• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I apologise: I had not realised this was called "On Magazine"; presumably your designer should be tackled on that question. I should just like a little more detail on the best value performance included in the "Helen Mirren talks to Ken Livingstone" interview. There are penetrating questions like, "How on earth do you balance the hugeness of the bureaucracy and the difficult political issues with that sense of the personal touch, so that people can feel they can deal with you?" [Laughter.] Answer: "People just come up and talk to me." Helen Mirren on affordability and diversity: "Ken, that is...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

Can I follow up this question of the work of the GLA and the message that goes out? We can spend millions on leaflets, and it can all be destroyed by one ill-advised quote. If I might have a little latitude - The Chair: Well, not a lot. Trevor Phillips: - I would like to read from The Guardian this morning: "Lee Jasper, who works for Ken Livingstone, said, 'I am going to organise black children, black parents and black teachers to come together in a group to educate black people together in London. We need black schools where our...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

That is a whole other issue. When you say that a constituency representative would be able in your planning or in your mind to do this kind of meeting, are you thinking of a roadshow approach? Transport is one of the key issues to get in with the boroughs, so it might be an idea to have the four transport spokespersons take out roadshows, or be involved in another way. There are a number of constituencies. What do you think?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I am surprised that you answer in that vein. They may think that the sun shines out of part of your anatomy, but I am surprised that you should say that the boroughs are not strategically important. They are of absolutely strategic importance, particularly over the SDS and things like that.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I suppose it is also partly the status it gives to your view of the importance of the boroughs, as the key delivery agents for most of your strategies. [Interruption.] No, I think it is an important point.

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

Thank you for that. Could you also perhaps - The Chair: Could you make this the last one, Louise? Louise Bloom: Yes. Could you also, perhaps, give some thought to making our work here more accessible to the people out there, which I do not think it is at the moment? I am thinking of both public events and meetings and the publications we issue.

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I have noticed that you have had meetings with, for example, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and with the Greater London Association of Disability. I would like to see you getting out and talking to, for example, Richmond Advice and Information on Disability, for whom I used to work, and instead of going to the National Association of CABx, why don't you go and talk to Kingston CAB? It worries me that you are not getting down far enough to the people who are out there working on the street with community groups in the voluntary sector. You...