ConservativeHome's London Mayor blog

Jean-Paul Floru: Ken's Manna

Jean-Paul is a Conservative Councillor and Deputy Cabinet Member for Planning in the City of Westminster.

Imagine my excitement when I received an envelope in my Councillors’ mailbag from Ken.  Whenever Ken sends me publications I always try to calculate how much the coffee-table brochures or glossy magazines cost the long-suffering London taxpayers.  Often the publicity for Ken is done by Transport for London, as it was this time.

But I’m diverging.  Added to the expensive brochure covering TfL’s takeover of North London Railway and the new East London Railway – to be integrated in the new "London Overground" network -  was a three page letter from Ken to little me.  Presumably it was sent to all London councillors. A few quotes:

"I would prefer the new Overground to be fully in public ownership. But the reality is that the government is not going to hand over sections of the national rail network to me so I can nationalise them. That unfortunately was never an option".  [Tony, please stay!!!]

"…the Mayor [he now talks about himself in the third person] will set the fares, preventing private operators from making super-profits by raising the cost of travel, as occurred on the national rail system after privatisation". [As far as I’m aware private rail companies cannot set fares freely]

Report Card: Livingstone and the London Assembly members

London Salmon reviews the year that was in London politics from a conservative perspective. See original posts here and here.

Ken Livingstone 

Where to start? Chavez, oil for Oyster, Cuba, Castro, walnut whips, suspension, getting away with suspension, fare increases, council tax increases, Olympic overspend, Metronet getting worse, congestion charge increase, ignored consultations on West London Tram…… Every situation that springs in to mind is associated not with a new policy that will benefit millions of Londoners, but with Ken either making a disgrace of himself and his office, or being very economical with the truth.

The only good thing I can think of on the policy front is the progress on the Low Emissions Zone, which looks like it could be a relatively fair and effective environmental policy.

The other flagship policies have all had holes found in them, average traffic speeds in the congestion charge zone are now at an historical low of just 10mph, whilst air quality has got worse and the tube upgrade is plodding along too slowly.

Overall crime has probably gone down (with stats these days, who can be sure either way?) but violent crime has almost certainly gone up. We’ve also had 9-5 Safer Neighbourhood Teams, ‘rent a shiny jackets’ with no power to enforce the law, and who spend more time filling out forms and drinking tea than preventing anti-social behaviour.

But the real assessment of Ken’s performance comes on the personal front. He managed to get himself suspended for making a Nazi jibe to a Jewish reporter, only to get un-suspended on appeal. He hosted Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez at City Hall, and then tried to visit him in November, only to be stood up by El Presidente. Cuba had to suffice.

He got into a row with the government about the Olympic overspend, and admitted that he is rephasing most of the traffic lights around western extension of the congestion charge, in order to soften up motorists for the February 2007 launch.

In any other city, in any other country, Ken would be very unpopular. Yet he’s still there, and has a habit of defying his critics. Next year will be a crucial moment in his Mayoralty, with the western extension of the congestion charge coming online, and the selection of his Tory opponent for 2008. The points for his disgraces must be balanced with points for his ability to ride out the storms.  6/10

>>> CONTINUE READING FOR ASSEMBLY MEMBER RATINGS

Gove explores powers to recall London's Mayor

Michael Gove - with MPs Andrew Pelling and Bob Neill - are campaigning to reduce the tendency of London's Mayor to grandstand on foreign policy and his attempts to take powers from London's boroughs.  Their amendments include possible powers for a Schwarzenegger-style 'recall' of the Mayor from office - a direct democracy idea first floated by Andrew Boff on ConservativeHome.

One amendment they are proposing to the Greater London Authority Bill states:

"The Authority shall not by virtue of section 30(1) above incur expenditure in promoting activities or relationships which are primarily the responsibility of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Department for International Development, although this does not prevent the Authority incurring expenditure in co-operating with or facilitating good relations with other major capital cities.”

The full text of an explanatory letter that Michael Gove has distributed to Tory MPs is pasted below.

Would Mike Read be a Poptastic Mayor?

Iain Dale's Diary alerted me to this story in Richard Kay's Mail column.  Former Top of the Pops presenter Mike Read is apparently interested in becoming Tory candidate for Mayor.  Francis Maude has met him and has described him as "formidable".  I'm not sure I'd vote for this Radio 1 DJ (retired) but I'd certainly vote for his policy of ridding London of bendy buses.

Update 02/01/07:

Daily Mail: "Mr Read, 56, who made his name as a TV and radio presenter in the Eighties, put tackling crime and immigration and preserving the family unit as his top priorities. He is cautious about Mr Cameron, saying he is "impressed" by him as a person but wants to see more meat on his policies. Brought up in Surrey, his parents voted Tory, and as far as he can remember he always has too. He currently presents a show for radio station the Big L, in Frinton-on-Sea, a bastion of the blue rinse brigade. As yet, his manifesto for Mayor lacks detail. "You can't set out your stall until you know what you're selling," he insisted. He thinks bendy buses are a "crazy" idea as they clog up roads and that the congestion charge is "unfair" on people who forget to pay. He welcomes the Olympics but is concerned about rising costs. He also thinks immigrants should swear an oath of allegiance to the country."

Roger Evans AM: Mind the gap

Roger [blog] is London Assembly member for Havering & Redbridge and the Conservative group's Transport and Environment Spokesman. This article is a response to yesterday's article by Ken Livingstone.

So, do the Tories really want to scrap free travel for under 16’s on buses, and if they do, why? Well, it’s important to point out that, as much as I would like the power to set Conservative policy in London I can’t. The London Assembly, of which I am a member, was created as a weak institution, with no formal powers of veto or amendment- except on the Mayor’s budget that requires the entire 25-member body to agree on an alternative, impossible with five parties with very different priorities.

Our as yet unselected candidate for Mayor would set the policy, and since he/she isn’t known yet, it is unfair for the current Mayor to adopt the tactics of his favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail, and attempt to whip up hysteria about what may or may not be our policy.

On my blog, I wrote:

“One thing that is certain is that I will not be the Conservative Mayoral candidate, having already ruled myself out of the race. Policy will be a matter for the candidate to decide when they are chosen, however given the cost of this concession, the levels of anti social behaviour, and the lack of control over the issuing and checking of passes, I will be recommending abolition - if asked...”

Darren Caplan: London mayor - The silence is deafening

Darren Caplan is Head of the London Office of a public affairs agency and worked in CCO in the late 1990's.

Ken Livingstone must be having a laugh right now.

Three months into the Conservative’s six-month candidate selection delay and there is still no ‘profile’ candidate willing to put head above parapet nor a proclaimed Tory vision for the capital.

The silence is deafening.

No striker…

That the Conservative Party is having to employ a firm of headhunters to locate a London mayoral candidate, to be seemingly enticed kicking and screaming into the mayoral fray – as if there are more rewarding things to do than be London’s historic Olympic city mayor – is staggering.

By now, potential candidates should be champing at the bit to get a crack at Ken.  They should be looking to inspire and lead a team from the front, proclaiming loudly an idea of what kind of London they’d like to see when Ken’s gone, based on a distinct philosophically-driven conservative ideology.

Notwithstanding David Cameron’s recent contribution about ethnic minorities, he or she should be so angry at Livingstonian political correctness in the capital, and his use of the mayoralty as a bully pulpit to voice his putrid anti-Western views, that there’s no holding the passion back.

Yet it feels for all the world as if a once-great football team can’t find a single talented striker to don the famous blue kit, and try to score the very goals that could help bring them back to greatness again.  Could you imagine Thierry Henry saying to his Arsenal colleagues, “I don’t want to play because zer centre-half is too strong!”  Piffle.

London's top mover and shaker is... David Cameron

According to TimeOut.  Mr C will be delighted that he has ousted that ageing lefty - Ken Livingstone from the top spot.

Here are some key extracts from DC's interview with TimeOut:

• "When Cameron speaks, people listen. And on many issues – crime, the environment, health, education – he now sets the agenda in London. So much so he has knocked Ken Livingstone from the top of the annual Time Out Movers & Shakers list, and ‘beating Ken Livingstone’, he admits as we walk to the car, ‘has been a bit of a problem up to now’. An understatement given his party’s disastrous failure to find a suitable candidate to stand in the next mayoral election."
• "Cameron won’t name any closet Tories he might favour because he thinks it would harm their chances, admitting he told one prospective candidate he wouldn’t publicly back him because ‘there’s only one thing worse than being on the A-list and that’s being seen as a favoured candidate of mine’."
• "Aware of the credibility challenge his background presents, Cameron goes out of his way to connect himself with ordinary people’s concerns – like transport – though he can sound like Prince Charles . ‘The tube is incredibly difficult,’ he says, ‘because it is carved up. The Hammersmith & City Line, that’s my local one, not hugely reliable, you know. If you’re going east-west, it can be good.’ Which is, I suppose, a reasonable explanation of what it does."
• "I wonder about his cycling style. Aggressive? ‘I’m not a bonnet-slapper. I have occasionally done that thing that all cyclists do – not entirely stopping at every red light.’ Not entirely? ‘I might have continued slowly, but I try and obey the Highway Code.’"