Tag Archives: ken livingstone

Peoples' Question Time

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Peoples’ Question Time with the Mayor and Assembly. This is the twice-yearly statutory duty to appear before the public so we can be asked questions in public. It’s really the Ken show – as people want to question him as Mayor rather than us as Assembly Members. We ordinary members are sat in a row behind the Mayor – like some chorus line. Feel like the backing group.

Still – at last my long ambition to be on the stage is fulfilled by appearing at the Mermaid Theatre.

I am not sure that these occasions deliver anything new – but they do have an importance in that we are there in public to be grilled. Inevitably the audience want to question the Mayor on congestion charging, the tube, housing and so on. I gather from the later TV coverage that the highlight of the evening for the media was the ejection of a member of the audience who was shouting throughout the proceedings until he was escorted out. Difficult situation really – clearly someone with learning difficulties and it’s never nice to have to eject someone – but the audience was turning on him because they couldn’t hear what was being said.

Of course, that was the only bit that was reported. Just love the media, dontcha?

Underspending on transport

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Mayor’s Question Time at the London Assembly. Always a bundle of fun. I am leading for the LibDem group with a question on Mayor Livingstone’s (lack of) success at getting money out of the government. In fact, the transport grant is going down – less money equals no successes by the Mayor!

Sods law (and probably no coincidence) in his update report to the Assembly Livingstone announces that the Government has decided to ‘allow’ prudential borrowing – and Ken’s application for £400m has been granted. Labour’s in a hole over transport and trying to dig itself out and through Ken a lifeline.

Obviously Labour’s polling is showing that people are fed up so suddenly – Bob’s your uncle, it’s OK to borrow.

I’ve long argued that the GLA should have the power to raise money through bonds (prudential borrowing isn’t quite that but is a form of it). Given how Gordon Brown has always firmly refused to allow this, I guess it is a sign of Labour’s political troubles that he’s finally had to relent a bit.

Of course, this totally undermined the thrust of my questionning – but a quick bit of thinking and I ran through the above with the Mayor and reminded him that it was now even more important to make the case for London as the Government in future could simply say – “well you can borrow” and reduce what should rightly be paid for by the Government still further.

I then drifted onto the Mayor’s £350million underspend on the tube. I think Ken is misleading the Assembly and I am trying to flush him out on what this is really about. He keeps saying ‘it isn’t me who is underspending, it’s just that the private companies haven’t sent in all their bills’.

Not so – there are no bills due. In fact, the service charge on the PPP money is always up front – so that’s a bit of a porky.

Ken slithers around on this one – but basically admits that I am right about the money being up front. So I ask him to publish a list of the projects he thinks are in the pipeline and will have to be paid for with price-tag and time-line. He wriggles into ‘commercial confidentiality’ as a get out of this.

But it’s not over yet – my allotted time for questionning runs out (and we have a very rigorous Assembly Chair who is a stickler for timings). But I’ll be back!

During question time a group of young people from the Haringey Youth Forum are present to see how London is run. Afterwards I go to Committee Room 9 where the youngsters are having sandwiches and take questions from them. Bright kids, bright questions.

Setting the budget

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Plenary session of the Assembly on the GLA’s budget. Mayor Ken Livingstone made his report and is set to raise the precept on London by 7.5%. Maybe there will be a rabbit out of hat at last minute – otherwise London will be stung again.

The Lib Dems are proposing a precept of around 2.5%. We leave the budget for policing London untouched – but cut out the Mayor’s proposals for extending the congestion charging zone westwards, the West London tram and his very expensive self promotion.

Everyone makes speeches as expected. Lots of bad temper from Toby Harris (Labour) and Eric Ollerenshaw (Tory). For once I don’t speak – enough hot air in the chamber in my view!

No surprises. None of the political parties’ budget amendments lowering the Mayor’s precept get the two thirds majority needed. Needless to say, Labour support the Mayor and therefore his draft budget passes with the support of one third (Labour) of the Assembly. No other forum passes a budget on a minority vote!

Mayor's Question Time

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Mayor’s Question Time with Livingstone and Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley this morning.

Wily Kiley! He is a clever operator. The Mayor, however, did a bunk on his westward extension of the congestion charge. I came out against the expansion months ago – wrong system, wrong place, £100 million outlay and no return – just hopeless. Not like the original and stunningly successful central congestion charging scheme.

However, the Mayor used the opportunity of my questioning him about priorities for this £100 million to begin his slippery slide into not going ahead with it. He conceded that it was no longer ‘high priority’ but now some sort of middling priority. So – it’s basically off the agenda for now – as it should be.

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Banging headache – so laid in bed feeling sorry for myself. Eventually staggered to my computer and cleared emails and paperwork and then collapsed again.

Fortified with extra-strong, super-duper level Panadol, I get up to go to a Policing Planning Panel meeting. After that I would have to go straight onto the Mansion House for the Lord Mayor of London’s Dinner for London Government.

I had telephoned Richard Sumray (a magistrate member of the Metropolitan Police Authority) and Chair of the Police Planning Panel the night before and left a plaintive cry on his message recorder. Something to the tone of – ‘are you going to wear evening dress to the meeting and can we share a taxi to the Mansion House’. I usually feel extremely guilty if I use a taxi – but there comes a point on a rainy night, with no time between commitments and very high heels – when I gracefully give in.

Richard ‘phoned back to ask which dress he should wear? Of course it was black tie for him (it’s so easy for men) – but I decided that the short red cocktail dress was too much for a police meeting, and wore a more demure trouser suit with evening top. I know this is girlie stuff – but such is political life and the demands of dress code.

Of course, dress code didn’t bother Mayor Livingstone. He didn’t bother with black tie – in fact he didn’t bother with a tie at all. The old judge sitting on my left nearly had apoplexy at the cheek of the bugger! He fulfilled all my prejudices about judges I have to say. However, on my other side was the chair of a big financial group of companies who was a

live wire – and who it was a pleasure to spend most of the evening talking too.

You are sooooooooo dependent on who you get sat next to. Over the five dinners for London Government that have happened since we were first elected, I have gone from very near the outlying tables at the far flung end to the inner ones at the top table end. At anywhere but the Corporation of London one might think this a random effect – but I think

it is deeply significant.

The think I love (and the reason I staggered from my sickbed) to this dinner is, whilst I trash tradition, eschew formality and all of that – no one does it like the Corporation. Men in uniform holding metal pikes adorn our avenue as we are announced. The service is impeccable and the processing and timing immaculate.

The rumours were that Mayor Livingstone would produce a ‘surprise’ in his speech. Well – surprise, surprise – the Government would come up with £200 million of PFI credits for the Thames Gateway Bridge. Staggered I was.

That the Government would seal its remarriage with a dowry!

Thereafter – a stirrup cup in the ante room – and then home to bed!

Happy New Year!

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And back to work – absolutely hate going back after Christmas break.

Time off has given me the illusion of normal life … However, the first day is the worst, and with the logging on of my computer and the flood of emails, those funny, familiar shackles begin to fall into place.

The main task of the day was to get to them the quote requested by Transport for London for inclusion with Ken’s quote on the start of the Muswell Hill to Swiss Cottage bus route which will have its inaugural journey on Monday next. Hurrah!

I give TfL a very nice quote saying a ‘big thank you to Mayor Livingstone and to TfL’ and blow me, what happens? The press release appears the next day minus my quote. Sweet mystery of life!

Never mind – concentrate on getting letters out to all the school children via the Fitzjohns’ Avenue schools, local emails and letters to inform everyone it is starting and its starting times.

Mayor's Question Time

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The last meeting of the Assembly to question Mayor Livingstone before the Christmas break.

Of course, the key banter was about the new love in between the Mayor and Labour – and how Labour have changed their tune – overnight!

It was quite sick making. John Biggs (Labour’s Transport lead) fed the Mayor a planted question about Simon Hughes’s plans to make Oxford Street a pedestrian-friendly environment. And the Mayor savagely attacked Simon and the Lib Dems. It is quite clear from the vituperative nature of attacks that Ken Livingstone feels Simon Hughes is a real threat to his re-election.

Congestion charging review

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There was a meeting today with the transport leads from each party at the GLA to see if we can get agreement on the Review of Congestion charging report.

Pigs might fly! The Tories think it is a good report – but don’t want to sign up in principle because they don’t approve of congestion charging. The fact we are there to scrutinise the Mayor’s policy on behalf of London seems to have eluded them.

Labour either hadn’t yet read the report or were simply being obstructive. They probably won’t sign up to because, although the report finds the congestion charging scheme in terms of reducing congestion a success, it does level criticism over customer service and potential business impacts as yet unknown. And Labour, now in love with Mayor Livingstone, won’t tolerate any criticism of the Mayor.

So – how to get this very excellent review published is a mystery to me at this point – but we will see if the New Year brings any more sense to the equation.

Fireworks with the police

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Fireworks today at a full session of the London Assembly. We had before us Sir John Stevens, Met Police Commissioner and Lord Toby Harris, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, to answer the Assembly’s questions on policing in London.

Well – it wasn’t so much the content of the meeting that produced the fireworks, but the political row that erupted and engulfed Sir John. Interestingly enough, Sir John does reasonably often lose his rag. I am always surprised when I meet people who have reached the top of the tree and, despite all their experience, training and political nouse, can’t keep a lid on their feelings. It’s so human – I love it!

Today’s explosion resulted from a discussion during the Assembly about Mayoral policing policies of the Tories. There was clearly prior animosity between Sir John and the Tories over statements about Norris’s plans for policing in London. Clearly Sir John was not enamored of them.

Anyway – the row rumbled on a bit – when suddenly, during the meeting itself, Eric Ollerenshaw (Tory leader on the GLA) ran to us waving a bit of paper in his hand. It was a ‘press briefing’ from the Labour Group headed something like ‘Top Cop slams Tory and Lib Dem mayoral policing plans’ and went on to elaborate and totally misrepresent what Sir John had actually said during the meeting. A journalist had slipped it to him for information!

It was a really disgraceful bit of politicking by Labour. Then, there was a call to suspend standing orders to allow an emergency motion condemning the Labour Group for this tawdry and untrue piece of spin.

So we all (except Labour of course) condemned this roundly and poured shame on them. Toby Harris, Labour leader, stood up to defend himself as best he could, claiming no knowledge of the release – which to be fair had gone out when he was still in the witness chair. But he started shouting during his speech, which is always a sure sign he is on the run!

Anyway – Sir John Stevens also had a chance to put his views on record about this mischief. He said he was apolitical, he would always use the right to comment on anything which might affect operational policing AND then totally denounced the ‘press release’ from the Labour Group who had misrepresented what he had said.

It was stirring stuff! The media went into a frenzy and as he exited, I could see Sir John with camera, lights, action all around him.

There is a little twist to the end of this tale. As I came down the ramp under the chamber I saw Toby Harris locked in intense conversation in a little ante-room with two of Mayor Livingstone’s key henchmen. Methinks I see the Mayor’s hand in all of this. I am only speculating – but I probably wouldn’t lose money on a bet that the origin of the release was in the Mayor’s office, but given to Labour to be issued by the Labour Group. The wording of the release was so Ken – using extreme positions and phrasing and also attacking both the Tories and LibDems.

The LibDems had not been involved in the row in the chamber between Sir John and the Tories – but Mayor Livingstone feels very threatened by Simon Hughes (Norris being kind of out of it since taking the Jarvis shilling) and always attacks the LibDems.

With the election in June – things can only get worse!

Being Simon Hughes

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I spent the afternoon being Simon Hughes!

Not easy. Capital Transport at its AGM was holding a sort of early hustings for the Mayoral candidates – but Simon is in New York, so I was standing in for him in his absence. However, in the event, Mayor Livingstone wasn’t there (because he was hosting the London Conference), Norris wasn’t there because he won’t appear unless Ken is there (plus I think he should be hanging his Jarvis head in shame and not being seen), Nicky Gavron wasn’t there because she doesn’t know if she is the candidate for Labour or not – and doesn’t want to appear in debates until this is decided. That left me (as Simon) and Darren Johnson.

It was fun, however. Transport is one of those issues that everyone has a view on and gets everyone going. As I was representing Simon, I couldn’t tell everyone our manifesto ideas as they will be launched in due course – so I had in the initial speech to speak in general terms about where we are going on transport.

I suppose there are two main thrusts. The first is that ‘things cannot go on the way they are’ – i.e. outside of buses which are greatly improved, everything else is falling apart. We have no redress on the tube, no control over the rail and so on – and obviously what Simon would do about it.

The other thrust of the speech was about our main themes for the election. I suppose you could sum it up with: ‘think customer, think local, think environment’. But more of all of this as the campaign hots up.

The questions rained thick and fast for about another hour and a half – on bus driver behaviour, speed, pedestrians, ticketing, congestion charging, disabled exemptions, road building and so on. Time flew – and then I did too!