• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

You just have to help me out here. So, a Member of the Assembly, Angie Bray, supports subsidies for river buses, but does not support subsidies for bus services in or out of London, because that is the line they take. Is that your understanding of their position?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

No, but TfL needs to help do it. These are the sorts of things I have asked you for, not for loads of money.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

I think Murad (Qureshi) thought that he was doing me the courtesy of telling me that. In fact, he could have done me an even greater courtesy if he had refused to be your patsy, but the fact is, having told me that you and one of your members of staff had asked him to table the question, I accept his apology. Really, Mr Livingstone, if you had to hijack the Mayor's Question Time to put questions to yourself, it really is a pretty pathetic job, is it not?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

First of all, would you not accept that the main thrust in my report was actually to ask TfL not to find extra subsidy, but to be more equitable in the subsidy that it actually exercises, and that perhaps river transport required a fairer look in on the subsidies that are already going? Plus, of course, the millions of pounds swashing around in the TfL budget which are yet to be spent. So, I think the first point is that we were simply asking for more equity of treatment within the subsidy system, rather than extra subsidy. Secondly, would you...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

So why do you not help us do it?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

Well, first, I must just say that Murad (Qureshi) should be ashamed of himself. He let me in on what I think is a fairly publicly known secret - that you asked him to put that question down, and he apologised to me in advance for it.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

Simple as that. Well, the intriguing thing, actually, in the report is that Angie (Bray) is arguing for double the subsidy for river transport, further subsidy on double the subsidy for a passenger per journey. Are there other areas where you think similar levels of subsidies would be supported by the Tories?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

That is true, and in some ways it has been superseded by the offer, and I am surprised we did not have more of that emphasised in the report.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

What I was trying to get at was do many diplomats have foreign registered vehicles?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

If they were willing to cough up, but under another name, would we not be willing just to take the money and use it?