• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

Do you think it might be helpful to discuss it with the relevant ministers to see if they all wish to benefit?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

That is with the national Government. Will there be anything between London and Caracas as cities?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

Finally, on this front, what do you think is the real reason the Americans are wound up by him?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

Therefore, no doubt the details of the GLA involvement and costs could be obtained.

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

Mayor, I think it would be very helpful if you would confine the update on your reports to matters of concern to Londoners. Quite rightly, the Chávez visit can feature, but rather than a political diatribe I think it would be helpful to all Members and then we can have an orderly discussion.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

I think we are all fascinated by the confirmation that the [Morning] Star column is alive, well and being paid for out of City Hall. Can I just ask about this? Will you be raising this interesting offer of cheap energy with ministers in the British Government?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

It is a bit like Mr Chávez, is it not?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

Are you telling us, Mayor, that the Prime Minister has expressed no view on the fact that the capital of the fourth richest economy in the world is going to receive foreign aid from a South American country?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

I see, and when you do next meet Government ministers, and I am sure you will, will you, I take it, be passing on to them Mr Chávez's views that the Third Way does not work?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 17 April 2006

Mayor, you are right to compare Chávez with the `butcher of Caracas', Pinochet, and remind everyone the extent to which the Tories actually accommodated him during the 1980s and 1990s. It is quite clear many Londoners wanted to see him when he passed through. I am sure if you had booked the Albert Hall on Sunday it would have been packed out. In his speech on Sunday he made an interesting offer about the oil concession for the poor in London and I just wondered whether there has been any movement on this?