Forced into a corner last night by Iain Dale on LBC, Brian Paddick did not deny that he had received at £387,239 taxpayer-funded pay-off from the Met when he retired in 2007, as revealed here yesterday. Instead he declared “to be honest with you, it’s none of your business” despite the public paying for it and the LibDem candidate cannily not releasing financial information for the year in question - “What is the point of publishing 2007/2008?”. Maybe he should avoid lecturing others on transparency while deliberately masking a huge source of income…

UPDATE:  We have just confirmed that Brian Paddick himself commented on the previous post last night:

We agreed to publish earnings and tax since the last election, that is:

2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12

There was no point in publishing 2007/08 because Ken Livingstone was mayor during that tax year, paying tax by PAYE, and had not yet set up his private company to avoid paying tax. Ken’s tax avoidance was the whole point of publishing our tax affairs.

No cover-up just bad journalism.

We will let the readers decide if the revelation was news to Londoners or bad journalism. Other candidates did reveal their 2007/08 figures…

While most of the focus has been on Ken and his lack of transparency recently, Guido did wonder why the LibDem candidate Brian Paddick only released the last three years of his financials, unlike the four years from the others. Guido has worked out why…

In the missing fourth back year (2007/8) Brian Paddick received a large lump sum as part of his leaving package from the Met. Whilst the debate about public sector pensions can be saved for another day and Guido can’t have a go at Paddick for accepting what was rightfully his, however absurdly generous it was, it was a little rum to deliberately try to hide the evidence. Guido and his bean counting co-conspirators have worked out that this pay off would have been just shy of £400,000. Tax free…

His campaign initially refused to comment on the figures. However we know that Brian Paddick earned £125,667 as Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met and he is on the 1987 Police Pension Scheme. His healthy pension is two thirds of his final salary (£83,778). The key figure is how much he commuted from an annual income into a lump sum and what commutation factor was applied…

Paddick retired at age 49 years and 1 month, so his commutation factor is 19. (Whilst the commutation factors are said to be from 1 October 2007, these were later backdated to 1 December 2006 following a judicial review.) From the figures that Paddick did release, we know that he receives an annual income from his pension of £63,397. Therefore he commuted the following amount (in terms of annual income forfeited) £83,778 – £63,397 = £20,381. So multiply that £20,381 by 19 and we get £387,239. And in a perk of the job this is tax free...

Guido suspects that in 2007/8 Paddick’s effective rate of income tax was even less than Livingstone’s 14.5%. In response to this figure a spokesman for Brian Paddick said: “All Mayoral candidates agreed to publish their tax details from the last Mayoral election in 2008. Brian has fulfilled this commitment, unlike certain other candidates.” The agreement was four years if we are going to be picky…

As Parliament returns after an extended Easter break, here’s a handy catch up guide to what you have missed in the race to become Mayor of London…

When the LibDems are making bar charts about your financial fakery you are beyond being in trouble. Mark Pack takes the credit for this chart. Don’t think Paddick will be winning here…

Another Blairite has come out of the woodwork to condemn Ken’s campaign. Andrew McMenamin is advising Ken to sack his campaign managers “the people running the politics of your campaign have messed up. Maybe that mess up was because they did not account for your mistakes, but that does not lessen their responsibility.” He also tells Ken to “abandon the core vote strategy you have followed”. Not sure that is wise, given Ken is now of necessity running a core-core strategy…

Ken's 'beacon of Islam' comments divisive and dangerous. In Ldn, vote @UKIP 1 and Boris 2 to keep out #AyatollahLivingstone #ukip—
Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) April 13, 2012

With Jenny Jones from the Greens is telling her supporters to back Ken with their second preferences and now this morning Nigel Farage has signalled similar UKIP support for Boris. Unlike with the Greens, the promise of a job wasn’t needed first…

UPDATE: UKIP send over a full statement from Farage:

“Ken Livingstone is dangerous and does not represent the aspirations of Old Labour at all. His comments on Islam, calling for London to be a ‘beacon for Islam’ and to spend the next four years ensuring Londoners know the teachings of Mohammed’ are divisive, opportunistic and totally unacceptable. He has clearly been learning politics from George Galloway and is pandering dangerously to one religious group. He is standing to be the Mayor for the whole of London and particularly with the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee celebrations, should be someone all Londoners can respect and be proud of. Whilst we have deep reservations about some of Boris’s views, especially his support for amnesties for illegal immigrants, we now recommend that Londoners give him their second preference vote. Ken Livingstone – Ayatollah Livingston – would be a disaster for London.”

Ouch!

So Ken was crying over a script that he wrote, read by people given expenses and cast into roles. They call that acting. Fake tears for fake “authentic Londoners”. 

When Ken put out his partial earning figures last week they turned out to be fake – this morning it emerges that he has quietly slipped out entirely new figures having forgotten to include his resettlement bung of some 70 grand despite a dubious claim previously that the figures had been signed off by an unnamed mystery accountant. Fake accountant. 

This whole campaign has been dominated by Ken faking things. Like when he tried to fake a campaign bus. His manifesto is one long dodgy dossier of fake numbers. Fake finances, fake promises, fake tears, fake supporters. Time for Ken to fake off once and for all.

An over overenthusiastic ‘elf and safety advocate ensured that Guido was ejected from last night’s Evening Standard debate, but thankfully they have sent over the video so you won’t miss a balanced audience boo and shout “champagne socialist” as Ken squirms and tries to justify, to no avail, his tax avoidance hypocrisy. He claims he has given so much in tax that he could pay for an aircraft carrier. Despite earnings of close to quarter of a million, Ken paid just under £40,000 in tax last year. An aircraft carrier costs £2.5bn.

After promising to make this campaign about substance and decrying distractions, Ken’s tears stunt has backfired. Tonight 1.6 million Londoners will see this picture of an exhausted and tired old man in tears on the front page of the Standard. Hardly a vote winning look. As one exasperated member of the campaign team put it “it’s impressive to make Ed look like the competent one.”

Newt tried it, so did Santorum, as did Hillary and now Ken:

Don’t cry for me Venezuela…

UPDATE: Full marks to the Standard for this gem of a headline:

Ken Livingstone weeps at his own election broadcast bit.ly/IFahsN—
Evening Standard (@standardnews) April 11, 2012

Ken’s Campaign Manager Patrick Heneghan was overheard in HQ late last week lamenting “Ken’s own goals” that will be “difficult to come back from”. Heneghan was only brought in after his predecessor Hilary Perrin declared that Ken“cannot win” last October. He is said to have privately come to the same conclusion.

Sources report that despite a shrinking band of loyalists littering Tube stations this morning, the pressure in Red Ken’s camp is clearly getting to his staff. A member of the London Regional Team whispers that “Patrick was pushing for London MPs to do media this weekend to defend Ken on his tax problem but no one was willing to do it.” Walls have ears…

The “own goals” are hurting – tonight’s Standard reports:

“…polling – which took place over three days last week – also shows a dramatic slide in Mr Livingstone’s support after his argument with his Tory rival over tax in a radio station lift. Londoners interviewed before “liftgate” last Tuesday morning were split 50/50 between the two candidates. But those surveyed afterwards divided 60/40 in favour of Mr Johnson. Almost half of those polled, 48%, also said they are “less likely” to trust Mr Livingstone following claims he avoided tax by using a company for payment…”

No wonder morale is said to be “very low”.

Guido also understands that pleas have been made to Labour leader Ed Miliband to energetically intervene, however he’s already gone into damage limitation mode and is starting to try and put distance between himself and the prospect of defeat in London. It has fallen on deaf ears and there’s a running joke in Ken’s camp that there is a pro-Boris Labour HQ faction who want to hurt Ed…