Boris takes it badly

James McGrath, the adviser that Boris Johnson has apparently sacked, doesn't seem to have done anything too wrong. According to the Times, it was put to him

that Mr Johnson’s win could result in the departure of many older Caribbean immigrants from the capital. According to Marc Wadsworth, the anti-racism campaigner writing on the internet news site www.the-latest.com, Mr McGrath replied: “Well, let them go if they don’t like it here.”

It's easily construed as telling black people to leave but it's very different to answer someone else's suggestion that people might want to leave than to suggest it yourself. Anyone should be free to leave the country if they don't like it.

The Times story has a bit of spin from Boris, attempting to gain the moral high ground:

The Times understands that he was also motivated in part by an intention to show distinct differences between his administration and that of his predecessor, Ken Livingstone.

This translates as: Boris invited us to compare his actions in this with Ken Livingstone, who wasn't so good. Meanwhile, on Comment is Free, Tristram Hunt says Boris is doing alright and Ken should get over it.

Ken's not so secret weapons

For some reason, Tessa Jowell has chosen to tell the Guardian, that Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell have been quietly helping Ken Livingstone's re-election campaign.

It brings to mind Blair's campaign for the Labour Leadership in 1994 when he could not let it be known that Peter Mandelson was on board. It's probably a truism that letting it be known that you're getting help from arch spinners like Blair and Campbell, described by Jowell as "the best in the business", doesn't help your credibility.

Fair enough

As usual Peter Wilby has a thoughtful column in Media Guardian. He says that Andrew Gilligan's reports about Ken Livingstone "show meticulous investigative journalism of the sort that is all too rare nowadays" and criticises Livingstone's blustering response to them.

But Wilby says that he will be unhappy if the Evening Standard's campaign against Livingstone hands victory in the London Mayor election to Boris Johnson.

Ken shows me up

I think I made a mistake last week when I suggested that Ken Livingstone was entitled to his privacy, no matter how many children he has fathered, and that we don’t need to know about public figures’ private lives. My mistake was saying it about Ken, who today dragged some of his children into a dispute about his late appearance on a radio debate. His excuse, like the right to privacy, cuts both ways.

According to the BBC, Ken’s aides had originally attributed his late (30 minutes) arrival for the Asian Network debate to “hold ups on the tube”. But when mayoral rival Boris Johnson pointed out that there was a good service on Ken’s line, he admitted that he had left the house late:

"Yeah I left the house late. The kids were just... they don't understand why daddy spendsmore time with Boris than with them."

Very clever, very funny. It might even be true. It’s probably better than blaming the London Underground, for which you are responsible. But once you start citing minor family issues for your failure to do what people expect of you, don’t you step over the same line that adulterous ministers cross when they drag their wives (invariably) and children out for photocalls?