• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

So do I - thank you very much.

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

As he did not read it, does the Mayor stand by the letter he once sent out with Hackney council tax bills, saying: "By far the most important factor affecting local council tax bills is levels of Government grant funding. The effect of the Government grant and penalties system is that this increase in investment leads to a 23% increase for local council tax payers. London should be receiving a better deal from national Government" - I think that is the Labour Government - "in the distribution of grant and other resources for public investment"?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Is the £1 million expenditure for the whole of this exercise - the advertising, the leaflets, the messages which I understand are to appear on the back of Tube tickets, and advertisements on local radio? Do you not have some sympathy with the view that, great straplines as they are, they do not obviously seek a response from the public, and will do rather a lot to confirm the public's view that politicians are really more interested in propaganda than consultation?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

I did not get an answer about the lawyers. Have lawyers been consulted?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

You only have one photograph.

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

You have acknowledged that some things go across your desk that you do not sign; these were added as "Ken's transport policies". I should be grateful to know what consultation you had with your lawyers - as there are 17 press officers, I assume that there is a whole floor of lawyers upstairs - on the picture that appeared so delightfully on these hoardings, which I understand comes from one of your election leaflets. We wondered whether your lawyers consulted case law on electioneering. One of our contentions, as you know - I am coming to the question. I thought...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

I suppose it is logical, if one is consulting Londoners, to put adverts showing spaced-out drivers in the New Statesman under the heading "Swampy, your hour will come again"; but then we found an advert saying "Ken's transport policies: jam rationing" in The Spectator, which is well read by Londoners. Then there was "Gotcha, Gucci!", with a slight variation. Do you honestly think that, having gone through your arguments about the ALG and the boroughs and the vital need for all these pennies you are going to gather from Londoners, it is justifiable to spend all that money on such...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Thank you. What I did not include in this, of course, but I wonder whether you can justify it, are the 17 press officers upstairs, who probably represent a bill of over £500,000 under your "tight" Budget regime. But on top of that, the 17 press officers you do have presumably told you that the adverts that were going out - I have seen the billboarding of Hackney Underground, which it took me some time to understand -

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

You referred earlier to Stalin, and made knowledgeable reference to the situation in North Korea, and I gather from the Daily Mail, although I do not believe everything I read there, that you may have been to Cuba recently. Does that mean that we have a policy within the GLA now of pursuing the cult of the individual, and that every mass publication, advertisement and billboard poster campaign will have your mugshot on it? If so, are you intending to do a mass circulation of your photograph as part of the best value performance plan later in the year? Rather...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Would Ken extend his work in relationship with the functional bodies, and recognise that the Members on those bodies have as much an engagement in the Budget process in the work that they are doing, and that it would be helpful in future if you talked to them first, rather than as happened when I was at home at heard your announcement over the radio about the 60p for policing in London? The issue is not that I objected to that: it is about what process you are going to follow. The members of the functional bodies, many of whom...