On Wednesday I went to a Labour Party fund raising “Meet Ken Livingstone and the Assembly candidates” event at the historic Old Town Hall in Stratford, London. At the balcony of this former “West Ham” town hall, in 1892 election, Keir Hardie the first ever elected “Independent Labour MP”, gave a victory speech to supporters gathered outside.

The main hall was full with about 300 people present. A number of trade unions and local CLP’s had adopted tables. We of course had a UNISON table. Apart from the “Fish ‘N’ Chips” and free pickled unions and wallies (aka as pickled gherkins) we had the usual Labour Party raffle and auction (prizes ranged from such as a free trip to the European parliament via Eurostar to “Tea at the House of Commons Terraces” with Harriet Harman. The mystery prize was a (new!) pair of boxer shots with a design of the London underground system upon them.

Yesterday I received a news release from Labour London Assembly Leader, Len Duvall about Boris's attack on Ken for his supposed lack of leadership on gun and knife crime. This attack was a feature, in the ever so neutral and objective, London Evening Standard on Monday evening.

This is a ridiculous argument. Ken has always been consistently strong on law and order. His arguments that it is was the poor and vulnerable that suffered the most from crime and they needed protection by the Police, use to infuriate the left. Now the right are making fools of themselves (and worse) over what should be a serious issue, by claiming he is soft on crime.