• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I do not really think that we are surprised at that answer from you, for failing to condemn the real IRA.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

There is a particular problem about ethnic minorities and the SDS. I have been to meetings about planning in London where we have been talking about new train and Tube lines which would go through inner-city areas where large numbers of ethnic minority people live. We are talking about the regeneration of those areas, yet often not a single black or Asian person has been in the room. We do have to pay special attention to this, because a large part of the aim of the SDS is to improve circumstances for black and Asian people in London; so surely...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

John McDonnell has disappeared, as have a number of other people. [Interruption.] I will open my present with care this year. You started off in May with all the rhetorical stuff about the "big tent", and you are now down to the status of Joe Stalin in the 1940s. Presumably you have a food taster now, since you only trust about three people. You started with big tent rhetoric, but in reality you have crawled into a very small bunker. The quality of your decision making has tangibly diminished as a consequence.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

In his press statement when he left your unrewarded employ, John McDonnell said that he was going off to prepare for the general election - which is perhaps a variation on "spending more time with my family". At the time you appointed him, I advised you that John McDonnell was long on consultation and short on delivery. Don't you wish you had taken my advice

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I look forward to that. You said at a previous Mayor's Question Time that the MORI poll undertaken as part of the process cost £25,000, and you mentioned today some polling on the acceptable level of congestion charging. How are you making sure that the results of all this - to use that one example - will feed into all the strategies? After all, the value of the research is that they do feed in.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

Do you agree that it is important to keep this programme at the top of the agenda? The summit on 27 November was postponed - we were a little surprised that the cost of that was not contained in your report - and the individuals and groups who are consulted must not lose confidence in the process.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I am not sure that that has answered the question about how this is to be made available to the Assembly.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I can see you slithering on this one, Ken. You have been in office for six months. You made an explicit statement to the Assembly today that you have no intention of making any commitments to targets if you can possibly avoid it, because that would give you too hard a time as Mayor. I think that, when the people of London elected you, they expected you to work hard for them and to state clearly what you were going to do to improve services. The flat fare initiative is excellent - I totally support it, and it is a...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I am glad that you have recognised that there seems to be an unholy alliance at work in the Assembly between people like Lynne, who are prepared to wait for ever, apparently, for the perfect congestion charging system to be introduced, and those like the Tories, who want to scupper it altogether. Do you think that there is a problem in the fact that those such as the Lib Dems were prepared to give their full support to congestion charging in theory during the election, but now, when it comes to implementation, they seem to be bottling it? Given that...