• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Mr Mayor, I am just curious as to who we should believe when it comes to these things. I seek your guidance on this. I am curious as to whether we should believe Ken Livingstone when he claims that he will use 'excess profit' at TfL to cut fares or whether we should believe a Mr K Livingstone, former Mayor of London, who in 2006 said, 'We do not make a profit. We are not allowed to make a profit'. I am curious as to whether we should believe the Ken Livingstone currently campaigning to be Mayor of London when...

• Question by: Gareth Bacon MP
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Mr Mayor, the debt repayment that was referred to earlier by the other side is, as you have just outlined, effectively paying an early gratuity which reduces the length of the debt and the amount to be repaid; thereby delivering considerable savings to Londoners. The surplus that has been talked about endlessly by the other side has also endlessly, we have been told, been swallowed up by inflation - much of it. So would you agree, Mr Mayor, that given that things have been repeated endlessly and in public many times, there may be a reason that God gave people...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Whilst of course wishing to support colleagues in Croydon, Tottenham and elsewhere, one must not take more off those parts of London which behaved themselves impeccably and of course your Outer London Fund is assisting those areas like Barnet, Richmond, Kingston, Sutton and other places which did not riot. So there must not be any rewards for rioting, I would suggest, Mr Mayor. But can I take your answer to the --

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Just taking Chair's action for the following on there. It is Peter Rogers. The borough officers and everybody is already on the case, so you will find information ready and available to you, Mr Mayor.

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Mr Mayor, would you agree that when comparing police numbers over a period, it is helpful if you compare like with like, and that therefore when Assembly Member McCartney is comparing the number in 2008 with the number we have now, she has to take into account the change in the training regime. The number in 2008 will have included up to 1,000 trainees who were in the classroom at Hendon rather than out on the street, and that in the intervening year, we have had a change in the training model, which means we no longer have those trainees...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

I am delighted that the cable car is going ahead, and if you recall, it was an idea that first came from a sort of catapult.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

A good way to get people working in London would be to make progress with building river crossings in East London, and we are delighted that after four years of doing nothing, you have come round to the view that we should build them. However, Val's question asked how much money there is for this, because it is going to cost money, there are not fairies building it. The answer is there is none, so

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Mr Mayor, some of us prefer to judge housing records not on rhetoric but on achievements. Under the last administration, there were talks about increasing family housing, and only under your administration of the targets for family-sized homes improved. The last administration talked ad nauseum about the community land trusts and how they might be possible in the future. Only under your administration are we actually going to see the first one in London. Under the previous administration, we had developments for the Olympic Park that were predominantly flats for yuppies. Only now under your administration have we seen the...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 14 December 2011

Can I follow on because we are all agreed that the costs of all types of housing, family-sized, affordable is going up and that the fundamental answer to that is to increase supply, and you said that actually you are going to do that, but you are not. Can I put it absolutely to you that your new strategy that came out yesterday is incredibly disappointing. On appendix 1, the number of homes delivered per annum is 13,000 fixed, 13,623 previously, 13,710 going forward. So there is no increase in your new strategy, and that is because you say 40,000...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Richard Tracey (AM): Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, just to avoid any confusion amongst our listeners and our audience arising from points raised by the other side, can I ask you to confirm that Operation Blunt 2 which you launched in 2008 to deal with knife crime succeeded in making 18,000 arrests and seized 10,000 knives? Is that correct? Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think the number of knives seized may be slightly higher now but that is right. The crucial thing is that youth violence is down and I am pleased to say, although the statistics are always...