• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

I think the proof will be in places like Hammersmith and Fulham for people who find it creeping ever closer to them. I wonder whether you have had words there because I know that the local Labour council is very concerned about the negative image it is giving the Labour Party locally?

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

He has made the point quite correctly that I selected certain things; nevertheless they were said. The main point is that what we want to know is not that we see two years on a situation where we still do not really know, but that we know. What are the measures?

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

I absolutely agree with what John Biggs just said and indeed with what the Mayor just said. As an opponent of the tram and of the Congestion Charge, I nonetheless think that people do have to have an alternative vision. For example, Tony Travers (Director, Greater London Group, London School of Economics) when he came here a few months back said that one of the problems of analysing what has happened in this first two years of it, is that there is no real proper research on the outcomes that everybody can say is credible, that that is something we...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

I think the point, Mr Mayor, is that you do not live in West London and do not have a clue about what is actually required there. Let me carry on to my next question. It turns out that even your own officers advised you against the tax hike of 60% from £5 to £8. What is your message to the 75% of residents, 87% of businesses, including your old friends London First who have begged you not to raise the charge?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

In fact, you are saying that you are quite happy to be described as a dictator.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

As someone who is a West London resident and who has family with businesses both in the zone and outside the zone in the West London extension, I too do not recognise the world that Angie Bray is presenting. I would like to say that a lot of residents in the ward I represent, Church Street, would love to be inside the zone, quite honestly, if it were possible to have a northern extension, but that is not possible technically. I would want to limit my question to the West London extension. I understand that the residents of Kensington and...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 16 April 2005

Have you heard what I have heard in the last day or so that Tony Blair (Prime Minister) is absolutely livid that a Labour Mayor supported by his Labour colleagues, is going to impose a 60% tax hike on Londoners just ahead of a General Election? I wonder whether you have had a few words with him about it. In particular, I wonder whether you have had a few words with the local Labour Party in Hammersmith and Fulham, who are going to find it even more difficult to hang on to the seat there than they perhaps were before...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Bearing in mind the controversy there is over the West London Tram, would you consider transferring those monies to have further extensions of tram systems in South London? Could I also ask whether there is a prospect that in the next financial year that project costs at Purley Cross could be considered? I am interested that TfL projects that the increased income from the Congestion Charge will be an increase of 10%. How is that squared with an increase in the price of 60%?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

What about the prospects next year for Purley Cross?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Are you seriously telling us that you think one-fifth of the national resource is a fair share for London? I find that amazing. If we come on to who should pay, because that is only our share of the funds they make available, is it not the case that two budget rounds ago you put the Council Tax up by £11 million to yield £11 million expressly for Resilience?