Ken admits: I can't stop killings

Ken Livingstone has admitted he is powerless to halt the soaring death toll of young Londoners.

The Mayor used his biggest set-piece speech of the year to confess that he had no easy answers.

His admission comes only days after his Tory rival Boris Johnson accused him of treating the killings as if they happened on another planet.

Addressing hundreds of London politicians and VIPs for his annual London Government speech at the Mansion House last night, Mr Livingstone said the overall murder rate, which stood at 204 people in 2004, was expected to fall 27 per cent in 2007.

But he added: "The real pressure is the growth of violence among teenagers.

"No Mayor or Commissioner of Police can stop that. It's about giving young people a moral code."

Mr Livingstone was unusually subdued and didn't use the speech to showcase new ideas for a third term.

One senior Tory said it showed the Mayor "had run out of ideas".