Category: Ex-Mayor Livingstone

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Communications disease Ex-Mayor Livingstone Policing

It all ads up to a lot of cash

I got two replies today as a result of enquiries into spending on ad campaigns.

LSCP Ad.jpgThe London Speed Camera Partnership is spending £800,000 on its current campaign. Louise Harrison explains that the objective of the campaign is “to raise awareness of the dangers and consequences of speeding and encourage males aged 17-24 to slow down on London’s roads”. All good stuff but it sounds to me like surpluses from speed cameras being spent on expensive adverts rather than being handed back to the Treasury. It took Louise 13 days to respond by e-mail. Pretty good.

Met SN Ad.jpgMeanwhile Commander Alfred Hitchcock at the Met is spending £300,000 on advertising the Safer Neighbourhood teams. I got his second class letter today, 33 days since I wrote. This is the “total media spend” which I suspect does not include a lot of the campaign costs let alone the devolved budgets in the boroughs for leaflets, etc.

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Ealing and Northfield Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Glenda sticks the boot in

This morning on the Today programme Glenda Jackson dubbed the Jowellgate affair as “somewhat farcial”. The Today programme’s interviews with Jackson and then Margaret Beckett, supporting Jowell, are covered here. Although Jackson is running scared that Jowell is not going to be able to do a good job of running the Labour local election campaign across London I am not so sure.

She seems to be doing a great job of marshalling all of the organs of the State to press Labour’s case. Ealing’s expensive Around Ealing magazine arrived today with a 2-page spread on Safer Neighbourhoods. The Londoner did a front page in its most recent edition. The Met are spending hundreds of thousands on advertising Safer Neighbourhoods, although they will not say how much. In Ravenscourt Park last week I saw a Labour party election leaflet leading on Safer Neighbourhoods. It looks to me that Jowell is doing a fab job of co-ordinating the party locally to work with the Met, Labour councils and the Mayor to run a brutally effective campaign.

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Communications disease Ex-Mayor Livingstone

The Londoner won’t come clean on costs

In response to an enquiry I made on 6th February Nicola Golledge wrote today from City Hall to let me know how much The Londoner costs us. In the current financial year the budget for the Londoner was £2,882,800. Next year the budget is slightly reduced at £2,857,488.

I specifically asked her to tell me what advertising revenue they received from captive customers, eg Transport for London, the Met, etc. She did not divulge this information. When you consider that typically 20 pages of the Londoner include 3 full page ads from captive advertisers the budget is pretty meaningless.

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Save our cities from the IPPR

The Institute for Public Policy Research is promoting the idea that big cities like Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester should have their own mayors with tax raising powers. The London Mayor has increased his precept by 175% in seven short years. Luckily he collects this cash from us through the council tax, so whilst we feel poor at least we have jobs. The IPPR are suggesting a levy of 5% on business rates for our other great cities. No jobs north of Watford Gap then.

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Ken wants more

In a piece from the London Mayor in tonight’s Evening Standard, titled “Give me the means to help London flourish”, he asks for more power. Tomorrow sees the end of the consultation period on the devolution of more powers to the Mayor. Since the GLA was formed it has spent £120 million on a shiny new building that is too small to accommodate its ever growing payroll and the Mayor has hired a huge team to tell us how great he is. The spending of £3 million a year on the Londoner is just a small proportion of the deluge of self-congratulation coming out of the Mayor’s office.

Next year the Mayor will spend £3 billion. His charge on us has risen 175% in seven years. Should he have more power? Not likely.

For more info see review part of GLA site.

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone Policing

More police promises

Londoner March 2006.gifThe Mayor’s £3 million a year freesheet, The Londoner, arrived on my doormat this morning. This was the so-called March 2006 edition. The front page lead story promised: “All London wards will have own police teams in place within weeks”. It went on to say: “Every neighbourhood in London will have its own dedicated police team by the beginning of next month”. This means our Borough Commander has to have 60 new officers in place in just 6 weeks. Four officers promised in the 15 out 23 Ealing wards that still have no team.

I have seen no announcements of detail in local press and there are no notices up at Ealing Police Station. On the other hand this is the third week running that the Ealing & Acton Gazette has run a full page ad puffing the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative. Maybe the Mayor’s £3 billion a year is getting spent on adverts and The Londoner rather than your actual police!

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Mayor’s press release will not admit rise

The Mayor produced a press release today confirming the rise in the precept for next year. In over 500 words his press people cannot actually bear to admit that the rise will be 13.3% at a time when inflation is only 2%. They try to make it sound like a small rise by talking in terms of 65p per week. All these 65ps add up though. The Mayor’s total spending next year will be £3 billion.

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Coucil tax rises take shape

The Evening Standard today reports that the London Mayor will be increasing his charge on us by 13.3% in April. For me this means that the Mayor’s charge will be £481.02 next year. In 1999/2000, the year before the Mayor came into being, I was charged £129.07 for the Met and £45.95 for the London Fire Brigade. So the Mayor’s charge has gone up 2.75 times in seven years. Does this mean 2.75 times more police? No.

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Communications disease Ex-Mayor Livingstone

Mayor keeps Gazette afloat

The first thing that struck me reading the Ealing & Acton Gazette this morning was that the Mayor must have shares in it. Three full page ads from the Mayor’s empire:

  • Hands up if you want lower emissions, London’s new transport tax being promoted by TfL. There is a consultation running until 24th April. Go to site and tell them that new lorries will reduce emissions anyway over time. The scheme will cost us £78 million
  • Spot the difference, another Safer Neighbourhoods ad from the Met that ignores that Ealing only has 8 out of 23 teams
  • Great family discounts, TfL trying to persuade us all to use Oyster cards

He likes to spend the money twice over as he already spends £3 million a year telling us all the same stuff in the Londoner.

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Ex-Mayor Livingstone

New tax for London

You probably haven’t heard of the the new Low Emission Zone for London. What the Mayor’s press release does not tell you is that the scheme will cost £78 million, double the original estimate. Heavy vehicles that do not meet European emission standards will have to pay a fee of £200 to enter London from early 2008. Those that do not pay will be fined £1,000. Such charges just get passed on to consumers so we will pay for the cameras and clipboards and we will pay the fines too. As vehicles get replaced by hauliers they will automatically be upgraded to the new standards. This seems to be a lot of fuss and expense to speed an inevitable process.