A Labour Party activist admitted yesterday he orchestrated the complaint against the Independent candidate for mayor of London, Mr Ken Livingstone, that led to a Commons rebuke for the MP for failing to declare more than u £150,000 in outside earnings.
Two days after Mr Livingstone complained of a "dirty tricks" campaign against him, Mr Rob Smeath, a former treasurer to Mr Trevor Phillips's mayoral campaign before he decided to back Labour's official candidate, Mr Frank Dobson, said he had drawn up the complaint to direct attention to "the issue of MPs not declaring earnings".
The complaint was made in the name of Mr Smeath's friend, Mr John Jones, a postgraduate student, so that the issue would not become tangled up with the mayoral race. "I had been involved in the Trevor Phillips campaign and I wanted to be distanced from any idea that Trevor was making me do this," Mr Smeath told London's Evening Standard.
After Mr Smeath's admission was published, Mr Livingstone said he had always suspected the complaint was organised "from someone of the Millbank Tendency", but he was surprised it had come from a source so closely connected with Mr Dobson and Mr Phillips.
Meanwhile, the spotlight was again focused on Mr Livingstone's financial affairs yesterday when it was reported that his company, Localaction, had two outstanding legal judgments against it for non-payment of tax. The London Independent said officials at Brighton County Court had confirmed two judgments were made against Localaction in 1996 and 1997 for a total of u £11,423 and had not been lifted.
However, Mr Livingstone denied he owed money and said that while Corporation Tax had been outstanding over several years, his payments were now up to date.