A monumental insult to the electorate

For too long the London Mayoral debate has been distracted by a peripheral argument about Ken Livingstone having a company and how he pays his tax.

That whole soap opera is a monumental insult to the electorate. It is farcical that an election for the post with the biggest electoral mandate in Britain was usurped by the Tory campaign and its media-backers onto the tax arrangements of the candidates.

The Tory campaign has to take full responsibility for railroading the debate into this siding. Too much of the media have indulged it, but blame sits with Boris Johnson’s campaign and his most strident supporters.

Ken Livingstone did the right thing today by lancing the boil. In addition to publishing his income and tax, he has offered full disclosure on his household finances and taxes, going further than any other candidate in doing so. His agent has written to the agents of the other candidates offering to agree a framework for this. But Ken should not need to do this. It is a bad place for political debate.

Right wing supporters of Boris Johnson are still desperately clinging to what was the only thing their campaign had. The Johnson campaign itself clearly doesn’t want to go down the road of fuller disclosure proposed by Ken Livingstone. And they must know that public patience with this story is wearing very thin.

Then there is another, wider, problem. Where exactly has Boris Johnson’s campaign taken British political debate? In their obsession to make the election about Ken Livingstone as a person rather than the very real issues facing Londoners, they have dragged our politics into uncharted waters.  One Conservativehome commentator is already very concerned about that.

When Boris Johnson started down this road, either of his own initiative or on the advice of his campaign director or primary media cheerleaders, was this really where he wanted to go? It did not look like it from his body language and responses during Newsnight. The sheer amount of money earned by the Mayor is enough to make average earners do a double-take. And his campaign has taken us into a more US-style personalised terrain. Many will wonder if he and his supporters were wise to go there.

The Tory campaign bet the ranch on the Ken tax attack and hoped to define the election around it. That doesn’t look so clever anymore.

Ken’s campaign must now push its own agenda hard, and point out that the sole aim of last month’s farce was to try to hide from Londoners the £1000 that they will be better off with Ken on fares alone – and worse off with Johnson.

After taking down his own attack website after the fractious aftermath of the LBC debate, Ken should repeat his challenge to Boris Johnson to take down his negative campaign site, ‘NotKenAgain’.

On Tuesday hundreds of Labour activists will campaign at stations across London in favour of a ‘Fare Deal’ fares cut. The ‘Better Off With Ken’ calculator is now online for Labour canvassers to use this weekend. Smart phone owners can show people on the doorstep just how much better off they will be.

That’s the financial calculation that really ought to be at the heart of our London debate.

Let’s see the debate turn to the people who matter. Residents of Greater London.