Livingstone defends Beijing trip

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has been living it up at the Beijing Olympics, courtesy of the Chinese, according to a report in the London Evening Standard. He was flown out business class and stayed in a £1,000-a-night-plus hotel, according to the paper. Livingstone is reportedly unrepentant about accepting the trip, along with his Trotskyite former economics adviser, John Ross.

The pair were given VIP seats for the opening ceremony and stayed in the five-star Westin hotel, where room prices start at £763. Livingstone is reported to have been given a room costing £1,122 a night. Services offered for that level included a 'rainforest shower', a 'heavenly bed' and the use of a 'bath master' who, in the hotel's description, is available to 'prepare your bath and fill it with rejuvenating oils'. The total bill of almost £20,000, including flights, was picked up by the city authority of Beijing.

Livingstone, who helped secure the 2012 Games for London while he was still in office, had a series of meetings with senior Chinese officials. Whether he raised China's record on human rights is unknown. Pressed by the Standard on this, he said China was "going in the right direction". The former mayor said on BBC Radio 4 recently that China was not a police state. In another interview on LBC, he said of the Tiananmen Square massacre: "The idea that we have not had similar problems in our past is nonsense."

Explaining the trip to the Games, Livingstone, now back in London, said that he had been approached by the Chinese. "I got an invite from the embassy saying 'We'd like to invite you', and I said, 'I think people wouldn't understand that'. And they came back and said 'No, no, we really think (you should come) because of the work you did with us on the Olympics'."

Livingstone’s Tory successor, Boris Johnson, is due to attend the Games' closing ceremony when London will take possession of the Olympic torch. The trip will be paid for by London taxpayers but he and his party will reportedly fly economy. Livingstone has criticised the new mayor's visit for being too short, saying that Johnson is missing an opportunity to win investment for London. "If I had been mayor I would have stayed for the whole three weeks," Livingstone said.