Catching Kate Hoey and Ken Livingstone on the radio this morning was an interesting experience. I kept thinking Ken was sounding more and more like a Mafia godfather.

Q: So Al, you got a thing against Lemmy, right?

A: Yeh, right. That Lemmy’s gone right off the rails, I’m telling you. I gotta do what’s right for the city, you understand. Lemmy is one bad guy.

Q: You don’t like him, is that right? You tell your boys to go wipe him.

A: Look, liking don’t come into it. If I wiped everyone I didn’t like there’d be far fewer peoples around, got me? It ain’t Lemmy. It’s what Lemmy does. What Lemmy says. So I say to the boys: Guys, we do one devastating critique on Lemmy. Then we drive him into the ground. You understand metaphor, right?

Q: They’re your boys but it’s the city that’s paying for them.

A: Sure the city pays. Yeh, but I’m the city. I’m looking after the city’s interests. The city’s interests is my interests, ain’t that so, Spider?

Spider: So right, Al.

A: Besides it ain’t my system. Do you think I like the way I have to operate. Nah, I wanted it fair and square, all above board. But you gotta take what you’re given. And it ain’t so bad. The city’s got protection now. The boys see to that. And if there’s a problem, it soon disappears.

Q: So, do the boys work for you or the city?

A: They work for me, sure, but that means working for the city. Take the case of Lemmy. When I tell them to go out and wipe Lemmy, they do it for the city, but on their own time. They do it out of love. They love me so much that when I say to them: If anyone asks whether I told you to wipe Lemmy on city time you tell them I didn’t say that, right? And they answer straight away: You didn’t say that, Al. If you’re gonna wipe him, I say to them, you do it out of hours, in your hours, at your place. Not in City Hall. That’s if you do it. Which I didn’t say, right?

Q: Your boys work long hours for you, Al.

A: They do 37 hours for the city. But for me they do 70, 80 even. That’s love. That’s family. You gotta understand love. You gotta understand family. You know what the trouble is with the world? No family values. But we got them. So it’s easy. What they do for me they do for the city in the city’s time. What they do regarding Lemmy, that’s outside the city. That’s family time. A guy’s gotta have clean hands. Look at these hands. Do they look dirty to you? You want a good manicurist?

Q: They must be real keen, Al, to put in that extra work for you, wiping out guys, above and beyond the long hours.

A: I told you. Loyalty. Love. Family. My boys are loyal. They love me. We’re one big family here.

Q: And the creaming off of cash and the cosy deals that people talk about?

A: Look, everyone has a bad deal some time. So money disappears. But we’ll find the bills. The boys are looking into it, right now. They’ll do a good job, don’t worry about that. That’s once they’ve fixed Lemmy.

Q: And the broad that took the holiday on money from City Hall. What did you make of that?

A: I was devastated. Big Pete was devastated. Spider here was devastated. We was all devastated. Were you or were you not devastated, Spider?

Spider: I was devastated.

A: See, he’s devastated. But not as devastated as Lemmy will be.

I think it went a little like that.