KEN Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, and close ally of the Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has been speaking out in the wake of the terrorist attack in the Capital City this week and on the eve of visiting Salisbury.

He said: “We can’t allow it to change the way we live. What I thought was most remarkable about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2005 when I was Mayor was that in the weeks that followed, the Police didn’t come across a single incident where Londoners had turned around and attacked a Muslim.

“Londoners recognised what these terrorists wanted to do was to tear us apart, in order to unleash a wave of hatred, antagonism and violence.

“And that’s how we have to respond today – the Muslims that live in London, who have become Londoners, are not responsible for what has happened here. We’ve got to make certain that terrorist attacks – whether it is an international terrorist organisation or an angry young man – cannot divide us. We have to be united.

Salisbury people have the chance to put their own questions to the 71-year-old former MP when he opens the Salisbury Journal Speakers’ Festival at Salisbury Arts Centre tomorrow (Friday, March 24th).

Mr Livingstone will be talking about his book “Being Red” and it will be followed by a question and answer session.

He joins Lord David Owen, the former Foreign Secretary; Terry Waite, the man taken hostage by Islamic Jihad in the 1980s; and Tony Little, the former Headmaster of Eton in the line-up at the festival which is split between two venues over the two days

Lord Owen, who authored Cabinet’s Finest Hour: The Hidden Agenda of May 1940, will give his account of the British War Cabinet meetings of May 1940. The minutes and documents reveal just how close Britain came to seeking a negotiated peace with Nazi Germany.

Little, who wrote An Intelligent Person's Guide to Education, argues that there is a crisis in the British education system. An obsession with measurement of the ‘easily-measurable’ misses the point of great education.  

The two-day programme includes: Alison Weir, author of Katherine of Aragon; Andrew Monaghan, The New Politics of Russia;  John Andrews, The World in Conflict: Understanding The World’s Troublespots; Paul Beaver, Spitfire People: The Men and Women Who Made the Spitfire the Aviation Icon;  Diana Darke ,My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis; and Sir Alan Munro, The Lighter Side of Diplomacy.

Tickets can be purchased at the venues and for further details click here