The debate took part as a special edition of the program "London Talking", and the format was as follows. Each candidate took to the lectern in turn, and then at the end each of them got one minute for closing remarks. In the main part of the program, each candidate started with a 1-minute introductory remarks, followed by 3 minutes of questions and answers from each of the other two candidates, and then questions and answers from supporters of the two opposing parties in the audience. The order of intervention had been determined in advance by drawing lots, and was Paddick first, followed by Livingstone and then Johnson. So, first Paddick gave his 1-minute speech, followed by 3 minutes' questions from Ken, then 3 minutes' questions from Boris, and finally questions from Labour and Tory supporters in the audience. Then it was Ken's turn, and so on.

Let me dispatch Boris Johnson first. He was a disgrace. He conversed normally with Paddick but when it got to debating Ken all hell broke loose. First with Ken at the lectern he would ask a question and then loudly interrupt and debate Ken as he tried to answer it. He also constantly accused Ken of basing his campaign on attacks and insults, clearly projecting his own actions on his rival. He also blamed the press for carrying Ken's press releases. He did not answer a single difficult question, instead shifting blame or dismissing it. For instance, on the issue of affordable housing Ken has a 50% target and Boris a 25% target. Ken is not meeting his target and Boris promises to build more houses than Ken. But to the question (from Paddick) of how he is going to do this, no answer, just defensiveness and attacks to Ken. As another example, someone from the audience asked him about his ability to have an inclusive administration after some highly-publicised racist comments he made. He replied with something like "one shouldn't be playing the race card". When challenged on his lack of experience, he retorted it would be unfair if only people with 30 [Paddick] or 40 [Ken] years of experience could run. The only intelligible thing he said in his whole 20 minutes of airtime was that he wanted  a London where young people feel safe and adults feel safe from young people, and something about how he used to bike to school in Camden when he was a child and children now cannot bike to school safely and he wants to cahnge that. [Note: my 5-year-old bikes to school and back (with me) safely every day] As for the Tory supporters, they were the only ones to noisily support their candidate's interventions. The combined behaviour of Boris and his supporters seemed highly scripted. If this is the level of debate one can expect from the Tory party, I despair, especially given that some poll or other last week gave Boris 44% voter intent (against 45% for Ken). One of the Labour supporters asked Boris "why are you running for mayor? It seems you're doing it for a laugh!". The joke is on London if he wins. And that cannot be discounted at this point.

I have the impression that Ken and Paddick differ more in style than they do in goals and policy. Ken is a lot more authoritarian and I will give some scary quotations later, but the debate between the two was on the details of implementation and on how to get things done rather than on what the problems of London are and what needs to be done.

For instance, on affordable housing, both agree with Ken's 50% affordable housing target. However, Paddick confronted Ken with the fact that he's not meeting his targets due to the opposition of the Boroughs. Ken has obtained, and wants to use, authority to overrule Boroughs when they are reluctant to build housing to meet the London Mayor's targets. Paddick believes in working with the councils to reach a compromise. When confronted by Ken on how he's going to get the houses built if the Councils refuse, Paddick said that he would use land owned by Transport for London and other Government agencies "rather than force Boroughs to build on the Green Belt". Given that Paddick's initial speech was oppositional and Ken's defended his own record for reelection, only Paddick talked about why affordable housing is needed, and that is because essential workers in Police, Health and Education are being priced out of London. On this, see Helen's diary London - Dying like a Dinosaur

Because there are certain people whom you need to have around to make a city run, even if you're unwilling to pay them very much. Emergency services are obvious, particularly nurses and firemen who are slowly being squeezed out of the south east. The only nurses who can afford to be here are either living with their parents or married to somebody a lot better paid. But also it's the same with waiters, teachers, sandwich shop managers, dustmen, bus drivers. In fact, you name a poorly paid ancillary service and they're understaffed because fewer and fewer of them can afford to live here. Once they could have moved to the suburbs and commuted. But prices fall so slowly by distance now that commuting itself becomes unaffordable.

Another issue under discussion was the Congestion Charge. Ken was challenged from the audience for going ahead with the westward extension of the Congestion Charging zone. Ken replied that he won the previous election on the promise to carry out the extension and that the plan was substantially modified with the input from the consultation. He also said that as soon as the extension came into effect the press campaign died out because it worked. He also said that with his proposal to raise the charge to 25 pounds per day for gas-guzzlers and lower it for fuel-efficient vehicles, air quality will also improve, despite the protests of the residents. Here we come to another of the points of contention with Paddick. Paddick said that the congestion charge should be about congestion and that replacing gas-guzzlers with smaller cars will not necessarily improve traffic; that pollution and carbon emissions shouldn't be confused with traffic control; and that instead essential users and people who have no choice should be allowed to drive with everyone else priced out of driving into Central London and onto public transport. When push came to shove with questions from the audience about how to determine who had no choice but to drive into London, Paddick bit the bullet and said that ultimately this is about banning private traffic from Central London because the streets simply haven't been built to sustain an appreciable volume of private car traffic.

Crime and policing would seem to be an issue where Paddick would win hands down, but unfortunately there is the issue of the Lambeth Experiment

In 2002, as Commander for the London Borough of Lambeth, he instructed his officers not to arrest or charge people who were found to be in possession of cannabis. They were instead to issue on-the-spot warnings and confiscate the drugs. Although Paddick is credited with the idea, the pilot programme was sanctioned by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir John Stevens.

Paddick's actions had a positive effect on the crime rate of the Brixton area, and relations between the community and police were greatly improved.^{[citation needed]} His popularity was also boosted by his willingness to engage in debate with the local community: he registered an account on the forums of Urban75, a Brixton-based community website. Although there were local critics. On 27 March 2001 as L Division Commander Paddick attended the first Metropolitan Police Authority "CONSULTATION, OUTREACH and DIVERSITY COMMITTEE" public consultation meeting. It was held at Lambeth Town Hall and full minutes are available see [[1]]. Controversy arose shortly afterwards on the local URBAN75 website whose chatboards Paddick later joined wearing his one-time Anarchist hat. Riot equipped police had descended on and trashed the squatted Brixton based "BUTTON FACTORY" social centre on 31 March. Estimates of the police numbers varied with the upper estimate being 200. In addition to BBC TV reportage see [[2]]. URBAN75 observed "Urban75 regulars will know that the Button Factory played host to some fine nights and parties as well as a cafe and will be sorely missed as vibrant local venue" see [[3]]. Code named "DURSELY" this police operation was supported by bailiffs and Scotland Yard Special Branch. It was regarded as being inconsistant with with the MPA's "CONSULTATIVE, OUTREACH AND DIVERSITY" approach supposedly supported by Paddick.

However the national press began coverage of the pilot programme, accusing Paddick of being soft on drugs. The policy became a source of public controversy and debate. The situation worsened when the Mail on Sunday falsely published a story by his former partner, James Renolleau, that Commander Paddick had used cannabis himself. They also highlighted his homosexuality as a matter of concern, and claimed he was an anarchist based on a comment he had made on Urban75 in January 2002.^[7] In fact, he had written that "the concept of anarchy has always appealed to me", but that he was "not sure everyone would behave well if there were no laws and no system."^[8]

Paddick was transferred to an intelligence position and the allegations were investigated by the Crown Prosecution Service. His transfer led to public rallies in Lambeth in his support. The CPS decided in late 2002 that no charges would be brought. In November 2003, Paddick was promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Territorial Policing. In a December 2003 out-of-court settlement, the Mail on Sunday accepted that their story was false, apologised, and paid damages.^[9]

The situation did, however, encourage the British government to re-evaluate its policies with regard to drugs, and a change in the law to decriminalise cannabis from a class B to a class C drug was suggested. Subsequently the law was altered in February 2004.^[10]

Paddick's defence of the Lambeth experiment is basically consistent with this wikipedia account and maybe the whole issue would be worthy of its own diary. But the point is that being a former police commander doesn't make Paddick automatically the strongest candidate on crime, especially in the eyes of the press. And, on this note, the promised authoritarian bend of Ken Livingstone: he didn't just say that crime has improved in London because he's puched for having more police on patrol, but  that he referred to Rudolph Guiliani as a model a couple of times. Here he had a debate with Paddick on crime figures. Ken had promised that following the Guiliani model and bringing more police on the street would eventually reduce crime by 50% - we're clearly not there yet. The issue is that the Metropolitan Police's own statistics show a 20%-25% decrease in crime figures but Paddick pointed out the British Crime Survey (apparently based on a few thousand interviews with residents) which doesn't show a decline in the incidence of crime. Also on the issue of crime, one of the Tory supporters questioned Paddick on "wanting to bring murders and rapists to work with children" and Paddick thanked her for the opportunity to explain what what he was talking about is that testimonials from rehabilitated criminals (he gave the example of a man who server 20 years for murder and wanted to go to schools to tell children not to make his same mistake) or recovering drug addicts are more effective in turning children away from crime and drugs than a police officer who's never had drugs in his whole life telling them that "drugs are bad, bad". The link between crime, drugs and economic inequality and lack of opportunity was briefly touched upon by Paddick, too.

Finally, on the issue of gang violence and youth murders, there weren't any specific solutions from any of the three that I can recall, but there was alot of ugly blaming. Specifically, Boris' first question to Ken was, given the rosy picture he was painting on progress against crime, to "explain" the gang-related teenage murder wave in the last year. Ken's answer was hair-raising and my reaction was to think that he might lose the vote of the generation that came on age in the 1980's and everyone after that. Basically, his answer was that since the late 1980's there's been "a generation generation exposed to violence on tv and cinema" and which has lost the values of respect that his generation got from their parents. So, the solution is to restore those values. How that will be achieved, I don't know, but that's what Ken said. He then started blaming Thatcher for "destroying ..." and I cannot really tell you what it is that Thatcher destroyed because at that point Boris launched into the first of his interruptions. Among Boris' noisy tirade I was able to pick up "wherever you go in the city youngsters say there's nothing to do". So I think that Ken is blaming Saint Margaret for destroying the social programs, after school clubs, etc, that would have prevented the youth culture from degenerating. The 1980's kept cropping up throughout the rest of the debate, especially with Ken attacking Thatcher's decision to abolish the Mayor of London (an institution which was recreated by Labour after their 1997 victory). I have a feeling that the legacy of Thatcher is going to loom large over this campaign. On London governance, Paddick said that the London Assembly is "a toothless tiger" whose only power is to veto the Mayor's budget with a 2/3 supermajority, but he didn't say, nor was he asked, how he would like to see the London Assembly improved.

I think Paddick is a really strong candidate and would make a great mayor and will be voting for him. However, being realistic the race is between Ken and Boris. I can only hope that Boris doesn't win.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Liberal Democrats.