Ken has released information on the income that he decided to pay tax on, while simply choosing to ignore the rest. When Silveta Ltd’s numbers from all of his media earnings are included, the true picture of his company wheeze becomes clear. If the Silveta Ltd had actually done anything Ken might have had a leg to stand on, but it did nothing in that time bar employ his wife to write a book. He’s a tax avoider…

(Click here to enlarge)

He claims his income from employment last year was £5,700? LBC must be slave masters!

Ken earned £755,778 from media appearances and his books according to Silveta’s Company House filings. It’s not looking good…

UPDATE: Ken paid 14.5% of his gross income in tax last year. He brought in £238,646 via Silveta Limited and paid £34,661 in tax. He’s a tax avoider…

UPDATE II: Boris’ numbers were signed off by a respected firm of accountants and Paddick has gone the whole hog and actually released the bits of paper. What proof do we have that this page of numbers rushed out by Ken is legit? It isn’t even signed off by his accountant…

“Good, that’s easy.”

Just hours after declaring that he would release his income details Ken has shattered another promise.

Video via Liar Politicians

By Guido’s sums Boris percentage of income paid in tax 2010/11 was 45.1%.

Can Ken say the same for his income channelled through Silveta Ltd? 

Tonight Newsnight is hosting a four-way debate – with the BBC giving the Greens the fourth seat despite UKIP currently polling higher. During the debate Ken will no doubt make his usual magic money promises and claim that Boris plans to kill all London’s first born sons. So, to make it easy for you to keep track of Ken’s unfounded claims during the debate, the NotKenAgain.com website has created a positive fun little game they’re calling KEN-GO.

Download the KEN-GO scorecard, fill it out during the Newsnight debate and Tweetpic a picture of your completed scorecard to @NotKenAgain to win a signed T-shirt…

Talking of Ken’s positive campaign, Tessa Jowell is on the attack and is playing the race card against Boris in a piece for Progress:

“Can you think of a single thing Johnson has done in his time in office apart from the new Routemasters and ‘Boris bikes’? And his buses are so expensive that two of them would pay for Ken’s entire childcare package, and bikes, which are mainly used by white men on salaries over £75,000, are hardly stories of fairness.”

Presumably, in light of his desire to raise the tone, Ken is going to distance himself from his campaign chairman’s comments?

Now that Ken has neutered his entire campaign by promising not to say anything negative, ever, he’s stuck with terrible and desperate email stunts. This one is off the cringeworthy scale:

From: Simon Fletcher Chief of Staff
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 13:23:35
Subject: An email I wanted to you to see

Guido –

I’ve just been sent an email by our Head of Digital and Volunteers and I really wanted you to see it.

He says that we have been overwhelmed with the response for our huge day of action on Tuesday, “Fare Deal Tuesday”.

It promises to be a big day as we leaflet hundreds of stations and thousands of commuters.

I really hope you can be a part of it.

Best,

Simon

Simon Fletcher
Chief of Staff
Ken Livingstone Campaign

–

From: Mike Joslin
To: Simon Fletcher 04/04/12 12:15
Subject: Overwhelmed

Simon,
I wanted to let you know that hundreds of people have signed up for Tuesday morning.

It is quite incredible that so many people have signed up.

It shows that we can out organise the Tories.

Do you reckon we could send out an all supporters email to tell people the scale of what they’ve done already and give other people the opportunity to take part?

Cheers,
Mike

Who actually speaks like that?

For the last two months UKIP have been polling ahead of the Greens in London. In March it was 5% to 3%. Tonight Newsnight are inviting the two candidates who have a chance of winning the London Mayoralty on for a live debate, they have also invited two other runners on for good measure. Green Jenny Jones will get national airtime despite the fact that her party has no hope of winning in London. 

The Beeb are repeating a mistake they have made before. In the Norwich and Bradford by-elections they gave the Greens plenty of airtime and ignored the Eurosceptics. In both cases UKIP beat the hippies, and in Norwich they absolutely stuffed them. UKIP have managed to secure a small piece to camera, but the editorial logic is warped and is not supported by the facts. You read it here first…

Ken tried to lie his way out of his tax problems again on LBC  and it seems that one person wasn’t going to have it. The Guardian reports:

“Boris went nose to nose with Ken in a small lift and told Ken three times: “You’re a fucking liar, you’re a fucking liar, you’re a fucking liar.”"

Ken’s spinners are desperate to talk about anything other than Ken’s taxes, claiming that Boris lost his temper about cable cars. As if. Ken had tried to suggest that the Finland Station Ltd television production company that Boris had done work with was a similar ruse to his own tax avoidance. Boris was a minority shareholder in the company, unlike Livingstone’s shell which was owned by him and employed his wife and a campaign aide. Finland Station Ltd actually made TV programmes, all Silveta Ltd seems to have done is donate money to Ken’s campaign and minimise his tax bill. Guido is wondering why former copper Brian Paddick, who was also in the lift, did not break things up…

It’s fair to say Press TV are pretty chuffed with George Galloway’s win in Blackburn Bradford. And now they have their eyes on a bigger prize for another of their payroll candidates:

“Some supporters contacted Press TV, as a major force behind Galloway’s election win, hoping the same would happen to the British politician, Ken Livingstone, who is running for the post of Mayor of London. Livingstone has been recently under fire from British media for his regular cooperation with Press TV.”

With friends like these…