Livingstone’s double standard over Murdoch

As soon as the recent phone hacking scandals broke, Ken Livingstone lost no time in castigating Boris Johnson’s ‘dire judgement’ in dismissing the original claims as ‘codswallop cooked up by Labour’. Livingstone also said that Boris ‘had at least two meals with Rebekah Brooks, one dinner and one lunch with James Murdoch, and one dinner with Rupert Murdoch [when he was] trying to keep the lid on this story.’ Livingstone was at it again on the Today programme this morning, saying the ‘scandal goes right to the heart of the establishment’.

Certainly, it was rash to describe the claims as ‘codswallop’, but is dinner such a crime? I ask because, according to his published diaries, Ken Livingstone had lunch with James Murdoch and others on 10th October 2006, two months after Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman had been arrested. The lunch engagement was so official and proper that it merited a mention in the Mayor’s report of 2006. Livingstone also dined frequently with Stefano Hatfield (who edited the Murdoch evening freesheet, The London Paper, at time) during the last mayoral election campaign.

Livingstone is also a regular attendee at Rupert Murdoch’s summer parties, where he rubs shoulders with Matthew Freud, a Murdoch by marriage. Livingstone’s relationship with Freud has been scrutinised in the past. When Mayor, Livingstone paid Freud £350,000 for public relations work to encourage investment in London; this was in addition to the Mayor’s 70-person PR team. Johnson cancelled Freud’s contract on assuming office.

So, even Red Ken is Establishment now. And to such an extent that he has written columns for numerous Murdoch newspapers. Politicians from all sides have been too cosy with News International in the recent past. But, ‘he that is without sin’ and all that.