Sexy Kazzi and the General

On 4 March 2008, The Evening Standard reported thus:

"Emails sent by Ken Livingstone's senior aide Lee Jasper to a board member of two groups which were given funds from the Mayor are revealed today. Karen Chouhan received a series of sexually charged messages from Mr Jasper shortly before her organisation - the 1990 Trust - received a £65,000 grant. A second group, the Black Londoners' Forum, was also funded by City Hall.

In one he talks about wanting to 'honey glaze' her before a 'passionate embrace' and in another he talks about his love of her 'thighs, bum and belly'. The married mother-of-three denies any impropriety, but says she had a 'close relationship' with the adviser. Mr Jasper helped the 1990 Trust, and the Black Londoners' Forum - of which she was a director - to receive more than £100,000 in City Hall grants.

In total THE TWO ORGANISATIONS WERE AWARDED £638,000 FROM THE MAYOR'S OFFICE. But at no time did Mr Jasper, who is married, declare his relationship with Mrs Chouhan or any interest in either organisation. Mrs Chouhan was also appointed chair of the Mayor's prestigious London Equalities Commission on Mr Jasper's recommendation.

The 1990 Trust and the BLF are now under investigation by Greater London Authority officials. They are among 13 bodies named by the Evening Standard in December as doing little or nothing of public benefit in return for their City Hall funding...

Mrs Chouhan denied today that she had been involved in a sexual relationship with Mr Jasper... She said there was 'no impropriety' in the money paid to the 1990 Trust and the BLF...

In one message sent using his City Hall email on an official trip, printed here as it was written, Mr Jasper said: ‘Happy birthday my gorgeous, wonderful, sexy Kazzi... Darling, I want to wisk you away to a deserted island beach, honey-glase you,let you cook slowly before a torrid and passionate embrace... You are indeed greatly loved up, magnifecently appreciated and at the moment sorely missed. Once back, its candles and dinner and a special prezzie from Jamaica... Your man, General Jasper’.

In a second email sent later the same day, Mr Jasper wrote: ‘How many ways do I love thee? As the air I breathe and first gentle dew on a gloden summer morn. As much as the Brazil national football team or aki and saltfish. I love thee feet, ankles, legs, thighs, bum and belly, arms, head and brain. But most of all I love you in a flaming red sari, bangles, chains or failing that in a bikini!’

Mrs Chouhan emailed back to say: ‘Now you made me cry," and "you're the joke. Why do I bother? Will I be bovered ever again.’

Mr Jasper replied six minutes later: ‘I am bothered, look at me do I look bothered nah’. Two minutes after that message he emailed: ‘Don't be sad and crying baby... Remember who loves yah’…

Within days of this email, the organisation of which Mrs Chouhan is company secretary, the 1990 Trust, was paid a grant of £65,000 by City Hall. The Standard has seen the 'mayoral approval form' for the money, MAF 2265, which was signed off by Mr Livingstone on Mr Jasper's recommendation and also provides a further instalment of £35,000. A further email appears to show Mr Jasper offering to spend the 2006 Labour Party conference in Manchester with Mrs Chouhan.

'I am going to Manchester on Friday 22 September and staying till the following Thursday,' writes Mr Jasper. ‘I suggest we party in Manchester for the duration. It would be great to spend these days with you. Let me know as I assume hotels will be at a premium and I will need to book early. Please stay the whole duration as there is lots to talk about.'

City Hall refused to say whether Mr Jasper's £200-a-night hotel room in Manchester was paid for by London taxpayers. Mrs Chouhan denied that she had shared it with him. Today's disclosures will further damage Mr Jasper as he prepares to face the London Assembly tomorrow over his role in channelling at least £3.8 million of City Hall money to the 13 organisations identified by the Evening Standard, all run by friends or business associates of his. Six of the organisations are now being investigated by the police...

The emails appear to show a direct breach of the GLA's staff code of ethics and standards, which states that mayoral officials must immediately declare' if any person 'with whom they have a close personal relationship' has an interest in an organisation with any business dealings with City Hall.

The BLF has failed to publish accounts covering years in which it received at least £350,000 of its GLA funding. Nor has it explained how it has spent its most recent funds.

A copy of a recent official GLA funding agreement to the BLF, seen by the Standard, makes clear that it is only required to fulfil the most cursory of obligations in return for the money. The agreement says that in return for the GLA funds, all the campaigning the BLF has to do is 'support an online petition' against attacks on asylum seekers. This petition currently contains 97 signatures.

The 1990 Trust, according to earlier leaked emails, played a key part in a campaign waged by Mr Livingstone and Mr Jasper to discredit his mayoral rival, Boris Johnson.... Mrs Chouhan represented the 1990 Trust at meetings chaired by Mr Jasper where the trust, which received at least £171,200 from the GLA, was ordered to attack Mr Phillips.

Both the BLF and the 1990 Trust are part of a network of City Hall-funded bodies linked to Mr Jasper, often run by the same people and based in the same small office at a building in Kennington.

A further organisation run by Mrs Chouhan, the Equanomics Foundation, received £15,000 from the GLA".

Lee Jasper resigned his position as Red Ken Livingstone's 'race advisor’ after the above article was published.

His resignation ensured that he would not have to answer any tricky questions put to him by the London Assembly the following day.

At this time, at the Visionaries web site, Karen Chouhan was described as one of those 'appointed as Joseph Rowntree Visionaries for a Just and Peaceful World.' Her role, apparently, was that of 'Black-led decision making approach to race equality in the UK.'

At Chouan's page within the Visionaries site, this was said:

"Black communities in Britain will be first across the world TO LEAD IN DECIDING RACE EQUALITY POLICY and discourse, working... with government... AND SETTING THE TERMS OF THE DEBATE... THE UK MODEL WILL BE ONE THAT IS COPIED AND IMPACTS WORLDWIDE. Karen’s vision is for a radical overhaul of Britain’s race equality framework. She believes that WE WILL ONLY HAVE GENUINE EQUALITY WHEN BLACK COMMUNITIES ARE ABLE TO DIRECTLY SET THE RACE AGENDA.

Karen has been building the concept of PUSH-UK, to be aligned with Rev Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Alliance in the States. PUSH-UK will look at the THE ECONOMIC BACKGROUND TO THE CURRENT RACE DIALOGUE AND STUDY THE ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK COMMUNITIES IN THE UK".

Here's an odd ode in celebration of Lee Jasper and his Lady Love:

When Jasper and the Visionary
Eye us up for Brits to bury,
Shall the bad o'ercome the good?
And rivers foam with British blood?

Old Enoch warned of all the fuss
When Black got Whip Hand over us.
White slaves would slave on prison farm,
We'd eat from Sexy Kazzi's palm,
The dirt and dust and sweat and grass
Should Jaspers get to be the Baas.

Must we, then, play out this farce?
Must we accept our lower class?
And all this horror come to pass?
Aye, WHEN MARX AND RED KEN KISS MY AR*E!