London Live, the capital’s TV channel, interviewed entrepreneur and gay rights campaigner Ivan Massow on its lunchtime show the Headline Interview.
The gay rights activist and entrepreneur Ivan Massow, 47, exclusively announced that he was standing for London Mayor in 2015. Ivan unsuccessfully ran for London Mayor 2003 as an independent candidate, but today announced that he was standing on behalf of the Conservative party. The former head of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, was once a political adviser to William Hague but left the Conservative Party over section 28 in 2000 and defected to Labour. Ivan recalls his memories of Margaret Thatcher, his argument with Tracey Emin and discusses his four key policies: devolution, transport, housing and a introducing a London card.
Speaking about why he decided to run as mayor Ivan said,
‘Why I’ve got involved this time and what really drove me and rattle my cage, which was watching the devolution debate on television, seeing it all unfold with Scotland and hearing this vilification of London and realising, thinking to myself its great being in London, and I love being a Londoner – but it’s not that great here. We have incredibly expensive accommodation, incredibly expensive travel and food – it’s costly to be here. People travel for maybe an hour to get to work with a sweatshop of the United Kingdom producing vast amounts of money that pay for hospitals and schools all around the country. To hear this thing coming at us all the time made me want to get involved and do something about it.’
