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

The points of principle that you accepted in the earlier exchanges on the PPP - that it is always better to discuss and negotiate, and to try to find points of consensus - is really a modus operandi that we need to try to establish across London. I hope that you will take the point that an annual punch-up with the boroughs about the Budget is not just a destructive and negative way of going about budget discussions: there is, as you say, a wider framework of co-operative working that we need to pursue with the boroughs - on housing...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Do, because I don't know of any.

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

I want to go back not simply on how the Budget bedded down at the end of the day, but on the concordat that you have with the boroughs and how things are carried out. We have been hearing rumours - things are coming up through the woodwork - that the concordat that has been agreed is not now being continued. It is that discussion. It is not simply that we have a jolly meal with the leaders of the ALG, because we try to have a good negotiation and good consultation with them. But that is not being carried...

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

Can I return to the serious point, which relates to your relationship with the ALG? If you are serious about rebuilding bridges with the ALG in the light of the Budget process, and the presence of Sir Robin Wales - who I assume it is - in your Cabinet is to be more than a token, how do you reconcile his valued advice with the stance of members of your staff, who have described the ALG as "putting forward totally untenable and absurd figures from day one"; as having "lost all credibility with us"; and as indulging in "megaphone campaigning"...

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

I did not intend this to drag on as long as it obviously is going to. Can I suggest, Ken, that good negotiations require an accurate understanding of the other side's position? Both as a former council leader and as an active participant on the ALG Leader's Committees, I have to say that that was not an accurate representation of people's positions. The boroughs are broadly enthusiastic for the creation of a strategic London authority, because the boroughs alone cannot deliver certain services and developments. As boroughs, we were constantly banging our heads on a glass ceiling. The GLA is...

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

We will take it, then, that phrases such as "Where I can I will act as an advocate for Londoners in a wide variety of fields . . . I intend to do this . . . I intend to do that . . . I do not intend to have a large officer corporations" were pure happenstance, and by chance the officer managed to read your mind. Can I return to the serious point?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

I am still trying to come to terms with the Labour group having a high-calorie liquid dinner. Are you saying categorically of the letter which is going out to 7 million Londoners in your name, not only that you did not approve it but that you did not see it before it went out? That is extraordinary.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

Do I understand from what you are saying that there could be new strategic views and the existing strategic views could be improved? Presumably improved by new build of tall buildings which are often simply no more than corporate virility symbols?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

I would like to ask you about the conflict between the development of strategic sites and strategic views. In your view, if view is the appropriate word, should strategic views be sacrificed to economic regeneration and the development of the strategic sites?

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

This is very interesting because what you seem to be suggesting - I am not going to offer judgment on it - is that we do have to make a choice and one choice is let it go and the other choice is a rather tougher, more dirigiste regulatory framework than currently exists. Now I am not going to make any analogy to soviet policies or anything like that but let's just be clear. You obviously have something in mind. How tough, how directed and by whom? Because that is obviously the way you would like to lead.