| Mayor Boris: Let's get cracking |
|
|
| Written by Adrie van der Luijt | |
| Saturday, 03 May 2008 | |
|
A lack of transparency over hand-outs to special interest groups may have contributed to Ken Livingstone losing his job as Mayor of London.
After two terms in office, Livingstone became embroiled in an at times dirty war with the London paper The Evening Standard and its journalist Andrew Gillingham. Full audit trail In the end he was forced to suspend his trusted aide Lee Jasper so that the whole matter could be investigated - quietly and out of the fierce spotlights of the campaign trail. Livingstone furiously denied any wrong-doing, claiming that there was a full audit trail for a string of allegedly unaccounted-for payments to shady organisations run by Jasper and his cronies. Another senior aide was forced to resign after the newspaper exposed her holiday in an African luxury resort at the taxpayers' expense, a trip she and Livingstone had previously vigorously denied ever took place. The extended and at times very personal campaign against Livingstone, a former Evening Standard restaurant critic, may not have dented the mayor's standing with core voters in inner-city boroughs. Dangerous joke A ringing - and most unwelcome - endorsement of his opponent Boris Johnson by the British National Party (BNP) steeled their view that Ken was still the only serious candidate for the job of running the world's financial capital. At an anti-racism rally in London last week, a vote for Boris was widely denounced as a vote for racism. Livingstone's campaign team distributed thousands of postcards rejecting Johnson's candidacy as a dangerous joke. On Thursday, Livingstone received more votes than he had done four years ago but it proved to be insufficient to save his skin. Johnson was officially declared the new mayor of London at City Hall just before midnight on Friday night, having received 140,000 first and second preference votes more than the incumbent mayor. Personal responsibility The high turnout of 45 per cent helped both candidates, but Johnson in particular was to benefit from record numbers of voters in the outer boroughs turning up to make their disdain for Livingstone's self-confessed power hungry regime clear. In an unexpectedly gracious speech, Livingstone offered to assist Johnson wherever possible and took full personal responsibility for his failure to secure a third term in office. "I'm sorry I couldn't get an extra few points that would take us to victory and the fault for that is solely my own. You can't be mayor for eight years and then if you don't at third term say it was somebody else's fault. I accept that responsibility and I regret that I couldn't take you to victory," Livingstone said. Transparency Johnson hailed Livingstone as a "a very considerable public servant" and promised to convince doubters that he really did deserve to be trusted with the mayoralty of London. He has vowed to reach a no-strike deal with the increasingly militant transport unions, reform the congestion charge, fine utility companies that dig up London's roads and "tear up red tape". "Tomorrow, let's get cracking but tonight let's have a drink," he concluded. Mindful of the allegations that dogged Livingstone's final months in office, Johnson has vowed to make the London Development Agency grants process more transparent by publishing details of all funding over £1,000. On Saturday, having signed the declaration of office, Johnson said he imagined "there were shredding machines quietly puffing and panting away in various parts of the building" as Livingstone's team prepared to vacate City Hall. Johnson will not officially take office until midnight on Sunday under the terms of a constitution designed by former prime minister Tony Blair. Related articles
Related links |
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for top jobs, news and more
Digg it!
Post to del.ico.us
Seed in Newsvine
Post to Reddit
Post to Furl
Post to technorati
