Today the Guardian Comment is free blog has published the piece below from me. They changed the title and added an intro that slightly garbled the point of what I was trying to say but it was very sporting of them anyway.
I have reproduced the article below so that I can put in the links to the background.
This story in tonight’s Standard illustrates what a chancer the Mayor is. He drove a terrible bargain for London over Crossrail, taking on board way too much risk, and now he is trying to make out that he is the only one capable of delivering the project. You have got to admire the guy’s chutzpah.
The Standard says:
London could be bankrupted if the £16 billion Crossrail project is mishandled, Ken Livingstone has warned.
The Mayor said the long-delayed highspeed link between the City and Heathrow would help safeguard the capital’s status as a financial powerhouse.
But he added this would require the payment of some of the highest public-sector salaries in London to keep the project on track for completion in 2018.
Mr Livingstone, addressing an Evening Standard debate on how London can stay ahead as a great world city, said: “Probably the most important single issue facing the next mayor is getting that right. If we get it wrong the scale of that project is enough to bankrupt London.
“We will bring people in that will be earning more than anybody else in this room in order to deliver that project on time and to budget.” The Mayor helps oversee the construction of Crossrail through Transport for London, which currently appoints half the project’s directors.
The rail scheme will come under full TfL control once the Bill establishing it gets royal assent.
The Mayor has managed to do a deal with the government on Crossrail which involves Londoners bearing all of the risk if this project goes wrong. This is not the case with the other large project that the Mayor wants to take credit for – the Olympics. He keeps telling us we have a limited liability with the Olympics.
As I pointed out when the announcement was made not only does London have to take undue risk it also has to give up economic development funds in a way that other parts of the country don’t have to. As I said back then:
The Mayor’s job was to get Brown to give us the cash for Crossrail and not to expose Londoners to unnecessary risk. The Mayor has blown it.
This afternoon the ConservativeHome website used this graphic to illustrate their story about today’s YouGov poll which shows Boris Johnson 5 points ahead in the Mayoral race. Ross Lydall at the Standard has a couple of interesting pieces on this poll and the Mayor’s own polling. It appears that the Mayor refused to reveal his own MORI polling numbers at his press conference this morning but published them pretty sharply after the You Gov numbers came out. Sounds like he was rushed into changing his mind by the bad news.
Boris’ crime launch on 13th February was extremly sure-footed, see previous posting. If he can keep this up these polls are going to keep moving towards him. Go Boris!
Boris Johnson was somewhat bemused today to receive a letter from the police regarding an alleged crime from 2003 – he wrote an article in the Telegraph relating how he picked up a damaged cigar case in the ruins of the home of former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.
The Met says:
Police attention has been drawn to reports suggesting that you have in your possession an item that may be Iraqi cultural property, namely a cigar case from the address of Tariq Aziz… The reports further suggest that the item was illegally removed from Iraq since 6th August 1990.
Boris says:
There were over 18,000 crimes in London last month and yet the police write to me about this? What this shows is a concerted effort by my political opponents to waste police time by dragging up an article that I wrote 5 years ago and trying to make political mileage out of it. When knife crime is on the rise in our capital city, can it be right that police time is allowed to be wasted in this way?
Quite. The 18,000 crimes, actually nearer 19,000, recorded by the Met in January are analysed here.
Update: Link to letter here.
The Mayor pretty much directly lied about the planning application for the Leaf develoment in Ealing this morning on the Andrew Marr show.
If you read the transcript there was this exchange between Marr and the Mayor:
ANDREW MARR: But you are going to change the way London looks dramatically, if your plans go ahead. I mean there are going to be very large numbers of very, very tall buildings, and quite quickly?
KEN LIVINGSTONE: No, no there aren’t going to be very large numbers of tall buildings. Broadly I think in the last seven years perhaps, five or six have been agreed. I wouldn’t expect that to change, I, the one just around the corner from where you live, Ealing Broadway, I mean I saw last week and we broadly made it quite clear to the borough council this wouldn’t be acceptable.
Doesn’t that sound to you like the Mayor is saying that he rejected the Leaf because it was too tall? You would be wrong. The Mayor’s report said:
That Ealing Council be advised that the principle of a high-density mixed-use development, including a landmark tall building in Ealing town centre, is acceptable in strategic planning terms; however, its shortcomings in delivering an exemplary design in this strategic location; the low proportion of affordable housing within the scheme; and the failure to reach a solution which would mitigate the impact of the development on the local bus network and improve this important transport interchange; are all highly disappointing.
Nothing about too tall there. If you read down to paragraph 49 it says:
The principle of a tall building on this site is supported, as it meets many of the criteria set out in London Plan policy 4B.9 Tall buildings – Location for identifying locations suitable for a tall building. In particular, a tall building on this site supports the strategy of creating the highest levels of activity at locations with the greatest transport capacity. With Ealing Broadway underground and mainline stations and future tram and Crossrail links planned for the station opposite the site, it is without a doubt that a large-scale development that reflects and capitalises on this connectivity is entirely appropriate. The station itself would also benefit greatly from having larger-scale development to identify the location of the transport hub from greater distances as well as more generous public open space around the station to accommodate the volume of passengers and users that will inevitably grow.
Would it be too strong to call the Mayor a lier on the strength of this evidence? The report is dated 20th February, last Wednesday, so it is not as if this is some bit of ancient history. When Nicky Gavron came to Ealing on Friday she mentioned that she had reviewed the Leaf along with the Mayor on Wednesday. Banged to rights I’d say.
Andrew Marr gave Ken Livingstone a typically easy ride on his show this morning, see the transcript here. Some interesting points did come out though.
Anyone being interviewed on TV will try to get their own message across when they get the chance. When he did get the chance the Mayor listed his issues here:
They don’t want to discuss what are we doing to reduce carbon emissions? Why is crime falling and no-one’s reporting it? Hey, what are you doing about public transport? Those are the real issues – are you going to have affordable housing?
Note the order:
Now it is clear why the Mayor spent £3.3 million, mostly on adverts, last year to run the emissions related congestion charging and Low Emission Zone consultations. Both of these schemes will have NO impact on carbon emissions but they enhance the Mayor’s strong green brand which he is not afraid of leveraging by re-using very expensively purchased mind share, see previous posting.
This morning your three councillors spent a couple of hours knocking on every door in Darwin Road. Once a month we try to get out and see what is going on in different streets in the ward. It was Darwin’s turn today. Most people were happy with the services they were receiving. They like the combined collection and are enthusiastic about the collection of plastics although there were some complaints that sometimes the crews were a bit picky about what plastic they took.
Ealing Borough Senior Citizens Action Group hosted a visit to the Borough by Deputy Mayor, Nicky Gavron, today. Although EBSCAG, as they call themselves, profess to be non-political they had the Labour deputy London mayor talking about London issues and Labour councillor Ranjit Dheer talking about local issues so it was definitely Labour in broadcast mode. Gavron was half an hour late so people were already getting restive when Gavron kicked off.
This Peter Brookes cartoon in the Times today eloquently makes the point that Hilary Clinton has spent too much time talking about her opponent.
The London Mayor has made much the same mistake.
If you were wondering what all the coppers and council officials in hi-vis jackets were doing on South Ealing Road yesterday, just outside the Co-op, here is the answer. It was a joint Partnership Day between the police and the council in Northfield. There were two components of the operation – a vehicle check point outside the Co-op on South Ealing Road and a commercial waste exercise on Northfield Avenue.
The photo above shows the worst case they came across yesterday. This van was ordered off the road when the police stopped it. You could see the road through the floor pan and the battery was loose in the engine compartment – it would turn into a cannonball in an accident. Just about nothing was right with this vehicle. The police wouldn’t even let them drive it up the ramp of the recovery vehicle.
Phil Taylor 
