Lynne's Parliament and Haringey diary

Today's Independent brings news that the fate of money given to Ethnic Mutual is now the subject of a police investigation - bringing to five the number of bodies funded by the GLA / London Development Agency which are being investigated by the police over allegations of financial irregularities.

And - once again - the LDA's press operation doesn't seem to be telling us an accurate story:

In a statement, an LDA spokesman said: "We referred Ethnic Mutual to the police last year and they are now investigating it." But this was contradicted by the Metropolitan Police yesterday, who said that Ethnic Mutual had only been referred to them this month.

As our Mayor, Ken Livingstone has a responsibility to ensure that our money is spent well and wisely. So far from his reaction to the mounting pile of allegations, that seems to come very low down his list of priorities - if indeed he has actually got his head round the fact that there are real, substantive questions about misuse of money, which simply mouthing off about "right wing smears" doesn't address at all.

Labels: ken livingstone, london development agency