Summary
IT WOULD be unfortunate if the substantive issues that this paper has raised, and a BBC programme has confirmed, about the apparent misuse of public money by organisations connected with Lee Jasper, the Mayor's equality adviser, were dealt with on the basis of partisan party allegiances. Yet that is what appears to be happening. Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour Party, rallied to Mr Jasper yesterday in the Commons without appearing to have investigated the facts of the case against him. A serious politician should not deal with the possible misuse of large amounts of public money on the basis of party solidarity.
The gravity of the allegations concerning Mr Jasper were made clear in a BBC report last night following our investigation, as indeed was the extent to which the mayor, Ken Livingstone, is implicated. When this paper published concerns about the apparent misuse of up to Pounds 2.5 million of London Development Authority money by organisations connected to Mr Jasper, Mr Livingstone's response to these very serious allegations was to rally behind his appointee and declare that "every one of those projects, the LDA has a full audit trail of, and has complete chapter and verse on how money's been spent".See the full content of this document
Extract
What the Mayor Must Tell Us ; Comment
Yet, as last night's BBC report made clear,...
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