Budget day at the GLA. Such a rigmarole as it is quite clear where we will end up. The process is thus. The Mayor presents his budget and the level of precept he wishes to impose on London (9.9% in this case).

Each of the party groups then puts down an amendment to his budget: the Tories at 3.56% (I think), the LibDems at 4.9% and the Greens would reduce the precept by doubling the congestion charge – not taken seriously and didn’t add up anyway.

At the end, we vote on each amendment and each party supports its own amendment and votes against the others. Really stupid!

Labour didn’t put an amendment to the Mayor’s budget as they are now as one and have no opinions other than the Mayor is right about everything.

However, as the Tories and LibDems were quite close in numerical terms, we then put a joint motion asking the Mayor to make sure that the precept didn’t rise above the LibDem figures. If Labour had supported this, we could have forced the Mayor to lower the precept – but of course – Labour voted against and are therefore responsible for the cost of the precept on our Council Tax.