• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

It was excluded and I want to know why. I do not question your commitment to anti-racism; I am surprised you question ours. I do not actually question your views about the Daily Mail, with which I have considerable sympathy. The point I am trying to make is why are you so very obviously not being even-handed in your approach to racism in the popular media? The Desmond papers are, if anything, even worse than the Daily Mail, yet you ignore them. I assume this has nothing to do with contracts and the attempts of Desmond to get a London...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I have the list. The Voice, the Asian Voice, the Evening Standard, the Independent, which is hardly a mass circulation newspaper in London, but it excluded the Daily Express and the Evening Standard. The point is that this report was being commissioned by the GLA, by your office, with our money. The Daily Express newspaper was top of the list of the Press Complaints Commission ranking of people who misuse the phrase asylum seekers, so how could it possibly be that we have a study looking at the problem and the worst offender is not even included?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

You do not consider the Daily Express to be domestic London media?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I have the report you are referring to here. It was commissioned by the Mayor of London and paid for by public money. Can you please explain how it is possible for a report seeking to assess the impact of the media and political images on refugees and `asylum seekers- in London to exclude all the Desmond newspapers? How is it possible to do that properly excluding the Daily Express and the Daily Star from that coverage?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Chair, it may be totally improper, but I am sure that members of my party would be happy to work with the Mayor on this and it would be nice if it was a GLA activity where we could write to the Refugee Council and invite them to come in as soon as possible. This is of interest, it is about people's lives and it is not something we should just leave because I do not believe that any of us holds the same position as any racist who is in charge of any position of power. We should rebut...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Chair, I am going to try to stop this attempt at using up time and avoiding the question. The report you published last year certainly surveyed the Rothermere press and the Murdoch press. Why did it not cover any of the Northern and `Star- publications by Mr Desmond? Why were they actually excluded from that report?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I think I would welcome that in The Londoner, I do not know when that will come out. However, my specific request was an exhibition here because I also think that Members need the information to hand that is available from the Refugee Council.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Chair, I am grateful for your reassurance that the Mayor's tactic of not answering the question at all, giving a very long answer completely off the point in order to use up what little time we have allocated to us, is not going to work, so it was not very useful. I am not going to be distracted by the nonsense that has just come from that question. You have failed to answer the question again. Will you, or more particularly your Human Rights Advisor (Yasmin Qureshi), who just happens to be a candidate in Brent East, write to the...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I am asking you to go for the worst offender that you excluded last time around. I think the point is made.

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I want you to write to Richard Desmond now in the run-up to the General Election so that we can believe what you said earlier that you are concerned about the tone of the debate.