Daily Telegraph: £69,000 pay-off for loser Livingstone

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent

Ken Livingstone is in line for a £69,000 pay-off from the taxpayer after being ousted as mayor of London.
He is entitled to claim the "resettlement grant" to help him adjust to life out of office after being defeated by Boris Johnson last week.

The 62-year-old former mayor, who formally left office at midnight on Sunday after eight years in the job, can claim half his annual £137,579 salary.

Under Treasury rules announced quietly this year, the first £30,000 will not be taxed.

Matthew Elliot, the chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliancethe TaxPayers' Alliance, said last night: "There is no reason why Ken Livingstone should receive a penny from taxpayers.

"He earned a generous salary as mayor, knew the date he was up for re-election, so should have planned a financial buffer in case he lost.

"The margin of Boris Johnson's victory shows that Londoners are pleased to see the back of Ken Livingstone, so they won't be pleased to hear that he's receiving a golden goodbye as a reward for his failure in office."

The 25-member London Assembly, which scrutinises the mayor's work and approves his £13 billion budget, voted in March to bring settlements for London politicians into line with those for MPs and members of the devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Two Liberal Democrat assembly members are entitled to pay-offs of around £25,000.

An assembly spokesman said the pay-offs were justified and had been recommended by the independent Senior Salary Review Body.

Mr Livingstone has joked about replacing Mr Johnson as a well-paid after-dinner speaker and also indicated that he plans to write his autobiography, which could lead to a lucrative publishing deal.

Comments

[Adam-]

So there we are. Labour crony Ken Livingstone gets a tax threshold of £30k while everyone else has to stump up after only a fraction of that.