• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

When I sought election to the London Assembly, I said that one of the reasons was that I wanted to play a role on the MPA. I am proud of the role that I am playing, because I am speaking up for Londoners. Perhaps he cannot attend because he is so busy, but if the Mayor took time to read the work of the MPA with the MPS, he would find significant pieces of work there. A key conference took place yesterday about crime education and working with the community. You have constantly made this match between London and New...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

Do you agree that the unelected nature of half of the MPA - the fact that they are appointees - blurs the accountability to Londoners that should exist? Are they some of the people to whom you felt the need to speak?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

It is a pleasure to hear that right and left agree on the need to change drug laws in this country. I also had the privilege of meeting Mayor Giuliani and his Commissioner of Police, and I asked them what was the one most important factor that drove down crime in New York. The answer from the police was "political support". You know as well as I do that, before 11 September - say, up until 10 September - it was doubted whether Mayor Giuliani would have been re-elected had he been eligible to stand. He was regarded in some...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

I have really enjoyed being a member of the MPA, because it is a chance to get some Green input that would be difficult to achieve by another method. But overall, you are absolutely right. I know that you often terrify your advisers by committing yourself at meetings like this to things they have not prepared you for. When you make promises about 1,000 extra police, do you consult the Commissioner about what appropriate level of promise it possible?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

It does not work, then, does it - either way? One minute you are saying that you as Mayor will decide which laws should be obeyed, and you do not press hard on laws you do not like. But that does not fit with zero tolerance, does it? It cannot work like that. Is this a new form of congestion charge - exemptions from zero tolerance?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

How does this zero tolerance fit, then, with the police experiment in not arresting people in Brixton?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

There is a lot in what you say about the organisation with which a lot of people might agree. But what about the zero tolerance issue, for which I think you were praising ex-Mayor Giuliani when he was here? Do you support that in London as a solution to the rise in street crime?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

Mr Mayor, I welcome your suggestion that the MPA should be abolished. I really feel that it has not served Londoners well. But we must not be unkind to it - can you think of any useful achievements by the MPA since its inception?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

From a personal point of view, I would like to see another rank introduced into the police service, so that those who are determined to pursue a career as a community police officer could be senior officers, earn more money and be properly valued. The last three or four weeks have seen the operation of the "Safer Streets" campaign, in which the Metropolitan Police has abstracted a number of officers into the eight inner-London boroughs, and which has resulted in an additional 4,000 arrests. Part of that process has been what I can only describe as a ratcheting up of...

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 27 February 2002

Since you mention it, I would not mind having my book back. You notice that I wrote my name in it before I gave it to you. My point is very simple: that a myth and a legend is growing up - you are as much a victim of it as anyone else - and people are saying, "Why don't you do what they do in New York?", when it would on occasion be spectacularly inappropriate. It is very important that we find a way of having a sensible and informed debate for the public, instead of us all -...