ConservativeHome's Interviews

Andrew Boff answers your questions

Mayoral hopeful Andrew Boff answers the questions you posed on Wednesday.

Les: "As a person with an impressive track record in local government, I wonder how you feel about the Conservative party's various attempts to push seemingly unqualified 'celebrities' into the role.  To me, this says that winning the Mayoral election is more important to the party than any competence that the candidate might bring to the actual job."

Celebrity is temporary, passion and principles are forever. There is nothing wrong with celebrities standing for public office and we should welcome newcomers to the party but they must have clear ideas about what it is they want to do. The public are not stupid; they know the difference between 'Big Brother' and an election for a serious political post.

malcolm: "What would be your top priority be Andrew?  And what do you see as Livingstone's biggest blunder?"

Democratic renewal. The Tory party is about liberation or it is nothing. The steps I have announced about voters initiatives, where the people can take direct control over the direction of policy, and providing support for locally expressed wishes for smaller local authorities puts power back in the hands of the people. The political class hate the idea. I think non-conservatives, when expressing their second preferences and wanting to see a door open for their opinions to be expressed, will rather like it.

Livingstone's most telling blunder (perhaps not his biggest though) was the western expansion of the Congestion charge zone. Not so much because of the effect that this had on transport but the contempt he displayed by making it plain that he wasn't going to listen to residents. A Boff Mayoralty will be one that gives people the power to have real influence over such schemes.

Any questions for Andrew Boff?

Andrew Boff is one of the four shortlisted candidates for the Conservative nomination for London Mayor.  He was second-placed in yesterday's ConservativeHome survey of London Tories.

A Londoner all his life, Andrew runs an IT consultancy and is publisher of EASTeight magazine. He and his partner, who registered their civil partnership in December 2005, live in Hackney.

Andrew is the secretary of the BMTRA, a social enterprise which, by managing London's most successful community-run market, Broadway Market, regenerates the area.

Andrew led Hillingdon Conservatives to victory against the national trend in 1990 and was Chief Whip of the London Boroughs Association. In 1993 he co-founded the “Civic Skills” consultancy. He contested Hornsey and Wood Green in 1992 and stood for the European Parliament for Lewisham, Southwark and Greenwich.

He was GLA candidate for Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest in 2004. In 2005 he won a solid Labour seat on Hackney Council at a by-election and a year later more than trebled the party's vote over the previous full Borough elections.

If you have any questions for Andrew please leave them in the thread below.