• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

Yes, but I go back again, it is clarity that we need. Is it going to be managed by the Arts Council or is it going to be managed by the GLA? I thought this was going to be managed by the Arts Council.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

My first follow up question is what is the learning that we can take from this exercise? I say that in the context that this time next year the Chair of the London Arts Council will have been an appointee of the Mayor. Do you think that there should be closer working between the London Arts Council, GLA's Culture Team and London Councils - because they are still the largest funder of culture at the local level - before there are announcements about closures? It seems to me that one of the lessons is that when we then went into...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

I wanted to thank Val for highlighting again the Liberal Democrat campaigns. I can give her a list of our upcoming campaigns and invite her to highlight those! Here is the offending article in question and I really appreciate the Labour Party and everybody else within Lambeth to support our campaign against closing police stations when there is no plan. It is quite bizarre that the police are setting out to consult about closing Cavendish Road and Streatham with no alternative plan for counters or custody suites or patrol bases. They are not actually consulting on improving the service; they...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

I hope, Ken and the Assembly, you will forgive me then for suffering from political road rage on this one because you can actually see where I am coming from. Most parties apart from Jenny [Jones] supported the draft proposal on the MPA and I am really glad they did because, hand on heart, if you go into Streatham Station or if you go into East Dulwich Station those are squalid conditions in some areas and they are not appropriate places for our police officers to be working, they do need better working conditions and, in particular, the public in...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

The fact is I am very dissatisfied with this Estates Strategy and I voted against it because I felt so strongly about it. But the fact is that some of the police stations that are closing, in Southwark for example, are actually totally unsuitable for modern day use. It is very frustrating. They are not up to Disability Discrimination Act standards and I wondered if you were aware of that?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

Can I raise one other question then? Again, untypically somewhat rhetorical, which is Londoners watching this debate who were presented with the suggestion that a Labour candidate for Mayor was in some way a sort of pretuned zombie parroting the Government's line would I think go away assured that, as with any Mayor in London, you need to have a strong voice that speaks up in the interests of Londoners and tells the Government when it is wrong and that they can be assured that a strong and independent voice will continue when you are re-elected on 1 May?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

I am tempted to make party political points; I never have before of course so I will not break that precedent! What I find interesting on today's order paper is that we have motions, amendments and questions from the Conservatives and from Labour Members and we have statements from yourself. It does seem to me pretty clear that there is unanimity across the Assembly and London's political community that this is an ill advised decision and needs to be stopped. So first of all I think Labour Members of the Assembly, perhaps unsurprisingly, would have no problem in supporting a...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

She is one of your political allies. That is the simple reality as are all your policy directors. Nothing wrong with that; that is the system.

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

I think most voters in London would consider £3 million worth of public money under question here to be a key issue on which this election is being fought.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 12 March 2008

You have been misquoted again, have you?