Livingstone to use new radio show to confront his critics

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone will be presenting a new current affairs-based weekly radio show on London commercial station LBC, in which he plans to answer back at his critics.
In an interview in The Independent, Livingstone said: ‘I’m going to invite on the programme everyone who hates me.”
Top on Livingstone’s list is Evening Standard reporter Andrew Gilligan, who won Journalist of the year at Press Gazette’s British Press Awards earlier this year for his investigations into Livingstone. Livingstone said that Gilligan, whose name is now synonymous with The Hutton Report which found failings in his report on Radio 4’s Today Programme, was responsible for the death of Government weapons expert Dr David Kelly, who was revealed as the source in his report.
Talking about Gilligan doorstepping him, Livingstone said: ‘If Gilligan hadn’t distorted what Kelly had said, grossly exaggerated it, Kelly would be alive today. I told him to his face, ‘You’ve been responsible for one person’s death, stay away from my family. Get off my doorstep’.”
Livingstone, who writes a monthly column for News International’s thelondonpaper, also attacked the Evening Standard for painting a negative picture of London. ‘I particularly like thelondonpaper because they set out to have a paper that’s positive about London, whereas if the only thing you knew about London was from the Evening Standard you wouldn’t come here for fear of being mugged, raped or ripped off. It’s all doom, like the Daily Mail.”