• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I am asking for your opinion.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

That was not what I asked. I asked you whether you approved of the 2% cap that was put on the Resource Allocation Formula and approved by the Chairman of the MPA and the majority of the MPA members. Did you approve of that, which cut 70 officers from the communities in London? Would you have preferred the pure RAF, as it was called, to have been funded from this large budget, which would have given an extra 70 officers?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

This was mailed out to people at random across London in an appropriate way, in very much the same way as many other surveys are carried out by polling agents.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I know that in fact you were consulted about the Resource Allocation Formula (RAF). I would be really surprised if you did agree with the 2% cap which was put on the formula which actually cut 70 officers that could have been recruited and put into various Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs) across London. This would have cost £2.6 million. In fact, I moved that this £2.6 million should have been found from this huge budget of £2.5 billion and the full RAF should have been implemented as opposed to RAF with the cap. What was your position on that?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

My point is why do you want to focus in on just one? Why do you focus just on Associated Newspapers and not at all on the Desmond publications? It could not have anything to do with them being the only newspapers to support you in your recent contretemps with an Evening Standard journalist?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

It was excluded and I want to know why. I do not question your commitment to anti-racism; I am surprised you question ours. I do not actually question your views about the Daily Mail, with which I have considerable sympathy. The point I am trying to make is why are you so very obviously not being even-handed in your approach to racism in the popular media? The Desmond papers are, if anything, even worse than the Daily Mail, yet you ignore them. I assume this has nothing to do with contracts and the attempts of Desmond to get a London...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I have the list. The Voice, the Asian Voice, the Evening Standard, the Independent, which is hardly a mass circulation newspaper in London, but it excluded the Daily Express and the Evening Standard. The point is that this report was being commissioned by the GLA, by your office, with our money. The Daily Express newspaper was top of the list of the Press Complaints Commission ranking of people who misuse the phrase asylum seekers, so how could it possibly be that we have a study looking at the problem and the worst offender is not even included?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

You do not consider the Daily Express to be domestic London media?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I have the report you are referring to here. It was commissioned by the Mayor of London and paid for by public money. Can you please explain how it is possible for a report seeking to assess the impact of the media and political images on refugees and `asylum seekers- in London to exclude all the Desmond newspapers? How is it possible to do that properly excluding the Daily Express and the Daily Star from that coverage?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Chair, it may be totally improper, but I am sure that members of my party would be happy to work with the Mayor on this and it would be nice if it was a GLA activity where we could write to the Refugee Council and invite them to come in as soon as possible. This is of interest, it is about people's lives and it is not something we should just leave because I do not believe that any of us holds the same position as any racist who is in charge of any position of power. We should rebut...