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Livingstone and Johnson: Not So Scandalous

by Zoe Strimpel
Fri, 4 Apr 2008

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As the London mayoral race begins to climax, skeletons in the closet are being studiously unearthed. It emerged today that Ken Livingstone, the incumbent, has two "secret" families and five, not two, children, including a "happy and successful" (according to the Evening Standard) 15-year-old boy living in London. It's not abundantly clear where the scandal-factor is in all of this. It's just a bit odd, and sad.

Meanwhile Boris Johnson, the buffoonish Tory challenger, merrily admits to having taken cocaine and cannabis — much more jolly a disclosure. The admission came in an interview with the presenter Janet Street-Porter in British Marie Claire. Still, he adopted his customary lightness of touch, which acts as a shield, and has likely created few problems by the admission. His openness has been contrasted with that of the Conservative leader David Cameron, who the Independent on Sunday said smoked pot in his student years. "I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed and so it did not go up my nose. In fact, I may have been doing icing sugar," Mr. Johnson told Marie Claire. As for his dope-smoking habits before university: "The stuff you and I may have smoked is not the same as what the kids are having now. I think skunk and this stuff is very, very dangerous".

The press will have to do better than this — we want real scandal!

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