Mayor's Jade eviction 'delight'

The Mayor of London said he was "delighted" at last night's result which saw 25-year-old Jade Goody receive 82% of the public vote.

Ms Goody, originally from Bermondsey, south London, was evicted after claims of racial bullying of the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.

During her post-interview eviction she insisted she was not a racist.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Lilvingstone said: "I think everyone is delighted that we got the result we did last night. You can imagine the uproar there would have been in this country if, say, Keira Knightley had been being abused in a Big Brother house in India."

'Safe city'

He added that India is the second biggest investor to London after the US and that without last night's protest vote, there "would have been a lot of harm to people's jobs".

"The main argument that my administration makes to attract firms to come to London is that this is a safe city which welcomes people of different cultures and therefore something like this cuts right across the work we're trying to do."

Mr Livingstone's race advisor, Lee Jasper, condemned Ms Goody's comments as racist.

"The whole denigration of Indian culture, the Indian community, the Indian way of cooking food I think leaves one with the inescapable conclusion that it was racist behaviour."

He also accused executives at Channel 4 and Endemol - which produces the programme - as cynically broadcasting "racism as entertainment" rather than triggering a national debate about race and culture.

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