London will party next year

Ken Livingstone has tried to deflect criticism over London's failure to hold New Year's Eve celebrations, pledging that the capital will finally have an event worthy of its status as a leading world city.

The Mayor's aides spoke out as the row over the capital's failure to stage a party - for the second year running - intensified. But they gave no details of what form the celebrations will take, or whether they will match the spectacular fireworks and parades seen this year in cities like New York, Sydney and Hong Kong.

In a statement, the Mayor's office said: "The Mayor is committed to London marking the New Year in an attractive, safe and enjoyable way.

"This year, works to pedestrianise Trafalgar Square made the area unsafe for large crowds. This work will be finished in 2003 and plans are already being made to celebrate future New Years appropriately. This includes discussions with London Underground and London buses to provide transport late into the night so that Londoners can get home safely."

The contrast between London and other world cities this year was startling. In New York, still highly security-conscious, thousands of revellers packed into Times Square.

Fireworks blazed over Sydney Harbour, and in Hong Kong 350,000 turned out to watch a pyrotechnic display over Victoria Harbour. In Moscow, where temperatures dropped to - 25C, locals gathered in Red Square. Berlin held Europe's biggest street party with a million revellers.

Here, the New Year message from Mr Livingstone was that Londoners should not venture into the capital at all.

The lack of an official event has prompted widespread condemnation, with many wondering how London gained the reputation of being the one major world city unable to hold an official function.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said: "It is extraordinary one of the great capitals of the world cannot organise a party." Tory spokesman John Greenway said the effect was seen far and wide: "Potential tourists watching TV and thinking of visiting London would have seen one damp policeman in a sealed-off Trafalgar Square."

It cannot credibly be suggested that Londoners do not have the will to stage New Year festivities. For all the official pleas for people to stay away, Scotland Yard said 60,000 people were on the streets in central London at the stroke of midnight. Crowds reached 20,000 in Parliament Square, 14,000 around the Trafalgar Square area, despite the Square being sealed off, and 6,000 in Leicester Square. Fifty-one people were arrested, mainly for drunkenness and public order offences.

At the Millennium Dome, 40,000 packed in for a gigantic rave organised by the Ministry of Sound. Even torrential rain did not stop thousands from turning out to watch yesterday's New Year's Day Parade, which is sponsored by the Evening Standard.

But both these events were privately organised. The problem which has blighted London has never been the commercial acumen of its businessmen. Rather it is the attitude of its officials, said Bob Bone, who masterminded the New Year's Day parade: "It is an attitude thing. Whenever you try to do something in London you get all this opposition from authorities who say, 'No.'"

There are various potential alternative locations for a party. Thousands packed into Parliament Square, just as they did last year to watch the processions during the Queen Mother's funeral. There would also have been scope to stage an event along the bridges of the Thames.

But there was no particular desire to do so. Last November, the Evening Standard exclusively reported how Judith Woodward, the Mayor's key adviser on major celebrations, told the London Assembly: "New Year's Eve is not an event at all this year.

"We will not have fireworks and we are trying to ensure that we do not get hundreds of thousands of people turning up in central London to celebrate it."

She added: "New Year's Eve is not an event, it is a public order problem."

This "can't do" mindset was the product of the millennium celebrations in the capital. The Mayor inherited plans for a massive celebration which had initially been drawn up by the Government Office for London.

But when he rather belatedly tried to put GOL's flawed plan into action, he was besieged by the emergency services who warned that any major event could be unsafe and would certainly be expensive to run. The Met said it could not guarantee the safety of the revellers or the size of its overtime bill. London Underground also voiced safety fears and tried to close key stations in central London. Councils complained that their staff would be unwilling to work on New Year's Eve.

The Mayor has never set his face against having New Year's Eve celebrations. Their lack is greatly puzzling because even those who despised Mr Livingstone during the most controversial days of the Greater London Council accepted that he knew how to throw a party.

But since the millennium fiasco, the issue has never been a priority. Today, amid claims that he has allowed London to become a laughing-stock, his priorities appear to have changed.