Now, regarding Andrew’s comment no. 70, my comment no. 54 and Andrews’s article about Transport for London. My comment addressed a specific section of that article (the one I quoted); a section relating to a matter I know something about. The point I made was that by omitting the differences between the Livingstone campaign’s costing of Boris’s “21st Century Routemaster” and that of TfL this passage invited its readers to infer that TfL had deliberately provided figures confirming Livingstone’s in order to improperly help Livingstone’s campaign. However, those differences – facts of pressing relevance, which the article did not include - show that this was not the case.

I further argued that had these differences in the two sets of estimates been included they would have diminished the force of its central charge: that TfL and Livingstone were working in concert to undermine Johnson (a claim Johnson’s team too made during the campaign). Andrew upbraids me for not mentioning the article’s lead material - emails between Livingstone’s chief-of-staff Simon Fletcher and TfL boss Peter Hendy. Well, I didn’t mention them in my comment because they weren’t the part of the article I was concerned with. But since Andrew has brought them up I’m happy to address them.

The mails do indeed strongly suggest that at the time when they were exchanged – last October - there was some sort of complicity between Livingstone’s chief of staff Simon Fletcher and TfL boss Peter Hendy; a shared desire to defend the bendy bus against Boris Johnson’s criticisms expressed in an email discussion about how this might be done. This is the heart of the story, and it is certainly valid. To me, it underlines both the need for clearer demarcations between the London mayor’s office and his agencies and the difficulty of making them effective given the way that power is concentrated in mayoral hands. Perhaps the Johnson regime will improve this situation.

But let’s stick with those TfL figures. As I’ve said, they were presented in Andrew’s story as evidence showing that the complicity suggested by the email exchange had evolved into an actual covert policy or plot to undermine Johnson by the time the election campaign was underway. Yet the truth is that those figures – which were provided to me, published by me and later provided to Andrew at his request - weaken the complicity thesis and could be said to directly contradict it. Those figures – those facts - suggest that the very people who would have put such a policy or plot into effect – those who compiled data for journalists and provided them with it – appear not to have put any such policy into effect or been in on any such plot. Those same facts therefore invite us to ask if there really was much of a policy or plot in the first place. However, in Andrew’s article they were cited selectively to encourage the opposite conclusion.

It would be an interesting media studies-type exercise to scrutinise the whole of the article – other supporting evidence it offers, the use of hot air phrases like “questions will be asked” and “critics today said” when the only critic quoted and named is Boris Johnson, and so on. Suffice to say it illustrates the difficulty I and others – including some of those he has attacked - have with much of Andrew’s coverage of the campaign. It is that genuinely good and important stories – including those about Lee Jasper - were over-sold, over-simplified and ruthlessly spun in order to further as much as possible Andrew’s and his editor’s explicit political objective, that being to damage Ken Livingstone and get Boris Johnson elected.

Now, all newspapers indulge to some degree in slanted coverage and I happen to think it’s hard to quantify the effect of the Standard’s on how voters behaved – for example, it’s arguable that it solidified support for Livingstone even as it may have swayed others Boris’s way. But as for the substance of it, I don’t think the evidence Andrew or any other Standard journalist produced justified the paper’s relentless insinuation that Livingstone’s administration was rotten to the core. And I certainly think Londoners deserve better from “London’s Quality Newspaper”.

Finally Andrew, whilst I find it hard to imagine favouring any Tory candidate over a Labour one, I am not a member of “the Ken-Left” or any other political faction. I’ve never been a member of any political party and am a member of no informal political alliances with fellow journalists, politicians or anyone else (unless contributing to Liberal Conspiracy counts, which I don’t think it does). I’m just not that way inclined. Ken Livingstone got my vote because I like his political track record more than Boris Johnson’s and because the campaign confirmed for me that, policy for policy, politician for politician, he was the better candidate for London.

Now that Boris has won I wish him well and hope he does good things. If he does, I will applaud him. If he doesn’t, I will take issue with him. Sometimes, I expect I will do a bit of both at the same time. Shades of grey and all that – the type that can be hard to find in the palette of Associated Newspapers and the often extremely vindictive, hard right newspapers it publishes.

I’m really not surprised to see you here defending yourself as it clearly satisfies your ego to be the focus of attention: it would suit your style and skills better to apprentice yourself to an interviewer of John Humphreys ilk than allow your heavyweight pretensions to trap you in the tabloid gutter before you get any deeper - that is, if you ever want to be more than a roving pawn-for-hire.

At least Morgan recognises his populist preferences and can still tailor his career accordingly.

Come now, Andrew, don’t blame the sub who based his headline on the content of your article and whose page proof you would have read and helped approve.
That article on a supposed Housing Choice vote corruption on the Ocean estate contained prominent and heavy references to £4k bribes, which in fact were statutory payments, a fact–because yours is a “facts business” right–you either failed to check out, or intentionally omitted because it would have ruined a muckraking piece about Tower Hamlets council, another of your personal targets.

It’s interesting isn’t it that the Standard decided to remove the entire article from its website, rather than just “clarify” the headline.

You see, that piece was typical gung-ho Gilligan: get a whiff of something scandalous, speak to vested interest sources and fail to provide rigorous analysis.

That said, some of your pieces on Lee Jasper and the LDA have been first rate; as people write above, it’s a shame you didn’t apply that rigour to Boris’s credentials.

Andrew, how many more straw man arguments are you going to put up before you answer Sunny’s question about Press TV?

1. That you wrote stories condemning Ken Livingstone’s alleged associations with people that support the execution of homosexuals, the subjugation of women, the destruction of Israel etc without disclosing the associations that you have had with the very same people. And that, indeed, unlie Ken, you have actually been paid by an organisaiton with links to such people.

2. The forensic examination you have applied to Ken Livingstone over the last few months was never applied to Boris Johnson. If you were truly interested in reporting as opposed to a one-sided campaign of smear, you would have scrutinised Johnson’s behaviour and policies to the same extent you did Ken’s. But you did not. You - like the newspaper you work for - chose to ignore the huge holes in Johnson’s campaign commitments and so failed to provide any kind of balance.

3. That you continue to call yourself a left winger when every available piece of evidence seems to suggest that you are nothing of the sort. Left wingers do not have to support Ken Livingstone - many do not and did not at the last election - but left wingers in the media do subject the policies of the right wing Conservative party to some kind of scrutiny. Can you point us to any articles or comment pieces that you wrote during the last mayoral campaign that offer a critical discussion of the Tory candidate’s policies and/or arguments, or take a forensic look at the people running his campaign or supporting it?

You may not have written any untruths during the mayoral elections, but you colluded with the Conservative editor of the Evening Standard to provide one-sided reporting that had the sole aim of painting as negative a picture as possible of Ken Livingstone. In the end, it really is quite simple. I think that most of us accept you are a right wing journalist, with a right wing agenda, writing for a right wing publication. What we find difficult to accept is that you will not admit it. Why not?

I understand that in this last week there have been two violent deaths involving firearms in London. Is Andrew Gilligan running an article/ headline in the ES stating that already violent crime has escalated on Boris’s watch? If not why not?

A recent picture of Boris depicting him with his usual beaming grin wearing a police officers hat and mucking about while citizens are being killed isn’t that funny and may well come back to haunt him. Not a good start.

No Andrew, the point is that you accused others of agendas and played smear by association, and then refuse to acknowledge that the same applies to you. Unwilling to apply the standards you apply to others, to yourself?

You acknowledge you’re paid by the Iranian regime. Right? Doesn’t that make you complicit in their homophobic and anti-semitic agenda? And how would you report it if Ken was paid by the Iranians?? Please do tell us.

It is clearly you guys, not me, who believe that the truth should be subordinate to a political agenda.

But its obvious to everyone, and you admitted yourself, that your campaign against Ken Livingstone was indeed driven by a political agenda, no? You admitted your own bias! And you’re pretending that you did it only to find the truth?

Because I’m still waiting, after, what, three days now, to hear an example of anything I wrote about the Mayoral election that was untrue

No one accused you of lying. But lying is not the same as mis-representing the truth or being silent about some truths or denying your own agenda.

Keep trying, though - you will need to make at least passing acquaintance with reality if you hope ever to regain power in London.

Who is “we”?? I thought you ran this campaign for the greater progressive agenda?

That’s not journalism as any professional journalist understands it. It is clearly you guys, not me, who believe that the truth should be subordinate to a political agenda.

Because I’m still waiting, after, what, three days now, to hear an example of anything I wrote about the Mayoral election that was untrue. Just one, people - that’s all you need! Dave: in your account of my story that TfL improperly interfered in the election campaign, you forgot to mention my key piece of evidence - leaked emails in which the Transport Commissioner, Peter Hendy (RIP) discusses how to use TfL resources to “refute Boris’s transport ideas.” An oversight? Or another example of the Ken Left’s disregard for the facts?

And, sorry, folks - if a clarification about a headline, written by someone else, on a completely unrelated, two-year-old story is the only other thing you can muster, I don’t think you’ve quite understood this facts business yet. Keep trying, though - you will need to make at least passing acquaintance with reality if you hope ever to regain power in London.

Actually what we do for money - bastard work - and what we are just happen to be two different things.

So far there have been two examples given Andrew. One about Routemasters and TFL, the other being about bribes which as you were later forced to admit, weren’t actually bribes. Care to comment on either?

Also more importantly, would you like to comment on what the actual central claim of this piece is, which is that you have been hypocritical?

Don’t worry about putting it on a postcard. Just put it here.

You may not have slagged off YouGov but lots of Ken supporters did.
And in the end YG were spot on.

And while we’re on the subject of truth, cjcjc, you recently sent a comment to my London blog inviting me to apologise for allegedly claiming that YouGov’s polling during the campaign was inaccurate when, in fact, I had never done so. I saved you from embarrassment by deciding against putting the comment on the site and sent you an email explaining why.

It really is quite important not to go around accusing people of things they haven’t actually done. If you continue doing it even the most fair minded and forgiving object of such accusations might decide that you deserve to be embarrassed after all.

Facts are based on evidence, not unnamed single sources. There may be truth in innuendo, but without cross-checking points of reference certainty is impossible and can still be plausibly refuted and therefore cannot be classed as news until that point.

As I recall it took a high profile public enquiry to retrospectively prove the truth of the Gilligan’s comment about the dodginess of the Iraq dossier.

There is a level of trust expected in public life on which he has consistently traded in his work, yet it appears he doesn’t expect to be held to account for not living up to similar standards of probity - that’s hypocrisy.

Gilligan provides a specific example of a person whose work doesn’t withstand his own criticisms when applied in reverse and he is therefore guilty of undermining confidence in our democracy and spreading the noxious fumes of cynicism.

Complainant Name:
Tower Hamlets Council

Clauses Noted: 1

Publication: Evening Standard

Complaint:
Tower Hamlets Council complained that a number of articles by Andrew Gilligan had inaccurately claimed that council tenants in Tower Hamlets were being offered a £4,000 bribe to vote ‘yes’ in the Housing Choice Ballot. In fact, Tower Hamlets Council explained that this was a statutory payment available to any tenant if their home was to be demolished, and was not a bribe or in any way related to the voting process.

Resolution:

The complaint was resolved when the newspaper published the following clarification:
We have been asked to point out that our heading “£4,000 bribe offered in bid to sell off run-down estate” on our report of 21 September referred to a £3,800 statutory payment available nationally to any tenant whose home is to be demolished. Tower Hamlets Council say that it was not a “bribe” and was unconnected with the stock transfer voting process. We are happy to clarify this.

Don’t worry about these sore losers.

Simply note that none has yet answered your challenge!

And Thomas, really, Andrew may have slipped up in one 6am two-way, but are you denying that the substance of what he revealed about the sexing-up was not true?

surely you should have learnt your lesson by now. Your lack of rigour is why you lost your previous job.

While what you have authored may partly or wholly accurately reflect the truth, it has been your professional responsibility to report fact.

It is indicative of your style and methods that you should demonstrate your flawed intellect in trying to create a trap out of your own confusion, but that is why you are more suited to the role of a gossip-mongering hack than a reputable counsel.

And what is a sleazebag? Is Ken = sleazebag, is that a “fact” or is it a value judgement? Is he a “liar” in the same way as Boris with his tosh for example about whether he did or did not use cocaine and whether it had any effect on him …. when he didn’t use it! too.

Since when do allegations of mistakes or sleaze or whatever equal mistakes or sleaze or whatever? It is very blurry this “journalism” of yours.

Are people that you called “friends” of Jasper actually his “friends” on some proper definition of this term or acquaintances or colleagues of some other fairer description?

And do they then become “friends” of Ken because Ken is “friends” with Jasper?

As you know such nuances and chains and juxtapositions are the stuff of clever smearage and also of defamation and you should have a PhD in it as you have easily covered all the seven shades of shit when it comes to this dark art.

Now we have Boris. Partly due to smearage and media bias but largely due to the state of Labour in the country - which he exceeded by 20%.

Though of course it could be said that your rot contributed to that low standing …

Boris is not showing great signs of knowing what he doing vide appointing at least 80% and likely 100% Tories to an “independent” panel … to investigate cronyism!!!!

http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/2008/05/trial-by-jeory-john-biggs-batters-boris.html