Author: Phil

Today the Standard is back on the Jasper story and so are the blogs in a big way.

Read the Standard here.

ConservativeHome here and here.

Ian Dale here.

I like to think I got this story first on 13th August. It was picked upon 16th August in the Standard’s Londoner’s diary and the egregious Eroll Walters at Black Londoner’s Forum used a press release to suggest that Black Londoners needed protecting from me. What a prat?

In tonight’s Evening Standard Andrew Gilligan has produced a four page feature on the web of black “voluntary” organisations linked to Lee Jasper that have pulled in a couple of million in funding from the Mayor and the London Development Agency. Remember the LDA is the body the Mayor which he uses as a piggy bank to fund his friends rather than to help promote economic development in London. Follow link here.

The Mayor and the bodies he is criticising have spluttered indignantly to life. Rather than addressing Gilligan’s specific concerns they are just spraying accusations of racism at him. He is clearly on the right track if, instead of rebutting his points one-by-one, they just try to vilify Gilligan himself.

Brixton Base says:

It would only appear that attacking organisations which represent and work with London’s black and minority ethnic communities are easy targets for Mr Gilligan’s race prejudice and biased, discriminatory reporting.

The 1990 Trust (BLINK) says:

Gilligan should be ashamed of this transparent use of the “race card” in the run up to the elections by questioning the role of the Lee Jasper, the Mayor’s top Black advisor.

Both the Brixton Base and The 1990 Trust (BLINK) have talked about taking legal advice, again a typical tactic of those trying to change the subject. Brixton Base come across as being incredibly pompous when they say: “Accordingly, the Board is in consultation with its solicitors”. I bet Gilligan and the Standard are cowering with that one.

The 1990 Trust piece is incredibly windy. It is talking rubbish when it says:

To set the record straight, a few of London’s Black organisations are funded by the GLA through a legitimate, open, budget process, fully transparent to the public.

That’s funny. When I asked the Mayor to tell me about the funding from GLA bodies to the 1990 Trust, Black Londoners Forum and Operation Black Vote, after they had taken part in a clearly political attack on Boris Johnson in the Guardian, it took over a month to get a reply. I wrote on 13th August and I got a reply on 18th September. The answer I got was partial one. I asked about funding from all GLA bodies. The answer related only to the GLA itself.

These funding streams are arbitrary and opaque. The impression given is that the Mayor and the LDA give out cash on a whim to people who are connected to the Mayor’s inner circle and that in return they do the Mayor’s bidding as evidenced by the Guardian letter.

The London Development Agency say:

We are the Mayor’s agency responsible for driving London’s sustainable economic growth. It’s our job to ensure that London remains a global success story.

It is hard to reconcile this mission with the Mayor’s press release today that says he is going to suck £20 million out of the LDA and redeploy it to top up the government’s youth offer.

I don’t know why this cash isn’t being spent on helping disadvantaged young people to work in the City.

According to the Mayor’s press release:

Young People from Bassline Circus performed for the Mayor at City Hall today. Baseline Circus is one of Sound Connections members who have been working on the Youth Music Mentors programme. This project allows young people to become ‘Peer Mentors’ and support other young people to use music to engage them in positive activities and develop new skills.

This all sounds very worthy but it does not sound like it is going to convert our limited economic development budget into bankable benefits for our young people. It does sound like more electioneering from the Mayor. Yet again the Mayor is plundering the LDA for his pet projects.

Tonight the Standard is reporting that the Mayor and TfL are plotting to increase Congestion Charge fines to £120 from £100. As we already know fines exceed the net profit this thing generates every year so the fines income is all that stands between Livingstone and abject failure.

Typically for a bunch of journalists, no science degrees between them I don’t suppose, they get the number all wrong. The editorial says:

Given that fines are a big part of the economics of congestion charging, accounting for nearly 45 per cent of the net annual profit from the scheme, there will be plenty of motorists who suspect thast the increase has more to do with raising revenue than with enforcement.

I think they get this number by dividing the wrong number for fines income last year (£55 million) by last year’s gross profit. Last year’s fines income was actually £95.0 million as winkled out by LibDem AM Hamwee, see previous posting. Last year’s net profit was actually £89.1 million as published in TfL’s statement of account and audited by the Audit Commission (figures here). Fines income therefore EXCEEDS net profit.

Journalists. Aaaaargh!

Tonight the Standard’s Ross Lydall reports that the Grand Depart staged in London for the Tour de France only cost TfL £3.8 million and generated £123 million in benefits. This is the kind of economics that the Mayor and his bodies love. Just like the Mayor’s “6 jobs will pay the £740K India bill” claim it is utter rubbish. TfL’s press release is here but there are no links to the report they mention – probably because the details of the report would demolish the press release. Apparently “An executive summary of the report is available to media on request”.

TfL are being really evil about releasing details of this spending. I asked twice by e-mail about the advertising spend and got an answer, £3 million, after a six week wait. Since then I have asked TfL commissioner, Peter Hendy, twice for a full breakdown of the whole thing – I wrote again today. Hendy shows his contempt for accountability by ignoring letters written on 2nd August and 16th October.

The real number is much more like £10 million but TfL don’t want to discuss that.