Champagne, a purple suit and the freebies of Citizen Ken
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Your support makes all the difference.In the radical Eighties, he was Red Ken. In the eco-friendly Nineties, he was Green Ken. Now, in the fashion-mad Naughties, he has become Purple Ken.
Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, has underscored his reputation as a political chameleon by accepting an £895 Savile Row suit from the designer Ozwald Boateng.
The damson-coloured outfit, with a regal purple tie, has become his favoured attire. Ken has worn the suit at the opening of Mr Boateng's shop and at the Queen's pop concert at Buckingham Palace, and he will sport it again at the start of London Fashion Week next week.
The new look for the £108,000-a-year mayor, which has led critics to dub him "Purple Pain", was revealed yesterday when the Greater London Authority's register of gifts and hospitality was made public for the first time.
As well as the Boateng suit, Mr Livingstone's taste for the high life emerged with donations of a box of fine Havana cigars and a jeroboam of Moët & Chandon champagne.
Although the champagne was a gift of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the cigars came from a fellow mayor (of Havana), as did many of the items declared on the list.
The Mayor of Berlin treated Mr Livingstone to a replica of that city's Brandenburg Gate in "biscuit porcelain", the Mayor of Caserta in Italy gave a book on his city's history from 1815 to 1945 and the First Deputy Mayor of Moscow gave a gold etching. Given Mr Livingstone's impending fatherhood, one gift that seemed apt was a reproduction of an ancient fertility statue. It was donated by the Mayor of Morphou, in Cyprus.
Members of the GLA's London Assembly declared similarly mundane gifts such as pens and mugs, but some managed to win trips to the opera, or a day out at Henley Regatta – "to discuss flood defences".
But it was Ken's suit that attracted most attention. Trevor Phillips, the assembly chairman, said: "Ozwald should be asking himself whether he's sure this is the best model he can get in London."
An unrepetentant Mr Livingstone said last night that the suit "signified my support for London's creative industries, which contribute £20bn to the London economy and employ an estimated 400,000 people".
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