• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

The reason I asked the question is because I went to an event that the Metropolitan Police Traffic Unit had laid on and they had these convex close proximity mirrors fitted to the front and side windows of lorries and if you went and sat in the seat you just saw what little you could see below. They targeted this particularly at cyclists. A cyclist could see what the lorry drivers were not able to see. One of the officers there said that they had been trying to talk to Transport for London to fit these onto buses - not...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Could we extend that to all buses as well; not just bendy buses but to standard buses as well?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Mr Mayor, I want to know which side of the fence you are sitting on vis-à-vis the police pay award. Are you with the Home Secretary for it to be phased in or are you with the Police Federation that it should be paid in full immediately from last September?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Can I just intervene here, just to be accurate about this. You have been talking about the GLA and the Mayor undertaking an inquiry; I am not disputing what Richard Barnes is saying; indeed there is reference to an inquiry by the LDA. They are parallel perhaps, but separate.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Mr Mayor, we are not going to take much in lectures on morality from you, when you have just reduced yourself to the gutter of municipal politics. Yesterday you made a filthy allegation against a colleague of mine in the course of your press conference, which I hope you might form in a phrase which will make it actionable at some point; now you seek to attack somebody who no longer has any connection with the Authority; before that you accused any journalist who criticised you of being a racist. Why not just answer the blooming question and say whether...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

You are quite happy for the full pay award to be given to the Metropolitan Police Service from September? Is that what you are saying?

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Mr Mayor, were you pleased or disappointed with the level of grant settlement this year?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Finally, this will be seen, and indeed it is, as a pre-election budget in that it is the budget just before the next GLA election.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

Although I started by saying that I cannot really imagine how anyone could oppose these wonderfully beneficial proposals in the budget, this is the time of Christmas and of course the Grinch comes out at Christmas in the Assembly in the form of Richard Barnes AM, I believe! Where do you think the battle lines will be on the budget this year? What are the points of pressure between yourselves and others aspiring for your office?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 12 December 2007

That is all very interesting. What will you be recommending to the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) vis-à-vis the pay increase for the Metropolitan Police Service? Will we be paying it from September or will we be phasing it in like the Home Secretary would want?