Row over celebrity backing

A row over celebrity endorsement in the Mayor of London race erupted today as actress Dame Helen Mirren denied Liberal Democrat claims that she was backing Simon Hughes.

The star of Prime Suspect and Calendar Girls said that she is supporting Ken Livingstone even though she had doubts about Tony Blair.

Mr Hughes's campaign newspaper delivered across London put a photo of Dame Helen on its front page with the headline Mirren Turns To Gold, a reference to the Lib-Dem gold colour that dominates its leaflets.

But in a statement, the TV and film star said: "I would not want the Simon Hughes newspaper to lead anyone to mistakenly think that I was supporting him for Mayor. I definitely support Ken Livingstone.

"My support or not for Tony Blair is irrelevant anyway to my support for Ken Livingstone. I appreciate his work over the past years and hope he continues."

Mr Livingstone said: "I don't think that Simon Hughes personally tried to misrepresent the situation with Helen Mirren but it is clear that his campaign team were not bothered if the public wrongly got the impression that Helen was backing him for Mayor. I am absolutely delighted that Helen has come out so publicly in support of my re-election.'

The controversy deepened when Mr Hughes hit back. "Helen Mirren seems to forget that a vote for Mr Livingstone is a vote for Blair's mayor and a vote for Blair's war," he said.

The Lib-Dem newspaper, delivered to millions of London homes, seized on quotes from Dame Helen on Radio 4's Women's Hour in which she told how she had sat with Mr Blair on his campaign bus in 1997. "Then I wanted New Labour to win ... maybe now I would do it for Charles Kennedy," the Focus newspaper quotes her as saying. It also cites "other leading figures to join the party from Labour recently" as including comedian Sandi Toksvig and agony aunt Clare Rayner.

Dame Helen has long been a fan of Mr Livingstone, helping him get elected as an independent in 2000 and being interviewed in the Mayor's own newspaper The Londoner.