Market research suggests that stories of crime and violence increase the ratings for news. This isn’t the fault of the news organizations, broadcasters, reporters and the like. This is surely the responsibility of the people entrusted to protect us.
When they don’t people find the results interesting, indeed necessary. So for Ken Livingstone, the man who appears to have no answers to make London safer, to say "if it bleeds, it leads" the news shows not just gross insensitivity to the families of two teenagers stabbed to death in the UK capital, but complete contempt for his duty as Mayor.
It is hardly surprising therefore that Livingstone’s 15-point crime manifesto launch was overshadowed as Boris Johnson demanded that he stop using the "crass" phrase to attack the capital's TV stations for reporting murders. Among Livingstone’s crime policies are: an 1,000 extra police officers next year to boost counter-terrorism work and local Safer Neighbourhood Team; extra cash for specialist police teams investigating rape in every borough; 11 new Safer Transport Teams focusing on stopping crime and anti-social behaviour on buses, more resources for targeted police operations against gangs and £79 million to fund facilities and activities for young people.
However, just hours after 17-year-old Devoe Roach was stabbed in the chest in Stamford Hill, Mr Livingstone appeared on BBC London to accuse the media of sensationalising killings in the capital, repeating a phrase he used to the Home Affairs select committee this month.
After his live televised interview at 6.20 last night, it emerged another teenager, 14-year-old Amro Elbadawi, was knifed in the throat in Maida Vale.
Some 27 young Londoners were murdered last year, but the Mayor insists the murder rate is falling and accuses the media of failing to report the drops. Boris has quite rightly accused Mr Livingstone of "crass insensitivity" to the families of those involved.
In his own statement on crime Boris says: “ Londoners are told that crime is going down. They are reassured that there are more police on the streets, and that more money is being spent on security. Yet most Londoners don't feel any safer because every day the headlines tell a different story.
“If we look up from the newspaper we feel no safer; on the top decks of buses, on station platforms and street corners a culture of incivility and adolescent anarchy has been allowed to spread, unchallenged.
“It is the Mayor's first duty to ensure the safety and security of all Londoners and his second to reassure them that they truly are safe, to offer an antidote to the apprehension that darkens every late-night bus ride or walk home.
“This is not an area in which we should throw our hands up in defeat, blaming violent video games or a decline in moral values. I want everyone in this city to have the optimism and confidence that goes with increased safety and will use all the powers at my disposal to achieve it:
• We have to work with the police and communities to prevent young Londoners becoming victims of gang violence. I will give support to the wonderful work of local community projects that get young people off the streets and give them purpose and a realisation of their value as members of society. I will provide £2.6 million to fund hand-held scanners or new knife archways at transport hubs to hinder the mobility of those who carry knives and guns.
• The police do a brave and difficult job, but they are burdened by bureaucracy. Too much time and money is spent on form-filling, when it could be used to employ more police on the beat. I will lobby for an end to the stop and account form - this would mean that police could spend an extra 160,048 hours on the beat - the equivalent of adding 78 new officers to the force.
• We must stand up for our brave, hard-working police men and women to ensure they get a fair deal from government.
• I will provide local neighbourhoods with New York-style crime maps, to enable residents to hold local police to account.
• More people are travelling by bus that at anytime since the 1960s, but they are increasingly intimidated by antisocial behaviour. I will double the strength of Safer Transport Teams, by releasing funding for approximately 440 extra PCSOs to patrol the buses and trial live CCTV. I will give revenue inspectors more powers to tackle fare evasion.
• Those who abuse their free transport privileges will be able to earn back their free Oyster by doing community service as part of my Payback London scheme.
• I will provide funding for 3 new Rape Crisis Centres to help the forgotten victims of sexual violence.”
Friday 28 March 2008
Sunday 23 March 2008
Vote for a man with wine box problems and a filthy tongue?
It's so sad for democracy.
Ken Livingstone no longer seems to care for public opinion.
But then he probably never did.
Do you want to hear that the man tasked with running your city gets pissed on a fairly regular basis when he's supposed to be at work?
Take this extract from an interview with the Mayor: "I occasionally have gone there [the Irish Embassy in London] and overdone it on St Patrick's night. They [the Irish diplomats]once came to the Labour Party conference and everyone gets very drunk, and I was doing a speech afterwards and I went up on the platform and fell asleep, and my little pager went and it was my adviser saying, 'Wake up!' "
Maybe he was trying to impress his interviewer, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, about his street cred, but definitely he wasn't thinking about London's more responsible voters when he divulged this nugget through the Observer magazine (23/03/08).
If that wasn't enough evidence of a fairly cavalier attitude to the booze, he also appraised us of the problem he has with his wine boxes.
Obviously having so many of them he is embarrassed by the plethora and needs to dispose of them in an environmentally sustainable way, he told Thom: "I tried cutting them all up but now the council has introduced a collection scheme." You'd have thought he might have suggested such a far-sighted option - but then noone in government has ever seen their way to letting him rip on London's recycling - not after the mess he made of the GLC.
Do you want to hear your Mayor using the language of a costermonger to describe the ppeople he is supposed to try to to work with?
IN another chunk of his interview in the Observer he describes an opinion of one of his Labour politician colleagues, a cabinet minister, as "complete bollocks".
He goes on to refer to the Energy from Waste initiative as "a load of bollocks" too.
And in one of the most obviously unsupported by evidence outbursts Linvingstone says he considers that civil servants in the government's energy department are pro-nuclear because they "know there'll be a job for them on the board of British Nuclear Fuels when they retire. They know Greenpeace isn't going to pay them £40,000 for doing two days a week on the bloody board and so they're covering their arse for their future, basically, and advising the bloody ministers accordingly".
Thank you Ken. You make it so much easier to cast a vote for Mayor against another person's name.
Ken Livingstone no longer seems to care for public opinion.
But then he probably never did.
Do you want to hear that the man tasked with running your city gets pissed on a fairly regular basis when he's supposed to be at work?
Take this extract from an interview with the Mayor: "I occasionally have gone there [the Irish Embassy in London] and overdone it on St Patrick's night. They [the Irish diplomats]once came to the Labour Party conference and everyone gets very drunk, and I was doing a speech afterwards and I went up on the platform and fell asleep, and my little pager went and it was my adviser saying, 'Wake up!' "
Maybe he was trying to impress his interviewer, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, about his street cred, but definitely he wasn't thinking about London's more responsible voters when he divulged this nugget through the Observer magazine (23/03/08).
If that wasn't enough evidence of a fairly cavalier attitude to the booze, he also appraised us of the problem he has with his wine boxes.
Obviously having so many of them he is embarrassed by the plethora and needs to dispose of them in an environmentally sustainable way, he told Thom: "I tried cutting them all up but now the council has introduced a collection scheme." You'd have thought he might have suggested such a far-sighted option - but then noone in government has ever seen their way to letting him rip on London's recycling - not after the mess he made of the GLC.
Do you want to hear your Mayor using the language of a costermonger to describe the ppeople he is supposed to try to to work with?
IN another chunk of his interview in the Observer he describes an opinion of one of his Labour politician colleagues, a cabinet minister, as "complete bollocks".
He goes on to refer to the Energy from Waste initiative as "a load of bollocks" too.
And in one of the most obviously unsupported by evidence outbursts Linvingstone says he considers that civil servants in the government's energy department are pro-nuclear because they "know there'll be a job for them on the board of British Nuclear Fuels when they retire. They know Greenpeace isn't going to pay them £40,000 for doing two days a week on the bloody board and so they're covering their arse for their future, basically, and advising the bloody ministers accordingly".
Thank you Ken. You make it so much easier to cast a vote for Mayor against another person's name.
Friday 21 March 2008
Livingstone's 1984
Cast your mind back.
It's 1984.
London has - like the world's great capital cities should have - a working government: the Greater London Council.
But it's viability has been brought into question. Why?
Here's a multiple choice question that will hopefully lead you to an answer.
Please tick two of the queries below that you think may apply.
1) Was the GLC's future brought into question by the fact it was the only body that could arbitrate between the UK capital's Boroughs on policy that might be good for one area but spark difficulties in another?
2) Was it the fact that it was in a position to hold the city's powerful Metropolitan Police to account?
3) Was it because it had become infested with wild ideas more suited to a banana republic and was run by a group of people who were (and still are!) happy to "boast" that they are on "the loony left"?
4) Was it because of one man's failure?
If you ticked the first two, please head down to your local library, if it still exists and has access to a good selection of books, or start digging around on the internet for some eye-opening inspiration.
The underlying facts here were just two of hundreds of many powerful and valid reasons and arguments for saving the GLC, not dismantling it!
No, the answer lies in the latter two linked queries - linked by one thing: the one man - Ken Livingstone.
Livingstone was the real architect of the GLC's demise.
Why?
Because he failed to recognise the reason why there was a need to have a single overarching governing institution for the UK's capital.
Because he failed to put any energy into campaigning to save it.
Because he lacked then and still wants for the integrity, judgment, skill, knowledge and imagination to hold a serious political office.
Let's face it: the only person Ken has really ever been interested in helping is himself.
Please don't give him any more chances to squander the resources of one of the gerat cities and populations in the world.
It's 1984.
London has - like the world's great capital cities should have - a working government: the Greater London Council.
But it's viability has been brought into question. Why?
Here's a multiple choice question that will hopefully lead you to an answer.
Please tick two of the queries below that you think may apply.
1) Was the GLC's future brought into question by the fact it was the only body that could arbitrate between the UK capital's Boroughs on policy that might be good for one area but spark difficulties in another?
2) Was it the fact that it was in a position to hold the city's powerful Metropolitan Police to account?
3) Was it because it had become infested with wild ideas more suited to a banana republic and was run by a group of people who were (and still are!) happy to "boast" that they are on "the loony left"?
4) Was it because of one man's failure?
If you ticked the first two, please head down to your local library, if it still exists and has access to a good selection of books, or start digging around on the internet for some eye-opening inspiration.
The underlying facts here were just two of hundreds of many powerful and valid reasons and arguments for saving the GLC, not dismantling it!
No, the answer lies in the latter two linked queries - linked by one thing: the one man - Ken Livingstone.
Livingstone was the real architect of the GLC's demise.
Why?
Because he failed to recognise the reason why there was a need to have a single overarching governing institution for the UK's capital.
Because he failed to put any energy into campaigning to save it.
Because he lacked then and still wants for the integrity, judgment, skill, knowledge and imagination to hold a serious political office.
Let's face it: the only person Ken has really ever been interested in helping is himself.
Please don't give him any more chances to squander the resources of one of the gerat cities and populations in the world.
Thursday 20 March 2008
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