Livingstone admits fathering 3 children for women friends

FORMER Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has revealed during his time as a Labour MP he volunteered to become a father for two friends who wanted to have children.

Previously the politician had shed little light on the circumstances by which he fathered three children outside his relationship with Amnesty director Kate Allen.

In his new autobiography, published this week, he reveals how during the late 80s and early 90s two female friends asked him to become the biological father of their children.

Mr Livingstone writes: “The mother of my first two children was Philippa Need, a journalist I had known for 12 years. We had become good friends. Now in her mid-30s, she was very keen to have children, although she had failed to find the right partner and the clock was ticking, so I said I’d like to be the father of her children.

“I’d be around taking an interest and supporting them emotionally, but we agreed that I would not be living with them.”

Ms Need’s first daughter with Mr Livingstone, Georgia, was born in 1990. The second, Lottie, was born in September 1992. Ms Need later married Michael Hutchinson and the couple had a child of their own.

Meanwhile in November 1992 the Labour MP became a father for a third time, after agreeing to have another child with peace activist Jan Woolf. He writes: “The only good to come from Saddam Hussein’s invasion was my eldest son, Liam. I became friends with Jan Woolf, another member of the committee to stop war in the Gulf.

“Jan was a political activist like her husband, from whom she was separated. They had decided not to have children, but Jan had changed her mind and we agreed to have a baby.

“The domestic arrangements were the same as with Philippa’s children, and I was soon struggling around the zoo and museums with all of them.”

In 2009 Mr Livingstone married Emma Beal, and the couple had two children, Tom and Mia.

He reveals he maintained good relationships with the mothers of his other children.

“When Emma Beal and I had Thomas and Mia, all three families began holidaying together, with all of us packing off every summer to Devon, Derbyshire, Greece, Spain or France.

“My memories of childhood left me with no desire for a family and I worried I wouldn’t be a good parent. If someone had told me I would have five children, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

Mr Livingstone has previously said he would never talk about the relationship with the women in his life. In 2008 he said: “If and when I write my autobiography there will be nothing in it about the women who have shared my life.”

He said he had discussed the contents of the book with all the women involved. Asked if he had a physical relationship with the women whose children he fathered he said: “I don’t think it implies artificial inseminiation.”