ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well it’s often said that the race for London Mayor is dominated by two big beasts, Boris and Ken but what about the others? Well I’m joined as I said by the former Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the London Metropolitan Police, now the Lib Dem candidate for London Mayor, he is of course Brian Paddick, a very good morning to you Mr Paddick.

BRIAN PADDICK: Good morning.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Do you feel you are squeezed, as you were in 2008, by these two big beasts, you called them big monsters then, is it going to happen again because that’s what the polls are telling us?

BRIAN PADDICK: What’s happening is that these two people hate each other, or at least Ken Livingstone hates Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson is fiercely ambitious and doesn’t like being attacked by Ken Livingstone and they’re fighting all the time and the public really are getting fed up with it. What they want is somebody with a positive view of the future, they want to know what’s going to happen in London over the next four years rather than hearing about two has-beens argue about their past records.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But they’ve got, as we said, this big media profile, they’re called Boris and Ken, is that the level you want to reach, do you want to become known as Brian as well because of course you went down that celebrity route after you lost in 2008 with I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, wasn’t that saying I want some of that?

BRIAN PADDICK: I mean that was a one-off, a bit of fun and I’ve been …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But it was a serious attempt to build your media profile wasn’t it?

BRIAN PADDICK: No, it was a serious attempt to make some money before I got married to be honest with you, when I got married to my same sex partner which of course is what we’re fighting for and Lynne Featherstone the Equalities Minister is fighting for in parliament now. No, it wasn’t. If you look at my media profile, I’ve done about 200 current affairs programmes since the last election and two reality TV shows and I think that shows the balance and it shows I’m a serious politician.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So you think the debate has become a bit Punch and Judy then between Boris and Ken, this issue of show me your tax return? I mean of course you’ve shown us your tax return as well, that is an important issue though is it not?

BRIAN PADDICK: It is an important issue, it is a question of trust and it’s a question of hypocrisy. Okay, you can set up a private company if you want, the tax rules allow you to do that, but Ken Livingstone heavily criticised other people for doing exactly the same thing that he is doing as well and then he tries to divert attention away from his own hypocrisy by accusing Boris Johnson of doing something which Boris Johnson has not done. Boris Johnson has not funnelled his earnings through a private company in the same way Ken Livingstone has done so whilst Boris Johnson benefits from a reduction in the 50p tax rate considerably because of his earnings, Ken Livingstone doesn’t benefit from it simply because he avoids paying tax by funnelling his earnings into a private company.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So yes, you did earn an awful lot of money towards your marriage when you did I’m Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and you also tell us that you get a whacking great pension out of the Metropolitan Police, don’t you? You’re a young man, you’re well away from the state retirement age, you get £63,000 a year for as long as you live from the Metropolitan Police, do you think you’re a living case for the reform of public sector pensions?

BRIAN PADDICK: Well I served 30 years in the Metropolitan Police Service, I reached the third highest rank in the country as a police officer and …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But £63,000 a year? You’ll have a pension pot of …

BRIAN PADDICK: … and I was forced out the Metropolitan Police because I told the truth about the shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian who was shot at Stockwell. I would like to still be serving in the Metropolitan Police and I have worked for a charity over the last four years, I have campaigned on policing issues heavily, I haven’t been paid at all, I have never been paid a pound as a politician, I am not a professional politician. I am not being paid to run for the Liberal Democrats here and having that pension allows me to be completely independent, to speak out about these issues.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Yes, but the pension isn’t there for you to pursue your political career, your pension is there because of your time served in the police and police officers get these kind of pensions when they retire in their early 50s as you have done. Is it not a case, a lot of people will say well look, I’ve worked 30 years in an industry and I get 10% in that in pension or less.

BRIAN PADDICK: Which is why the government is looking to review the pension arrangements in the public sector. They were the rules when I joined, I could have gone into the private sector, I could have had like my twin brother has, I could have gone into banking for example and got less benefit than I’ve got now. We are where we are but the important thing is that means I am completely untainted by any allegations of corruption, I am completely untainted as far as any allegations of avoiding paying tax, I am somebody people can trust.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: You mentioned your police experience and you have got a lot of ideas I know, this is obviously a national programme and I suppose your ideas for London apply to a lot of cities dotted up and down the country. You feel that the Metropolitan Police have taken a real blow, I heard your evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in particular over phone hacking and the probe into payments to the police, do you see that affecting the fight against crime?

BRIAN PADDICK: Absolutely. I mean we have a system of policing in this country, of policing by consent with the support and co-operation of the public. If you undermine public confidence in the police, the police become less effective. We have these allegations of corrupt practice with the newspapers, we have had allegations of racism in the Metropolitan Police over recent days and the Mayor of London is unlike everywhere else in the country where people will be able to vote for their own Police and Crime Commissioner, in London it is the Mayor who is the Police and Crime Commissioner, so on May 3rd Londoners are voting not just for Mayor but somebody who is going to be in charge of the police, who is going to hold the Commissioner to account and I have by far the best experience to be able to do that effectively.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: What would you do though, how rife do you believe corruption to be based on your experience in the Met and what would you do about it?

BRIAN PADDICK: What we’ve got to do, I think it’s a minority of officers that are racist, I think it’s a minority of officers who are corrupt but it’s the impact it has on public confidence that’s important so what I will do is I’ll appoint an independent Commissioner for Standards for the Metropolitan Police to actually draw up an ethical code for the police and to oversee that, to make sure that internal discipline issues, which at the moment the police are policing themselves, make sure that the standards that the public expect are actually enforced by somebody who is independent, that the public can have confidence in.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, I have one last question. Buses, you got in a bit of a tangle over how much your idea for a one hour hop on, hop off bus tick would cost London Transport, you’ve sorted it out now presumably?

BRIAN PADDICK: Yes, it’s going to cost between £20-30 million, that’s the estimate that Transport for London have put on that. If we get more people using the buses it will cost a lot less than £20-30 million and it will certainly cost a lot less than the one billion pounds over four years that Ken Livingstone’s complete fantasy 7% reduction in fares, his proposal to Londoners.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, many of those points are going to be put in Sky News London Mayoral debate. Brian Paddick, thank you very much indeed. I mention that Mayoral debate because it’s taking place on Thursday 19^th April at 8pm. You can submit a question for the main candidates and join the debate by going online to skynews.com/thelondondebate.