they will make a recommendation
in the Autumn. If they were to recommend that this is a bad scheme for
London and Londoners saw the government going ahead and pressing on with
that, that is a price that Labour will pay when it comes to the general
election.
HUMPHRYS: It's a funny old business
this isn't it? Here you were elected as Old Labour as opposed to New Labour,
you're not able to govern London except in co-operation with New Labour
so you're elected as Old Labour and now you're going to have to govern
as New Labour?
LIVINGSTONE Well no, I'm not governing
as New Labour, I'm doing what, issue by issue, I believe to be right and
that's the only way I can go forward on this. If I sit and calculate,
'will the government like this or that?' the issue at the end of the day
is 'am I going to do what's in Londoners' interests?' and if I don't -
Londoners will get a new mayor.
HUMPHRYS: Ken Livingstone - thank
you very much indeed.
LIVINGSTONE: Thank you.
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