ANYTHING you can do we can do better - was the tongue-in-cheek message from a North-East city leader to London Mayor Ken Livingstone yesterday

Newcastle City Council leader Tony Flynn cheekily invited Mr Livingstone to Newcastle for its New Year's Eve party, to see how it is done after London was forced to abandon its party because of transport and crowd problems.

Mr Livingstone might justly throw a wobbler after Coun Flynn compared Newcastle and Gateshead's acclaimed Millennium Bridge with London's "wobbly effort".

Coun Flynn said: "I though it might be useful for Ken to have a look and see how we do things in Newcastle. We would be happy to pass on our expertise in this area to Ken so that London may be able to organise its own party in the future."

No doubt in the interests of diplomacy, the Newcastle leader was slightly more tempered in a letter to Mr Livingstone, inviting him to the New Year's Eve party.

Highlights will include a show called Street Theatre, and three huge firework displays.

Mr Livingstone was unavailable for comment yesterday, but was expected to respond today.