Socialist Action continued to meet regularly when Ken Livingstone decided to
run as an independent candidate in the 2000 London mayoral elections. I
remember that John Ross was working in Russia at the time. Ken had visited
him and met Guennady Ziuganov, the leader of the communist party in Russia.
Ross had been writing article on economics and distributing them at the
Duma. As soon as Ken Livingstone won the election Ross flew back to London.
I remember him arriving at the Silk&Spice Restaurant where we were holding
the celebration party. I think he was carrying his luggage.
Once elected, the mayor appointed his firmest champions as his policy advisers
in City Hall. The Socialist Action meetings continued while advisors were in
office – until at least 2001 – at least that’s the last one I attended. In
these meetings members discussed everything from politics in the Balkans to
the Public Private Partnership that ran the Tube, even the GLA New Years
Party. They discussed whether the Congestion Charge in London should be set
at £6 or £5. They were held in the upstairs room of a pub in Islington.
Of all the things discussed the theme that was regularly returned to was what
they called a “bourgeois democratic revolution”. Essentially, that London
should be a city-state and a beacon for socialism. They saw themselves as
holders of political power in London.
The advisers who surround Ken Livingstone are driven by a desire to maintain
as much political power as possible through control of London’s finances,
control over the staff who run London and the removal of opposition. They
wanted to control everything that was sensitive politically and kept a
strict control over what went out to press for instance. They advise the
mayor on policy decisions and worked to implement these decisions on his
behalf. The advisers were completely responsible for their area, we made
decisions about what the mayor should say in his speeches, which events he
should attend, which meetings he should go to. In 2002 they began to
reconsider how City Hall might be organised. Restructuring was done, firstly
proposed by John Ross, and he hired KPMG.
The whole point of that restructuring was to put a lot more power in the hands
of the mayor’s office in terms of policy advisers and less power in the
hands of the other directors. And so eventually the directors, as they came
to be known in the mayor’s office, would be the people who would make the
decisions, not only in the GLA’s City Hall or Romney House but in the whole
of the GLA. So it would change the balance towards the political side. Ken
said it was a democratic side of the GLA versus the bureaucracy of the
officers.
The mayor’s office also wanted to control anything that was sensitive
politically and particularly what went out to the press for instance. And
what went to the assembly. The structures got tightened so that under the
Freedom of Information Act the amount of information that was in the public
domain was restricted by having, for instance, shredders for anything
confidential.
It was made clear that this was our role during the run-up to the 2004
election. We were expected to participate in campaigning activity to ensure
that Ken Livingstone was re-elected. We were asked to write articles and
briefings on behalf of the mayor, to arrange and go along to trips and
visits to bolster the campaign. We were even asked to fundraise on behalf of
Ken Livingstone. I personally collected cheques and am aware that other
policy advisers did so too.
I met Hemlata Singh \[a donor\] in a coffee shop next to City Hall before the
election and collected £30,000. And I persuaded Sir Gulam Noon to donate
£6,000 to the campaign for a marketing strategy. There were several other.
It was clear to me this was not proper behaviour. We were told to use our
personal email addresses and have meetings outside of City Hall. I have
since found out that we were in fact breaking the GLA’s regulations and am
angry that the culture in City Hall made this seem normal.
Ken Livingstone absolutely relies on his advisers and trusts their decisions.
However, I did find that he didn’t want to hear about anything where he
himself had failed in quite major ways. As long as it wasn’t a political
problem and wouldn’t damage him in the polls he would ignore it. I started
to point out that that there was a lot of tokenism in the GLA; there was
only a certain level at which Asians could ask for things. There was a lot
of rhetoric of support for Asian issues and there were Asian events, but
these things didn’t demand an increase in expenditure and didn’t empower the
Asian community. There was no attempt to look at what Asians wanted or what
their needs were. I believe that race relations are dealt with simply as an
electoral issue: ‘How can we get them on board while not actually
delivering?’
I repeatedly raised my concerns about this but I felt that I was being ignored
progressively marginalised. The stuff was very petty – they would organise
meetings while I wasn’t there. Committees I once chaired would be dissolved
and someone else put in my place, and after the 2004 election I rarely
accompanied the mayor on visits.
It a shame that by ignoring me in this way Ken’s staff were also ignoring
Asian affairs. Ken Livingstone didn’t want to know about anything where he
himself had failed in quite major ways. So on the issue of the number of
Asians who were on the senior management teams of the GLA which was zero, he
just didn’t want to know about that. He left it up to Redmond O’Neill or Lee
Jasper.
One time Ken proposed to have another Chinatown in London, the people in China
town wanted it, so he announced it in Trafalgar Square on Chinese New Year.
Initially there was a lot of reluctance in the mayor’s office to pursue
this. Then there was some serious work to try and look at it and to get the
backing of a local authority to find space for it. And then suddenly it was
abandoned. I believe the mayor’s office were reluctant to give greater power
to the Asian community.
My health, meanwhile, deteriorated as a result of the stress of responding to
this vicious behaviour and I had to take leave. Relations broke down when I
returned to work and in March last year I began a grievance complaint on the
grounds of harassment and bullying, which I believed had been conducted over
the past two years with the aim of forcing me to leave the GLA.
I felt I was treated the same as when I was in Socialist Action - like a small
child being told what to do, which included being shouted at. I accepted it
for a long time but I shouldn’t have. It’s just abuse.
The mayor’s office launched disciplinary proceedings, claiming that I had
neglected my duties and I began proceedings with the employment tribunal. We
settled out of court and part of the agreement was that I wouldn’t speak out
about the way I was treated. At the time I was too ill to continue to fight
and reluctantly accepted this but now I feel passionately that I should
speak out. They think they are untouchable. I think they’re wrong.
Atma Singh was adviser on Asian issues to Ken Livingstone, mayor of London,
from 2001-07
