• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Mr Mayor, we no doubt agree on 90% of the issues; it is recognising the 10% which we disagree on and where we have our fights. London is better for it.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I was at the launch of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) Job Skills Futures Strategy yesterday and they said they had January figures which I think were even better than the ones you have quoted from. Given the potential for mischief in this area, is there a way that we can have these figures reported regularly and could we have it by gender and ethnicity? I am just fed up with all the mischief that is being made locally about this and local papers, who should know better, using inappropriate information.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I do not believe the data will demonstrate how many Londoners are losing out specifically as opposed to UK citizens in general. You may remember I have questioned you before on the fact that there is a great deficit in Londoners actually getting employment. The LSC (Learning and Skills Council) when it came in to have lunch with us did admit that there was something like a 39% unemployment rate in London. You then said, when I questioned you about that, that that counts mothers at home with babies. I think that is the first time any government has wanted...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

The incinerator, I think, comes to the end of its useful life in 2014. I take it that you will not be supporting any plans to renew or build any new incineration plants in London?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I am very concerned about the effect this latest round of post office closures will have in my patch. The last round they closed a post office in the Chadwell Heath area on the basis that there was another one nearby and they seemed to overlook the fact it was on the other side of the A12, which means that all my older people in that area have to go through a very dark, uninviting underpass to get to the post office, collect a large sum of cash and then walk back through the underpass as targets for criminality. In...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

It occurs to me that it would be great obviously to extend it to the full 12 weeks particularly because of Easter coming halfway through the six week period. I think a lot of us, having looked at what has been produced, will fear that, as with so many of these consultations, the minds have already been made up and the consultation is just a kind of box-ticking exercise which might mean that after 12 weeks we are back where we are now. So what I want to know, Mr Livingstone, is, were you to be re-elected ' which we...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Can you perhaps, when you put together the challenge to the Post Office's decision, include that type of issue with it, because it just seems that that is overlooked completely.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

You talked about Porsche. What is your view on Boris [Johnson] on Porsches? He said, 'It was cheering to be offered something as nakedly macho as the 911 Targa. My principal tribute is of course to the makers of the car. I salute their brilliance in creating an awesome engine capable of taking you in a very short order to a top speed of 177 miles per hour'. Do you think it is possible to be in awe of a nakedly macho Porsche 911 and be taken seriously as a candidate with green credentials?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Thank you for that. Again, one of the questions that has been raised with me by the elders in my constituency was that if there was any loss of revenue, would that impact on your promise to introduce the 24 hour fare concession for elders. I notice that many elders are in the hall today with us because they welcome that. Is there a threat that the reduction in revenue could threaten that promise that you have made?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Coming back to your judicial review challenge of the post office closures, you have not mentioned the distances they are expecting people to walk.