Brian Paddick gave a wincingly poor interview in the Evening Standard today.  Observe:

“I am really trying to get my head around this. Do you want somebody who is a really nasty little man in the shape of Ken Livingstone, very unpleasant and rather nasty, or somebody who just appears to be somewhat eccentric but otherwise really harmless as an individual - except I wouldn’t trust him to run anything for me?”

This appears to be his most substantive attack on Ken; that he is a “really nasty little man.”  That’s more than weak.  It’s vacuous.  Ken may well be a deeply odious man on a personal level.  So what?  His personality in itself does not matter. What matters is how he’s run the City, and, if you must drag it in, how his personality has affected that. That’s what matters to London, and that’s what’ll make a difference to their lives.

If Paddick attacked that record, then it might be worth at least listening to him. But really, when the best he can do is to call Ken nasty, then I can only assume he has nothing more damaging to say.

Oh, and if he thinks Boris is “harmless as an individual”; does giving away the number of a man he knows is going to be beaten as a result not make Paddick’s sharp, policeman’s nose twitch, just a little bit?

Moving on:

“I didn’t say I was equidistant between the two of them [Boris et Ken]. It is very difficult to gauge where I am between the other two candidates because it is like comparing chalk and cheese.”

Surely that would make it easier to place Paddick between them?  The greater the contrast, the more room there is for you to play around with on the spectrum.  Perhaps his difficulty in placing himself has more to do with his (and his party’s) uncertainty over what precisely he stands for…

“I seriously considered, for a few hours, the approach from the Conservatives. But on principle I couldn’t stand for what the Conservatives stand for. I am a Liberal Democrat, that’s where my heart lies.”

Brian Paddick’s heart lies with the Lib Dems - which presumably explains why he’s been a member for less than a year.

And now, onto Paddick’ other big assault, on Iain Blair:

“I spent 30 years in the police and it became increasingly Stalinist in the restrictions that the Commissioner and Dick Fedorcio [director of public affairs] placed on senior officers and what they could say. This is what happens in times of trouble, you batten down the hatches, and Ian Blair was in a lot of trouble.”

Now, Paddick could be making a good point here.  Perhaps Ian Blair does act like a tyrant within his own organisation; and perhaps public trust in the police has diminished. But when he mixes that with ysterical language about “Stalinism” he rather undermines his credibility. It almost seems that he’s introducing that simply to discredit Blair - as there’s no way it can be anything but a rhetorical phrase, given the death-camps Stalinism implies - and excaggerate his point.  Which makes us question the point a little…

That seems to be Paddick’s problem much of the time here.  He has the potential to make a good point, but ruins it with ill-supported personal attacks.  Perhaps the ES cut large chunks out - it wouldn’t be surprising. Here, though, it comes across very negatively.  Paddick’s very exclamation that he can’t understand why anyone would want to vote for Ken and Boris suggests that he knows most of his votes are anti-Ken-and-Boris votes. There’s not even an attempt to explain why people should vote for him positively. Just attack after attack.

So, either a very distorting piece of editting - or another indicator that Paddick’s campaign lacks any real content beyond a, “not Ken, not Boris” platform.