Misuse of public funds?

A couple of weeks back I highlighted a stitch up at the London Assembly.  The Conservative group got wind of a secret agreement between the Labour, Lib Dem and Green groups to take all the chairmanships of the Assembly committees and the Assembly itself.  They decided to completely ignore proportionality.

Their agreement was laid out in a document which concluded with an agreement for Labour to vote for the Lib Dems and Greens to get a disproportionately large slice of the group support budget.  The two smaller parties would each get an extra £25,000 of public funding, they acordingly voted for Labour's chairmanship proposals.

Just as their pact said, when the distribution of group budgets was voted on in comittee (chaired by a Labour member, also as per their deal) Labour voted for the redistribution of the £50,000.  You can watch dirty politics in action here and here with the committee paper breaking down the maths of the deal here.

First Mayor's Question Time of the new term

Yesterday morning we had the first MQT of this new mayoral term and it was a bit of a damp squib.  Labour asked whether Boris would put in place Ken Livingstone's election commitments and seems upset when he said no.

They seemed not to understand that even the people who voted Labour didn't believe that Livingstone could or would deliver the unfunded fare cut, or the unfunded reintroduction of EMA etc.  I hope they up their game otherwise it's going to be a long four years.

On the plus side I was pleased that Boris confirmed that the Thames Gateway Bridge, that Livingstone promised to reintroduce, is a dead idea and that the new tunnel just to the East of the current Blackwall tunnel will be delivered within a decade.

Greece, the Euro and London's economy

The big news is from Greece.  The Olympic flame has been handed over and will make its way to London for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic games.

Meanwhile the country moves into a period without a stable government, the contrast between the calm and serene torch ceremony and the turmoil in the Greek political world could not be more stark.

My prediction is that anti bailout parties will win a majority in the Greek parliament when the election is re-run, the new government will refuse to abide by the terms of the international bailout and will be forced to exit the Euro.  In the short term this will be very bad news for everyone.

Greek and Spanish banks are already seeing people taking huge sums of money out of their accounts and the banking shares have fallen accordingly, the opportunity for an orderly exit from the Euro has probably past and a disorderly exit will hurt all European economies.  Yet it is probably still the best option.

Freedom of speech and gay marriage

There is a rather disturbing story over on the Archbishop Cranmer blog which highlights a letter he has received from the Advertising Standards Authority.  It relates to an advert encouraging people to keep marriage "traditional", the advert makes no explicit mention of gay marriage but it is clear that, by extension, supporting traditional marriage means opposing gay marriage.  It is not a possition that I agree with as I have written about here.

The tone of the letter is as officious and unpleasant as you would expect but what I find most worrying is that it demands that he keeps the correspondance confidential and that he explains why he feels the advert isn't "offensive and homophobic" as 10 complainants to the ASA have said it is.

While I disagree with the intention of the advert, I cannot see how any reasonable person could see it to be either homophobic or offensive and I completely support the right to make it and display it.  If people find it "homophobic and offensive" it should be for them to justify why rather than the blog owner to explain why it isn't.

We should have the fortitude not to automatically be offended by things we disagree with, and even if we are offended it doesn't mean that people should automatically be silenced.

London Assembly AGM, did Labour buy Lib Dem and Green votes?

If you though that the London Assembly's AGM was a debate and a series of votes to decide who best to be the chairs and deputy chairs of our various committee, think again.

Before the elections I had a number of conversations with the leaders of other groups in the Assembly about a more proportional allocation of posts in the Assembly.  I thought that there was a recognition that the old way of doing things wasn't healthy and reduced the effectiveness of our scrutiny.  Clearly those talks took place before the Labour, Lib Dems and Greens knew how many members they would have.

Once they realised they had the numbers to steam roll their way through the Assembly those grown up discussions were chucked out.  It has been revealed that rather than continue with proper cross party talks the Conservative group found out that a back room deal had been done which excluded our members from playing their full part in the work of the London Assembly.

A copy of their agreement can be read in full here and as you can see it sets everything out for the next four years.  I can't really see the point in the next thee AGMs, the decisions have already been made.

I draw your attention to the final lines which state: "Therefore the Labour group will support resources being allocated to the smaller groups that provide adequate and appropriate resources to support Group management and overheads".  What this says is that in return for joining the stitch up the Lib Dems and Greens can count on the votes of the Labour group in the allocation of funding.  Don't be surprised to see the Lib Dems and Greens do rather well out of the budget allocation vote in a week or so's time.

Are the Labour group buying votes with your money?  We will be referring this to the GLA Monitoring Officer to let him decide, but it smells pretty dirty to me.

A very Tory type of coup

The shareholders' revolt, the City Spring, whatever you want to call it is a very good thing. I've never felt comfortable with Government getting heavily involved with the renumeration issues of private sector companies, there is too much risk of political grandstanding. I also feel that there has been some unacceptable wage inflation at the upper ends of many organisations. I have often been asked what I feel should be done to address this issue if Government shouldn't get involved. The answer is being played out at AGMs as I write. The people who should be getting a grip on top pay are the owners of the companies themselves, the shareholders. Their voting down of salary proposals is having an immediate and profound effect. In the USA, where the is much less expectation that Government could or should intervene in such matters, boardroom pay has fallen significantly over the last few years. No legislation needed, just shareholders flexing their muscle. I'm all for it.

London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority and London Resilience Forum

Today Boris announced that I am his nominee for chairmanship of the London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority and the London Regional Resilience Forum.

The London Fire Brigade plays an incredibly important part in keeping Londoners safe and this will be even more important in this Olympic year, the Resilience Forum is tasked with ensuring that the emergency and other public services work as a team in the event of a major incident.

I've already received a warm welcome from people at all levels involved with fire and emergency planning from Bob Neill MP, the Fire Minister, senior fire officers, operational firefighters, authority staff and members and even the the London branch of the Fire Brigades Union.

Clearly this will be a steep learning curve but I'm am hugely excited about this role and look forward to working with everyone who strives to keep Londoners safe from harm.

Re-elected. A huge thank you

The start of election day on Thursday seems like a lifetime ago.  Two long days and two very late nights later I have finally found the time to sit down at the computer and say a huge thank you to everyone in Bexley and Bromley who voted for me in the election.

I won't try to give you an analysis of the results as that has already been done to death on a host of websites.

I can now spend the rest of the bank holiday weekend with my wife and family whom I have neglected over the last couple of months whilst campaigning.  The Conservative activists in Bexley and Bromley also deserve a huge debt of thanks.