• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

But many of these scientists -

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

You cannot seriously say that an alternate view is the equivalent of David Irving. That is the whole business about implying holocaust denier, global warning denier, that is like trying to create -

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

Thank you, Mayor. Given the fact that the full IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report was not made available at the time, and given the fact that many of the scientists who were quoted in it themselves had to take legal action to be disassociated from it because of the fact that the final draft of the communiqué avoided all of the doubts, all the question marks and all the qualifications, my only point really of this question is that you put something on with Al Gore -- let me just quote what he said himself about his own...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

Just a brief point, Mr Mayor. What worries me is that this green debate is no longer scholarship, it has been taken over by politics. The discussion is now driven by politically driven forces with little interest in the value of free intellectual enquiry. That is what I think is being drowned out here. Science never stops. The debate is never over. Scientists are never at an end point. There is always more to be discovered. You find that in one decade the scientists say one thing, and then a decade later they say something else because they have moved...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

I think my point is that, compared to the mid 1990s, there is absolutely no difference whatsoever, and that is the Department of Transport's own figures. But I do not particularly want to get hung up on that. I just think it is worth pointing out that you would therefore be claiming a significant improvement when your road speeds come out.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

No, I am asking for information which will complement your request, Angie.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

I was rung about a specific survey that you had apparently conducted. I was asked to comment on 7 March and, given that the congestion charge extension went in on 19 February, by my calculations that is about three weeks, one of those weeks was half term. What was the point of doing a survey, spending public money so quickly?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

Thank you, because we have a time issue here.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

If what we are saying then is it is too soon to say, why do you think that it was timely to spend public money on a survey of the traffic reduction within three weeks of the introduction? What on earth use were those figures going to be? Your claim that there was a 13% reduction this survey showed. I was asked about it on 7 March, I was asked to comment. I did say, `Hang on, it has only been in for three weeks, one of those weeks was half term'. So you were basically surveying about two weeks'...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

I was asking about the total Zone rather than just where it was extended, because I suspect that the road speeds in the central area may well be no different at all, if not worse. The only up to date figures we have of course are ones that you and I have discussed before, which are the road speeds put out by the Department of Transport, and the best we have, I think, were last summer, 2006, when it showed that there was an improvement of little more than one mile an hour since the introduction of the original Congestion...