Kate Hoey distances herself from 'Mayor Boris' role » Local Government » 24dash.com

A Labour MP denied claims by Tory London Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson today that she had agreed to join his administration if he beats Ken Livingstone in Thursday's election.

Mr Johnson campaign announced this morning that former sports minister Kate Hoey would become "the first member of his administration" as an unpaid non executive director.

He said he was "delighted" and that it showed he was determined to "bring talent from across politics and the community to a new administration".

But Ms Hoey insisted she had agreed only to act as a non-partisan adviser on sport and the 2012 Olympics and in no way backed the opposition candidate in his battle with Mr Livingstone.

She compared her potential role with that played by Tory MPs Patrick Mercer and John Bercow as advisers to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on terrorism and learning difficulties.

In a statement she said: "The key part of the Boris Johnson statement - ie that I will be the first member of his administration - is wrong.

"I have simply agreed to act in a similar position, for example to Conservative MPs John Bercow and Patrick Mercer - in that I have said that I will advise on a non-partisan basis in respect of my lifetime commitment to bringing sport to the people of London.

"This is not an endorsement of Boris Johnson for mayor. I will be voting for my party and Labour candidates on Thursday," she said, although she failed to mention Mayor Ken Livingstone by name.

"I am a Labour MP and I am standing for Labour at the next election. I support the Labour Government. I have and shall continue actively to campaign for Labour in these elections, not least for Val Shawcross, my local GLA member."

Speculation that Ms Hoey was being lined up for a role had been rife since she was scheduled to appear alongside Mr Johnson at a campaign event last week but pulled out, blaming ill health.

Ms Hoey complained in January about a lack of scrutiny of Mr Livingstone's City Hall advisers and a "cult of silence" which stopped people speaking out about alleged malpractice.

"There has been a cult of silence because... every time anyone raises a criticism you are either branded as being racist or being pro-Boris Johnson," she said.

A spokeswoman for the Livingstone campaign accused Ms Hoey of having backed Paris over London for the 2012 Games and said Mr Johnson was "assembling a rag bag of people whose views are completely rejected by Londoners.

"The fact that Boris Johnson has decided to appoint someone, Kate Hoey, who said Paris and not London deserved to win the Olympic Games to be in charge of sport in London, who is a leading member of the Countryside Alliance and who, with Johnson, is a fellow fox-hunting enthusiast shows how little Boris Johnson understands the needs of Londoners and their views - especially our young people," she said.

"Kate Hoey said of the 2012 Olympic Games that 'we don't deserve it and Paris does' and said 'the inevitability is that Paris will win'.

"This shows her complete lack of support for the London bid and for the single biggest sporting  event that the Mayor will have to deliver.

"Only yesterday Boris Johnson hailed a new supporter who then proceeded to launch a savage attack on extension of Freedom Pass to 24 hours a day
- a position so embarrassing the Boris Johnson campaign took it down off their own website after two hours.

"Ken Livingstone's administration has shown its ability to deliver for eight years whilst Boris Johnson is assembling a rag bag of people whose views are completely rejected by Londoners. But each announcement does show how profoundly right wing and narrow any Boris Johnson administration would be.'

Mr Livingstone dismissed his former Parliamentary colleague's "eccentric" views.

"I'm surprised he's going to take her advice on sport because I think the reason Tony Blair sacked her at the end of his first term was because she'd been involved in all the fiasco over Wembley.

"But I suppose she knows more about it than Boris does," he told London's LBC Radio.