Ken Livingstone: I am not a tax dodger The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that Mr Livingstone earned £232,000 in 2009, the first year after his defeat to Boris Johnson at the last mayoral election. Companies House documents showed that the money, which came from Mr Livingstone's speaking engagements, and work as a radio presenter, was paid directly into a new company that he set up. Mr Livingstone and his wife, Emma Beal, are sole shareholders in the firm and are able to split his income evenly, even though it was earned entirely by him. She is paid from company funds as Mr Livingstone's "assistant." "Basically, I pay income tax on what is paid for me to my daily expenses," he told the Pienaar's Politics programme. I mean, poor old Emma had to spend three years in our attic typing out my autobiography, booking my visits round the world to the Mayors of all over the place and it's a very demanding job. But the other thing is, you know, I've used that to pay for other people to work on the campaign for Mayor and so on. I don't think that anyone really in Britain pays income tax on the money they use to employ other people to work for them. Conservative MP Priti Patel accused Mr Livingstone of "hypocrisy." This is another case of Ken Livingstone saying one thing while doing another. How can Londoners trust this man?" she said.