• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

Can I bring us back to reality? You referred to the Fire Authority. There is of course, Mr Mayor, a increasing black hole looming in the Fire Authorities finances and you have referred to the increase in Government grant but the Fire Authority is basically paying at some stage increases in fire service pay, paying the bill for London Resilience" because it is the Government grant which has been extremely slow in forthcoming " and for the costs and so on associated with integrated risk management, the savings for which will not come onstream immediately. One of the first drafts...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

That seems, if I may say so, to be a touch optimistic bearing in mind the previous experience. I do not know if you have had a chance to read Andrew Clark's article in The Guardian on 12 September " In which he made quite a detailed review of the problems that face you. He suggests that one option available to you is to expand the central fares zone so that your high price increases that you have applied to the Tube in Zone 1 apply to more people. Have you done any work on that? Is that something that...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

If you do not get the money you are going to have to make cuts in TfL projects. Have you done any work so far on deciding which priorities you are willing to set aside?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

But you probably know as well as I do, Mr Mayor, that the Treasury is telling the Home Office to contain its increases in grants to about 2.5%, roughly the level of inflation. I can see what you are doing is building up a campaign to identify what the costs are and say "Yes, this is what I want to do" and then come March, just before the vote, saying "But we cannot do it now" and putting it off and putting it off. I think you are trying to hoodwink Londoners, Mr Mayor.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

It is interesting that you should raise policing again, Mr Mayor, because it is clearly an issue that exercises all of us and you talk quite happily about the step change. If you do not get Government grant for step change, which will cost about £750 million over the period, are you prepared to put that onto the precept, raising what Londoners pay per head from £50 to nearly £200 per head?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

But however short of money you are, you are going to persevere with this bridge, which is going to soak up hundreds of millions of pounds of money, is going to lead to huge traffic increases in the area, is going to make people ill and it going to do absolutely nothing to regenerate the local economies there or create jobs.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

If you do not get the money you want from Central Government, will you abandon plans for the Thames Gateway Bridge?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

The gamble then is an extra increase in Government grant whatever happens and you have not denied that there are going to be Council Tax increases if you get back, so that is fine. What if the Government in general election year " the year after the election for mayor " cannot cough up this extra money because of commitments it may have in other parts of the world, let us say for instance, and therefore you do not get this grant? Does that mean we are going to get the cuts that already seem to be going ahead or...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

I must say, Chair, I do not know how long this is going to go on but I am quite happy to spend two and a half hours duelling on this. I must say that the Mayor has clearly had a much more sheltered and naïve electoral life than, I suspect, anyone else in this chamber if he has never experienced any of this before. Certainly, I have experienced it time and time again from the Conservative and Labour parties over the last 30 years. Chair, I have a list here of false claims made by the Labour candidate. I...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 17 September 2003

Well, I am sorry to hear that, Chair, because there were four claims made where it was proved that Labour have made misleading statements. I think the Mayor is right in one thing: this does presage the campaign for next year, which, as with tomorrow, will again result in a Liberal Democrat victory next June. That clearly is what is really bothering the Mayor today.