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Brian Paddick: 'Why I want to be mayor'


By Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson
Last Updated: 1:24am GMT 18/11/2007
Page 1 of 3

Brian Paddick tells Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester why he wants to be mayor of London

The contest to become London mayor is starting to look like an episode of Celebrity Big Brother. Red Ken, aka King Newt, is competing for the public's affections with Boris the Bicycling Blond Bombshell. Then this week, Brian Paddick - the so-called "Cannabis Cop" - threw his policeman's helmet into the ring on behalf of the Lib Dems. Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish are already backing his campaign. "They texted me in the summer saying 'please stand for mayor, we'll support you'," he said.

 
Brian Paddick
Brian Paddick: ‘The decisions Ian Blair has made, the things that Ian Blair has said, have been very helpful to Labour’

Mr Paddick, the former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Britain's most senior openly gay copper, is undoubtedly the fittest of the three mayoral candidates. The 49-year-old gym fan is challenging Mr Johnson and Mr Livingstone to join him in the London marathon.

  • In full: Mayor of London election 2008
  • Politically, he is in fighting form too. "Boris is very clever but he can't help playing the fool," he said. "Londoners want someone serious." As for Ken, he argued: "There's a psychiatric disorder that leaders suffer from after two terms, they get this supreme self confidence. To have someone who has become so out of touch is dangerous."

    Mr Paddick would not be drawn on whether he is a modernising, free-market "Orange Book" Lib Dem or a sandal-wearing traditionalist. "I'm a Lib Dem Lib Dem," he said. "I care passionately about individual liberty." Unusually for a former policeman, he is against ID cards and opposes the Government's plan to extend detention without trial for terrorist suspects. "It's ostracising Muslims." When it comes to "London issues" he is against bendy buses in the city centre and thinks delivery drivers should be exempt from the congestion charge. His favourite thing about the capital is the Thames. His main pitch, however, is that with 30 years of frontline policing experience he knows how to make Londoners feel safe. "People have forgotten what policing is about," he said. "Police officers should be citizens in uniform who simply do the things that everyone would do if they had the equipment and the training." Health and safety laws have, in his view, got in the way. "Policing is a dangerous job, we should trust the professional judgment of officers on the front line. We shouldn't prosecute them or their bosses if they decide to put their lives on the line for the public."

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    Mr Paddick became London's most famous policeman when he pioneered a softly-softly approach to cannabis on the streets of Brixton - people were prosecuted for dealing crack cocaine but not for smoking dope. He still thinks it is a good idea. "A lot of parents are more concerned about their sons and daughters being criminalised over something as 'trivial' as cannabis," he said. "We need to take a health rather than a legalistic approach."

    Mr Paddick was suspended after being accused of smoking dope himself. "A tabloid newspaper got hold of an ex-lover of mine and paid him £100,000 to tell lots of lies about me," he said. "It was a great story to say the reason he is so relaxed about cannabis is that he is a dope head. But it was very upsetting to have someone you had loved and lived with saying that." Did he puff but not inhale? "I never took drugs, I went into the police straight from school and I lived with my parents until then. When I was seven my twin brother and I tried a cigarette from my mum and dad's cigarette box and it put me off for life, so I never smoked tobacco."

    Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, is in the line of fire now. Mr Paddick delivered a devastating verdict on his former boss. "His position is unsustainable, I think he should resign," he said. "I was removed from my job when the 'kiss and tell' happened and the reason I was given was that I, rather than the policing of Lambeth, had become the story. Ian Blair has become the story. London would be safer with someone else in charge."

    The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has, this former senior policeman believes, lost the confidence of the rank and file. "Ken Livingstone says police officers regularly come up to him and say 'give our regards to Sir Ian' - well either he is taking one of those substances we were talking about earlier or he doesn't appreciate sarcasm," he said.

    Mr Paddick fell out with Sir Ian over the handling of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Mr Paddick said he was told within hours that the police had killed the wrong man - but Sir Ian maintains that he did not know for another 24 hours. When we asked whether he believed that the commissioner did in fact know earlier, he replied: "Libel laws prevent me from answering that question."

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