As I dine with Ken Livingstone, in the Randolph hotel, courtesy of the Union, I am struck by his forthrightness, a prominent feature of his character. Indeed, as the Union president-elect arrives, Ken quips, ‘Every time I see a Union president, I can’t help but think of Boris.’
His loathing for the current Mayor of London is palpable and it’s not surprising that he gives a scathing response when asked whether Boris is performing his mayoral duties well. ‘Oh piss poor basically. For Boris, this is a stepping stone to the premiership and therefore instead of doing what mayors need to do, which is take risks and gamble, he’s going to shut everything down, do the absolute minimum and take lots of photo opportunities. He spends more time on a photo shoot with Kelly Brook than chairing the Waste and Recycling Board.’

However, Ken and Boris do see more eye to eye on the amnesty for illegal immigrants in the UK. While Boris is in favour of granting an amnesty for those who have been living here illegally for more than five years, Ken supports an immediate amnesty for all illegal immigrants. He praises the contribution of immigrants to our society, ‘Immigration is vital for London and New York, in order to keep them dynamic economies. The main reason why London is the only city or region within Europe that matches American levels of productivity and competitiveness, is because it’s the most open to immigrants.’

But will this policy simply encourage more illegal immigration? He’s pragmatic, ‘Well, who knows. We’ve got somewhere between a quarter to a half illegals in London. They’re not paying tax, they’re exploited often by employers because they’re illegal, and it’s just an injustice. Your best bet is to give an amnesty to everyone – let them start paying tax, make sure they’re able to access English as second language classes and then put in place as you declare an amnesty, a system that you actually think would work and be fair.’

‘Blair was so far up the fundament of Bush, only the soles of his feet were visible’

London is the hub for protests over ethical and environmental issues. However, I ask him whether he thinks the police are trying to clamp down on this culture of activism, demonstrated for example by the death of Ian Tomlinson in the G20 protests.

Ken emphasises the important role that the mayor plays in directing the police. ‘We know that Boris wrote, ‘These protestors are like the Orcs of Mordor coming to destroy our city.’ Now if that was the line he was giving to the police, because the Commissioner and his seniors aren’t coming out ignorant, the message does filter down. I think Boris’ broad view is that no one should be allowed to protest against any policies unless he approves of it.’
Ken was refused permission to appear on EastEnders to promote a recycling campaign when he was still mayor. However, his TV hugging rival Boris, made his debut on the soap last month. Ken attributes this difference in treatment to the prejudices that the BBC hold against him. He declares that there are elements within the BBC that are ‘very pro-Boris’ and the coverage of BBC London during the mayoral contest was ‘horrendously biased’.

He doesn’t buy into the impartial ethos that the BBC claims to uphold. ‘An organisation, which is, what, 50,000 people, is not going to have one corporate identity ideology. You can’t say the BBC is liberal conservative; it’s so big, the different wings within it will have prejudices and they balance out. I think if anything the BBC is too respectable and under its current leadership, it’s been pretty spineless in not broadcasting the appeal for Palestinians after the war in Gaza. Even more bizarre was the decision not to broadcast the concert on climate change on grounds that it was partisan.’

Nicknamed ‘Red Ken’ by the newspapers, he is unbothered by this allusion to his alleged communist inclinations. ‘It was The Sun and it was a way in which they could imply I was a communist without me suing them. It became a term of affection, and there’s actually a Sikh temple in Southall where the opening plaque says, ‘Opened by Red Ken Livingstone.’ They thought it was my name because it was prefixed on everything they had ever read about me.’
When he was suspended from office for four weeks after comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, Ken claimed he had been the victim of a 24-year hate campaign by newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard. He believes the media is guilty of trivialisation. ‘Each year that passes, even in good papers like the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Independent, there’s less news and more opinion. News is expensive to collect. When you get to the comics, there’s nothing in them at all.’

So is he disillusioned with the media? ‘Disillusioned would be the wrong term. Angry would be a better one. I think they’ve failed their responsibility to the public, which is to inform.’

Tony Blair is another irksome figure for Ken and he doesn’t believe that the former prime minister should lead Europe. ‘He has a real problem, he didn’t join the Euro, we didn’t join Schengen, he spent all his time so far up the fundament of George Bush, only the soles of his feet were still visible, so he’s most probably not a unifying force. Better we should have some dull Belgium bureaucrat who no one has ever heard of. Whoever represents a trading block of 500 million people, with our access to wealth, will get access in China and America.’

As for Labour itself, Ken is unsure whether the party can win the general election. ‘It’s impossible to say. Although they’ve got huge downsides at the moment, the one thing they’ve got going for them is on the central issue on how rapidly you cut public spending to rebalance the budget. Cameron and Osborne look as though they’re happy to make cuts that even Thatcher wouldn’t dare. I think they’re a pair of nasty little men and they’re going to make it a very much nastier country. If people can pick up on that, then Labour’s got a chance.’

Ken is determined to succeed Boris as mayor and he explains why London is special to him, ‘The way we coped with the terrorist attack on 7th July 2005; not a single Londoner attacked another. In many parts of the world, communal violence would have killed more people than the original bombs and everyone just stood together. I grew up in a city where there’s a very homogenous culture and it’s very dull. London is just the most amazing city to be in, in terms of the mix of peoples and the cultures…and as I have discovered, you can spend your entire life never learning to drive.’

Now for the hottest political question of the year, which Brown, Cameron and Clegg have tackled: What is your favourite biscuit? True to his frank nature with no Brownesque dithering, he replies, ‘It’s a sort of a HobNob but it’s oat-based and milk chocolate.’

How do Somali pirates hijack ships?

Somali pirates use very low tech methods to hijack ships: they go out in fishing skiffs and are armed with fairly light weaponry, mainly machine guns or other automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They approach a ship and threaten to fire. Most merchant ships are undefended. It is easier and cheaper to pay insurance premiums that will allow a company to pay ransoms than it is to have security on all ships. As the odds of being attacked are fairly low, most shipping companies take a gamble on not being attacked.

Why do they do it?

For the money. Piracy off the Somali coast is a ransom business, and a lucrative one. As a result, pirate hostages are very well looked after (another part of the reason shipping companies are reluctant to provide expensive security for their ships – they’d rather just pay the ransom). A whole infrastructure has sprung up along the coast that allows for looking after hostages. It is also possible to ‘invest’ in a pirate operation in cities like Toronto (home to a huge Somali diaspora). If the pirates are successful, you will get a return on the money you paid.
The political situation in Somalia obviously facilitates piracy. Somalia is the classic example of a ‘failed’ state, allowing criminal activity to go unchecked by central government. There are few economic opportunities for young men. Pirates face almost no consequences for their actions (see below). It’s fairly safe and very lucrative. Success builds success. Pirates who get a good ransom can get better weapons and faster boats, and take more ransoms. The more successful pirates are, the more people will want to become pirates.

How big is the problem?

It’s getting bigger every year. Piracy incidents for 2009 had overtaken those for 2008 in the first nine months of the year, and the International Maritime Bureau estimates that pirate incidents involving guns have gone up 200% this year. However, the number of ships attacked still constitute a very small percentage of the total amount of shipping that moves through the region.

What measures have countries taken to stop piracy?

There are three major naval operations working off the coast of Somalia trying to deal with the problem: Operation Atalanta, an EU mission, the NATO Operation Allied Protector, and the US-led Combined Task Force 150. These operations attempt to ensure the delivery of food aid to Somalia as well as protect shipping in the region. Military ships can arrest and detain pirates, sending them for trial, but what to do with captured pirates is not straightforward: it is not clear where they should be tried, and quite clear that many of them are happy to be captured, seeing it as a ticket to a Western country.

Will these measures work?

The naval operations are actually not tasked with doing very much: just to protect food aid (which is relatively easy and consequently has been relatively successful) and protect shipping. The latter seems to have had mixed success. The evidence seems to indicate that the naval operations are not stopping piracy, just shifting it to different places along the coast.
There are big structural problems that need to be overcome to stop piracy. First, shipping companies would rather use insurance to pay ransoms that just about any other alternative, from providing armed escorts or armed guards on ships to pushing for greater military responses. As long as insurance remains cheap this is likely to continue to be the case. The more ransoms get paid, the more piracy will flourish. Second, there is no question that it is hard to solve the Somali pirate problem without improving the Somali state, which is potentially impossible in the short term.

Is there a link between piracy and terrorism?

Probably not. It seems as though piracy in Somalia is almost completely apolitical and is entirely about the money. Even when pirates have captured ships carrying military equipment (like the Ukrainian vessel carrying battle tanks) it seems to have been by accident rather than by design. However, the success of the Somali pirates demonstrates what could happen should terrorism turn to the seas. Pirates have been very successful with very limited weapons, and terrorists could achieve similarly large effects at very low costs. This is extremely worrying, so the CIA and other agencies are monitoring the Somali pirate situation closely, both to make sure that no links develop between the pirates and groups like Al-Qaeda, and also to make the case that the world’s maritime areas need to be better secured.

Dr Sarah Percy is a Tutorial Fellow in International Relations at Merton College

The ship flying the flag for free speech is often unsteady, sometimes leaky as it sails capricious, tempestuous seas. Sometimes even the captains jump off and struggle to keep faith with its mission. Like the supremely erudite Stephen Fry who has always, to my knowledge, been an uncompromising champion of free expression.
Yet this autumn came the moment when Mr Fry couldn’t abide by his own credo and ferociously assailed the Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir for her freely expressed views on the young pop star Stephen Gately. His gay lifestyle, she suggested was sordid and his death could not have been from natural causes. Now Fry commands a virtual army on the web. He can make or break someone with under a hundred and forty characters. He went for Moir on Twitter, later expanding to full sail wrath on his blog. Other big name liberals and gays have joined in.
I can understand their rage. The column was ugly, insensitive and homophobic. The only real argument is where the line is drawn. Perhaps liberal fundamentalists like Fry now will now be more honest and accept that there are limits. Even for them.
Milton, one of the fathers of freedom brazenly excluded some from this fundamental right:’ When I speak of toleration and free expression, I don’t mean Catholics. Them we extirpate’ Professor Stanley Fish, the American culture critic is incisive in his analysis of this complex subject. Everyone, he says, in the free speech zone understands what is permitted. Opinions are not weightless, they enter society and have to deal with its needs too.
There is always going to be ongoing tension between freedom and restraint. Most of us know we cannot publicly deny the Holocaust or cry ‘Fire!’ in a packed theatre. Delicate decisions on what is acceptable or not are made all the time. A picture of Brooke Shields, aged ten, nude, made up and oiled was withdrawn in October 2009 from view by the Tate Modern, a good call, I think.
BNP’s bulldoggish Nick Griffin, a white supremacist, hater of Jews, Muslims and mixed race families was invited on to the nation’s most prestigious TV programme. He, who would deny millions the vote, is an emblem of democracy and BNP violent thugs who assault black and Asian Britons become beneficiaries of free speech doctrine. I say the BNP should be interrogated on news programmes but an appearance on Question Time is a privilege which the BBC now bestows on fascists. It sickens those of us who expect better of the corporation.
Then the visit by the ghastly Dutch MP Geert Wilder who overturned the order banning him from entering Britain imposed by ex Home Secretary Jackie Smith. He curses the Koran, damns and insults European Muslims, is a fearless xenophobe. Invited by a UKIP MP, they both celebrated their victory for freethinking. So why then didn’t Wilder accept any of the invitations from Muslim intellectuals to debate his ideas in public? Because he, like many others of his ilk only wants to incite Muslims into behaving like ‘savages’. How disappointing it must have been for him not to have a fatwa to take back home. I agree that he should be allowed into Britain but to see him feted as a hero in parliament was an affront. Does this mean free passage for other proscribed hate makers- rabid imams, anti-Semites, homophobic black rappers? If not, it only confirms outrageous double standards.
David Milliband exerts outrageous political censorship when by rejecting the judgement of two senior judges who demand disclosure of information that could prove our intelligence services colluded with the US and others to torture captured Muslims in the ‘war on terror’. No twitter storm was whipped up over this gross cover up.
There was though over the scientific study on toxic dumping in west Africa by the company Trafigura whose lawyers tried to get an injunction to keep the information secret, including debates on the scandal in parliament. The gaggers were duly defeated but commercial confidentiality remains an effective weapon used by big business to keep us in the dark. Lastly, the scientist Simon Singh (a good friend) is being sued by the British Chiropractic Association which objects to his attacks on the profession. Many of us are silenced by the might of libel law. Money, as Orwell wrote, ‘controls opinion.’ Singh wants more ‘freedom to criticise fairly and strongly’ on the blogs and scientific writing. I agree but too many bloggers are mad or malicious. So what to do about them? Not easy.
Libertarian ideologues like journalist Brendan O’Neill have no such moral conundrums: ‘offensiveness is part of life; the politics of inoffensiveness is a threat to free speech and open debate’ Yes, until people’s deep feelings are roused as were Fry’s by Moir. Words do violence to humans, more sometimes than sticks and stones. They can disable you to the point of insanity.
Don’t get me wrong. More and more freedom is what we must strive for, but without any sensitivity leads to anarchy and dehumanisation. But freedom is precious and needs to be protected from dictators and censors, and sometimes from itself.