Ken's Kitchen Cabinet : A Case of Pot & Kettle ?*

* In an old saying, the pot stands accused of calling the kettle black.

I'm going to continue with the culinary theme in this reflection on the politics of Ken Livingstone's "Kitchen Cabinet". Ken was, of course, once a restaurant critic for his now hated London Standard.

Unfortunately I missed Channel 4's "Dispatches" programme the other evening about "The Court of Ken". However, the Radio 4 Today show has covered some of the issues raised by Dispatches, and this morning The Mayor of London was on air to answer some of these.

Quite a lot of attention, it seems, has fallen on the activities of one Lee Jasper, whom I seem to remember (from my London days) advises the Mayor on race relations and police matters.

It also seems that Mr Jasper has had a major falling out with former journalist Trevor Phillips, previously head of the Commission for Race Equality (CRE) and now Chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

I should say, incidentally, that, like many people, I feel that Britain is a less equal place than it was, say, during the days of Ken Livingstone's earlier incarnation as Leader of the Greater London Council, and the status of human rights may also have declined during the same period.

It may also be the case that the "Race Relations Industry", as many people call it, has acquired something of the daftness and general excesses of the Old Labour trade unions, with deep simmering enmities, which occasionally boil over.

Now not so long ago, probably during the latter days of the CRE, Trevor Phillips was also on the Radio 4 Today Programme, responding to charges of media manipulation on race (? and religious) issues by, I think, Mr Jasper.

Mr Phillips responded with reference to the case of "the pot and the kettle" (using these or similar words), meaning that the Mayor of London's Office (capable of, in my view, more spin than the spin cycle on a washing machine) was hardly "white" itself on matters of media manipulation.

Funny how old sayings strike a cord missing
In these contemporary storms in a teacup...
I could go on.... but hear the kettle hissing !