London Mayoral Debate

10 days to go until we Londoners choose our next mayor. Four of

those wanting to run our great city are here. So, too, an audience of

Londoners, all with questions to help them and you at home decide

Welcome to the programme. You can get involved at home using Twitter.

With us, Boris Johnson, for the Conservatives, Labour's Ken

Livingstone, Jenny Jones, the Green candidate, and Brian Paddick for

the Liberal Democrats. We will hear from the other three candidates

during the course of the programme. Our first question from a graduate

in turn. I live in an area which is notorious for organised crime,

Croydon. If you were elected mayor, how would you ensure with the

Metropolitan Police you're going to reduce the crime? What would you do

about crime? The number one priority is to keep police numbers

high, there are about 1004 officers on the streets of London, actually

more than that, than there were when I was elected four years ago.

We are putting more into the Safer Neighbourhood teams now. That's

another three police constables, three special constables in each of

the Safer Neighbourhood teams. That, I hope, will continue to drive down

crime. I'm aware of the problems in Croydon, but we are seeing great

success in bringing down crime overall. It's down more than 10 %.

The murder rate in London is down by about 25 % or more since I was

elected. The crucial thing is to get police officers out there where

the public want to see them. the most recent figures, don't they

show that robbery and knife crime is up? In the 12 months to last

October, burglaries are up. The kind of crimes that most Londoners

worry about. Aren't we seeing rising crime again? The most recent

figures show that crimes of violence are coming down. Not knife

crime, not robberies. If you look at knife crime, which was a real

issue in the 2008 campaign. We've put a huge amount of effort into

tackling it. We've been able to take 11,000 knives off the streets

of London. We've half the number of teenage murders from knife crime.

I'm not going to sit here tonight and pretend that the problem is

cracked. In Croydon, areas like that, you got to have a

wholehearted approach to cracking down on these gangs. That is why

Bernard Hogan-Howe has done, in my view, completely the right thing to

launch a big initiative. 1000 officers now dedicated to telling

those key gang novels they either stop it or else the police will be

on their case 24 hours a day. is a gang Norman nor? I'm using

jargon, you must forgive me. The ringleaders. I think we all sat

here four years ago and said, if we didn't cut crime by 20 % we would

not seek re-election. I think some quite imaginative figures have gone

and there to get it up to 10 %. We have a situation when crime was

falling 6% a year. Getting through three Police Commissioner's is a

disaster in an organisation like that. We are delighted that the

number of kids being killed is down, but knife crime involving young

people has gone up each year in the last four years, it's up almost a

third. Part of the problem is we've lost 2100 police. These are the

figures of the Met for January, compared with two years earlier.

We've got the Olympics in 12 weeks. We are the biggest target for

terrorism on earth. We are 2000 police officers short. That is why

crime is going up. You get police out there, crime comes down.

reality is there a more than 1000 more officers on the streets than

their work. Ken Livingstone showed no interest at all, you didn't even

measure knife crime when you were Mayor of London. Four years ago

when we were talking about the terrible number of our young people

who were being killed, didn't you just dismiss that as saying...

Wasn't it out of touch? The not out of touch. It's one of the few

things that I agreed with with Boris later that year, was that

killings came down as the media interest went away. One of the real

problems was the scale of media coverage when -- meant more young

kids were going out with a knife. Often those knives were then used

against them. That's why I've not used knife crime as an issue this

time. I don't want to do anything that leads young kids to start

carrying a plate out of fear of what they read in the papers.

Paddick, what's the true picture of crime? The latest police figures

show that the crimes of most concern to Londoners - knife crime,

burglary and robbery - on the increase. Unfortunately, Boris

Johnson allowed police officer numbers to fall by 1700. OK, he's

going to put 1000 of them back but we are still down. What is the high

tide mark for you? 33,250. Have we had that before? Yes, we've had

that under Boris Johnson but he's allowed those numbers to fall. The

most important thing is to get Londoners and the police standing

together against a criminal. A ComRes poll a few weeks ago showed

that 20 % of Londoners did not believe police were on their side.

We got to get the police concentrating on our priorities,

not their priorities. This stuff about numbers of police officers is

nonsense. There's such an obsession of keeping officer numbers up in a

time of budgetary Harjit, that Boris has got loads and loads of

backroom staff, it means officers are not out on the streets dealing

with criminals. They are in custody suites, doing paperwork, answering

calls in call centres. So don't be fooled. On the issue of organised

crime, we have to create more trust in the police. Trust has got to

be... How do you do that? You start by making sure you do have been a

police officers out there talking to people. If you need information

to fight organised crime, you need information from communities,

shopkeepers, teachers, everybody who gets talking to ordinary people.

The police can do it, they've done it in the past, but at the moment

it is not working. Let's get another question. We've got a

former probation officer from How well each of the candidates

ensure it the accountability of the Metropolitan Police without too

much political interference? How do you get accountability but not

politicise the police force? got to have a good working

relationship between the mayor and the commissioner. You got too much

more involved the public. One of the things I wanted to, and Brian

is right about the problem with trust, is have a police officer

allocated to each of the 400 or so secondary schools in London,

because that's a great weight, kids come on the scene, kids carrying a

knife or whatever, then you've got to involve the public much more in

setting that agenda to the police. Far too often the police

bureaucracy has gone off in a different direction to what people

are concerned about. I had a real struggle to overcome the resistance

in the police to get back neighbourhood patrols. They are one

of the best things we did. Now we are going to increase them. Under

Boris Johnson, the sergeants leading those patrols, we've lost

half of them across London. We are talking about accountability here.

Not only are the expanding the Safer Neighbourhood teams, 2000

more officers going from some of these squads, the backroom squads,

into frontline policing, three police constables and three

specials. But in order to give the public the kind of influence people

want over neighbourhood policing, we are setting up Safer

Neighbourhood boards. So that members of the public can interact

with the police, can help to set priorities for those Safer

Neighbourhood teams. We are talking about how we hold the police

accountable, and we can only do that through our elected

representatives. You describe the phone hacking scandals as, quote, a

load of codswallop. As the man ultimately in charge of the Met,

that was a serious misjudgment, wasn't it? Let's be clear, this was

said on the basis and on the briefing that I was expressly given

at the time, in the sense that I was told there was nothing more and

no new evidence had been found. Clearly, as things turned out, a

great deal was going on that needed to be sorted out. I think at the

time you said you couldn't remember what Yates of the yard had told you.

It was only later that you then remembered. You also said, quote,

it's a political put up job by Labour. You are not telling us that

gates of the Yard told you that. that was what I thought was going

on. And you were wrong. campaign was being led very much by

the Labour Party. It turned out that there was a great deal of

Everton's that should have been properly investigated. As the

assistant commissioner himself pointed out in a letter, to which

everybody has had access, the briefing he gave us was there was

no new evidence. You've made a big deal about the number of times the

mayor has seen a senior News International executives and his

contacts with them. What are you implying by that, are you implying

that he is in their pockets? think Boris very much wants the

support of News International when he seeks that Tory party leadership.

Your party has been on its knees at times. I've never expected Rupert

Murdoch's support for anything. At the last election, Rupert Murdoch

personally phoned his editors in this country to make sure they are

endorsing Boris. Be quiet. shovelled taxpayers' money down the

gullets of Rupert Murdoch's papers in the hope of getting their

support. Yes, you did. It's not the fact you were relied -- lied to by

someone, the problem is the person you appointed to politically

oversee the police on three occasions told the police they were

putting too much resources into phone hacking. No, he didn't.

That's what the police say, Boris. What Kit Malthouse said, and what I

happen to think is the right way forward, we've got to continue with

this, we've got to get to the bottom... He said scale it back.

Ken Livingstone used to shovel money in the direction of Rupert

Murdoch-owned newspapers in the hope of securing their support.

What Kit Malthouse was right in saying is once this whole business

has been completed and every journalist has been led off in

manacles and every policeman... every journalist! Why not, I don't

know what your involvement in this was, Andrew. Absolutely pursue it.

But once it has been... Sorted out, what I want, and what the vast

majority of people in London one, is the significant number of police

officers who are dedicated it is to get on with what they really need

to do, which is cutting crime in London. Are you accusing him of

having an inappropriate relationship with News

International or not? He is as bad as Tony Blair was. Everyone Courts

Murdoch because they didn't want to be condemned. I don't think Boris

does the sort of detail that would have led him into any real

understanding of what was going on. I said he was giving them

taxpayers' money. That's the sort of backhanded compliment. There are

three other candidates standing for mayor. Carlos Cortiglia, from the

BNP, Lawrence Webb, from UKIP, and the Independent, Siobhan Benita

macro. I will reform completely the police service, to make it

intellectually fit, physically fit, to reorganise the functions of

command and control and management of police resources in the London

region. What we saw after the London riots were people that were

arrested, but before the magistrate and jailed very quickly. This

should be the norm. If you offend on Friday, you should be jailed on

Monday. This would make the streets a lot safer, because 200 crimes a

day are committed by people on bail. Taking them off the streets earlier

would make life safer for everyone. I am saying we would have an

external review of the Metropolitan Police Service. It would address

efficiency, how do we use our police officers most effectively.

There is no right number four police numbers. And also tackle

those cultural issues that still exist in the Metropolitan Police

Let's move on to really important issue for us - transport.

What is your question? I rely on buses to get around. A lot of young

people my age are in the same situation. What will you do to make

sure that bus drivers, on Olympic routes, do not strike over their

bonuses during this summer's Games? How will you stop them striking?

am hoping as it only ten weeks between the elections and the mayor,

the sitting mayor will have dealt with all of this. It's not only the

buses, it's the underground. I told Transport for London I wanted a

four-year pay deal. I did not want to be up against it and having to

negotiate when the unions were in a strong position. I will sit down. I

will negotiate a deal. I will not give into demands which I think are

unreasonable. What yould you do to make shoe the Olympics - when the

eyes of the world are upon us - that we are not made to look

foolish by strikes? If we are to be made to look foolish, it is because

the mayor has not sat down with union leaders, developed a rapport

with those individuals, so that this sort of dispute does not arise

in the first place. With such little time between the

announcement of the election and the Olympics, it will be very

difficult not to give into these demands. You have from day one.

What I will do is develop a relationship, a rapport with the

union leaders, so we have an on going dialogue, rather than only

meeting when it comes to pay deals. Isn't it true at the last election

you said you would agree a no- strike deal with the unions? You

never got around to talking to them about it? My old chum is showing...

Which one? That one and this one too. They are showing inattention

to detail T reality is that I've had regular meetings with the trade

unions, beginning, I am afraid, with a clear message to me that

they did not want such a deal. What we have achieved, and I think it is

surprising that news has not reached Ken Livingstone or Brian -

we have achieved a multi-year pay agreement. Yes, there have been

some strikes during this - but let's be clear they were occasioned

because we had to put in reforms of the ticketing systems that were

absolutely in the interests of London Underground, of London

Transport users and which this previous mayor completely....

leaders of the unions to discuss a no-strike agreement? I have

discussed a no-strike agreement with the trade unions and I am

afraid to say they were not amenable. This was always a

ridiculous promise. What is your experience? I actually

quite like Bob Crow. His promise about... I believe in

dialogue. This no-strike deal promised during the last election

was an example of Boris's inexperience. What we have to do

now with the bus drivers, we have to keep talking to them, because

it's the only way. We should have had an agreement over the Olympics.

What the questioner is asking about is, are we going to have strikes

between now and the Olympics and during the Olympics? On that,

because it is very important - I think it is overwhelmingly unlikely

that hard-working people on London Underground, people who drive our

buses - actually all the public services, in London, will want to

go on strike during the Olympics or Paralympic Games. They want to show

our city off to the best possible... The mayor has said there will not

be strikes. That will be all right then!

I want to stick with transport because we think it is one of the

most important issues. We have a solicitor from Islington.

Ken Livingstone, your manifesto states you will cut fares by% or

you will resign. How -- 7% or you will resign? Because we have the

highest fares in the world. Moody's reported this year the total

surplus is �1.3 billion. I will take �269 million out of the fares

surplus and put it back in Londoners' pockets. There's no

justification at a time like this for a public body having money it

cannot use because Boris Johnson has underspent year by year, by

year, put it back in people's pockets, they will spend it in

shops, help the economy. You are shaking your head? I have had a

meeting transport for London. They tell me it is not possible. We will

target fare reductions on those people who can least afford to

travel. Things like a one-hour bus ticket, so you can hop on and auve

to complete your journey within one -- off, to classroom pleet your

journey within one hour. We have a discount if you travel before 7am.

People who work part-time do not get paid as much as those working

full-time. It does not make sense for them to have a season ticket,

they should only have one if they work two or three days a week.

Our fully-costed plans cost one- third of the amount that Ken

Livingstone's plan is going to cost. Is there any money on the Transport

for London accounts that could be used to cut fares? Of course there.

Let me explain - no, the short answer is, no, there isn't. Take it

from Ken Livingstone, who was in an identical position. He was accused

of refusing to cut fares and favouring investment. He said,

there is no slush fund, all the balances we have are allocated

against the range of projects going forward.

And you increased the fares, but Boris that was before you increased

the fares. ALL SPEAK AT ONCE order to fulfil your promise, which

by the way I do not believe for one minute, if you were elected, you

would fulfil. I will resign if I break that pledge. Why don't you

save time and resign now. Let me put the point to Ken

Livingstone. What the mayor is saying and what others have said is

that you are taking money that is from revenues, but is meant to be

for capital investment to give as a 21st century transport system and

you will use that for current spending? The economists, 13 of

them, who have looked at the Transport for London accounts, have

come out and said... Don't you remember, I cut the fares by 25% in

1983. We got so many more people using the underground and the buses

so we were able to cut the council tax the following year by 7%. We've

made no allowance for the extra use there'll be. In actual fact we

might be able to extent the fares. It is your track record on fares

which has some wondering. You promised to freeze fares in 2000.

You didn't. I did. You didn't. You did that in 2004. You promised no

more than inflation in 2004, after that. You broke both of these

promises. You then said of the congestion charge. You told the BBC

in 2003, I cannot see any foreseeable circumstance force a

rise. Two years later, you put it up. A short horizon. I went saying

I would increase the congestion charge. 2003 you told the BBC you

wouldn't. I changed my mind. I made it a commitment in the election. On

the fares. They were set in January 2000. I said I would freeze them

for four years. I increased them in January 2004. That was four years.

The only time I increased them above inflation was two years to

pay for the upgrade of the London Underground, which half the people

here used to get here. Listen, the fact is three political

parties are sitting here. We have all done our sums and say fares can

go down. It is only the Conservatives who say they have to

put it up. They have put them up massively... They will go down.

When Under me. Far more than... you know what he says in his

manifesto? We will put in the investment in automation which will

take out the cost and enable us to hold down fares in a sustainable

way over the medium and long-term. If we re-elect you as mayor, we

face inflation-plus fare rises for the next four years, inflation,

plus 2%. Correct? No mayor... your transport plan. Thank you very

much. 2% above inflation each year for four years. Is that the first

time you have seen that? No mayor commitments himself to a

fares package from one year to the next. I will look at what we can do

next year to bear down on fares. They will be lower with me than

under Ken Livingstone. We will take out cost by modernising in a way he

would not do. I want to broaden this up. You have promised to cut

fares. The polls suggest people don't believe you. There's an issue

of trust with you. Your party, the Labour Party is 15% ahead of the

Tories in London. You, personally, are 6% behind the Tories. That is

21%, 21% Ken Livingstone, distrust deficit.

We'll see on polling day. I tell you this, when I am on the street,

all I have is people saying to me, "You have to win." It matters to

them. Polls have occasionally got it wrong in the past. Are you

denying Labour is ahead as a party? I find people when I am knocking on

doors say, oh Boris makes me laugh." I say, "Well, he has put

your fares up." If it was a contest for being on have I got news for

you.... I will not take the catastrophic discussions. He talks

about what he did in the Jurassic epoch of 1993.... You were at Eton.

What people forget is as a result of that extremely irresponsible

decision Londoners lost control of the Tube. The Government was

obliged to take it over. It led to a period of continual

underinvestment. I get back to the gentleman who asked the question.

want to bring in someone new. He may be talking, but ignore him.

Fares, it is so important. Gentleman there. I believe you

promised you will bring back the freedom pass for 60 year olds, is

that true? I will get the whole man, woman, over 60 off the age

escalator, which was not opposed by the Labour candidate when it was

brought in by the Labour Government. Who are you talking about. There is

only one. It is not true. Just for clarity's

sake. ALL SPEAK AT ONCE We have a 24-hour freedom pass for

every man and woman in this city over 60. I want to hear from the

people who will decide whether you have a job or not. Do the others

think it is acceptable that Ken excludes breaking promises by

saying he has changed his mind? Quite clearly it is not acceptable.

It is not acceptable to funnel your income through a private company

and then criticise other force doing the same thing. It is not

about -- others for doing the same thing. It is not about that. It is

hypercritical to condemn other people for doing the same as you

The mayor now has complete responsibility for housing. Let's

go to a sixth-form teacher from Walthamstow. I've recently been

house-hunting and I'm finding it very difficult. Given that

affordable housing in the capital is virtually non-existent, are

there any plans to make housing more affordable? Ken Livingstone,

what would you do? The most obvious way to do with his build good-

quality council housing. By biggest disagreement with Tony Blair,

except for the war in Iraq, he carried on Mrs Thatcher's ban on

building council housing. In the last six months, government figures

show only 56 affordable homes have been started in the city. We need

to be thinking of building at least 35,000 homes a year for a decade to

have any impact on the situation. What would you do, what is your

target? My target is to establish a housebuilding programme of at least

35. If possible, it should be up nearer 50, as part of a ten-year

programme. And to access pension funds for this. Pension funds are

being speculated all around the world, often making losses. If they

were to invest in building council housing, passage to a local

authority to manage it, a much more secure investment for people's

pensions. Brian Paddick, we are desperately short of affordable

homes. How would you improve that? The difficulty is, people keep

talking about affordable homes but as was widely said, hardly anyone

can afford these so-called affordable homes. If you are one

�500,000 a year, they may be affordable, but for most of us they

are not. From May, the mayor will be the biggest landowner in London.

There's the land available to build on. That's 60 % of building new

homes in London is the cost of the land. You only need 40 % capital to

build a really good homes for Londoners. That means you can

charge 40 % of the rent. J Lee Jones, can you be green and want to

build a lot of homes as well? can if you make sure they are

sustainable homes. Something which doesn't cost you a fortune to run

once it's built. Is there anything you don't put sustainable in front

of? A everybody wants a future, don't they? What we are saying is

we can make London more affordable in housing, but also through

transport. And we can make it a more equal society. Because under

this last mayor, the equality in London has just gone berserk. The

gap between rich and poor has got so wide. Affordable housing, we

would build 15,000 affordable homes every year and make 40 % of those

family homes. What is affordable? We would say what is affordable.

This is what the mayor can do. The mayor can say, this is an

affordable home. This mayor has stretched the concept of

affordability to something that only quite well the people can

afford. That is not true, Jenny. You can be much more ambitious than

that. What we are doing, we've already done a record number of

affordable homes over the lifetime of this mayoralty. We've done

52,000 so far. You promised in 2004 that you'd do 60,000 for that

period. You in fact ended up doing 32,000. We are going to go forward.

I just want to answer the question. It is absolutely vital that we

build homes for social rent, as Brian says. That you put the land

available together to encourage more development. But you also help

people who may wish to get some of the equity of their home. Our

scheme for part by, Park went, it has helped about 25,000 people just

get a share of the value of their home. We are helping people, where

possible, in very tough times, to get on the property ladder as well.

A general question on this issue, which all of you should think about.

In Ken Livingstone's first term you build 36,000 a portable homes, in

your second, 50,000. You say you've built just over 60,000 -- 50,000 in

your first term. In this city we have 350,000 families on the

waiting list, kids in overcrowded accommodation. Don't you all need

to do much, much better? Absolutely. And the number one problem is not

just the difficulty in bringing the land forward. It is the planning

restrictions and the inertia that we are seeing... We have identified

brownfield sites, not back gardens, not green spaces, brownfield sites

where you can build 360,000 new homes over the next 10 years. Vote

for me as mayor, and that is exactly what we will do. The we've

heard from the four main candidates, but this is what the other three

would do for housing in our capital. I will strive to get real levels -

Mark rid of the bureaucracy that are destroying the possibility of

new houses in London. They are making money at the expense of

people who are desperate to find a home. I want to prioritise

Londoners over other people. At the moment, you can arrive from

Newcastle or anywhere in Europe and go to the top of the housing list

if you're homeless. The way we would do it is we would prioritise

people who have lived in London for five years, the same criteria as we

currently have for residents in the UK. I will help all of those people

who at the moment can't get onto the housing market. I will create a

fixed price housing market in London. This is a radical solution

for a babaco problem. I'm going to create 20,000 low-cost homes in

London, year on year during my mayoralty. They will never get sold

Now we move on. I came to the city at 21, straight out of university.

It was fantastic. My suspicion is it's much tougher for young people

today than it was for me then. Let's go to a student from

Streatham. With the awful state of the economy right now, I'm worried

about how I will be able to get a job when I become a graduate. What

is your plan for long-term, sustainable employment for young

people? How are we going to get jobs? You've got to keep investing

in the big projects had been talking about - transport, housing

regeneration - those schemes alone would produce 200,000 jobs. But

you've also got to make sure that our young people in this city are

competitive and able to do those jobs. That means expanding the

apprenticeship schemes that we've begun and that are going very fast

now. 54,000 young people are into apprenticeships over the last 18

months. We will expand that. This isn't just oily rags stuff, these

are jobs in all kinds of professions. In order to help

expand the apprenticeship scheme, what we are now doing is offering

people accredited apprenticeship schemes, offering them the same

cut-price travel that you get if you are in full-time education.

They've got to be proper apprenticeships. One I left school

I got an apprenticeship, it led to a proper, full-time job. Too many

of the schemes being kicked around now, you are there for six months,

its work experience. If you look at whether world economy is growing,

it's in China, India and Brazil. All of those firms have got to do

business somewhere in Europe. We should be saying the best place to

do business is London. The most dynamic workforce and the most

tolerant city. But Boris Johnson closed the offices that I opened in

India to try to attract that investment. No great growth coming

out of Europe. We had over 200 negotiations going on when I lost

office. But Forest thought these were... Which company can we point

to came to London with lots of jobs because of these offices? I don't

have a list. Just one would do. were getting endless numbers of new

jobs in because people want to come here. It is not the big

organisations. We know that the jobs that are being created in

London of a small and medium-sized businesses. It's about encouraging

young on for -- young entrepreneurs. It's getting the banks to lend to

young people, who don't have a track record but have a great

business plan. It's about helping at that level. If necessary, the

mayor setting up his own bank to be able to help those young people who

are being discriminated against just because they are young.

mayor was going to lend money. What is the green policy put creating

jobs in our city? We would have 150,000 apprenticeships, which we

would hope to lead to jobs, because we would start up Moorgreen

industries. Britain has a fantastic record of being very creative in

sustainable industries. These are things we can do in London, and

they generally lead to more jobs than, say, banking. There will be

more opportunities and a Green government. The car industry,

apparently, in Britain, is doing very well at the moment because

they are concentrating on smaller, cheaper to run vehicles. We have

that sort of technology, we can extend it. Do you think we could

make cars in London? I don't particularly want to make cars in

London. But it's an example of something we are good at in

sustainable industries. I want some points rather than questions as we

are running out of time. The gentleman there. One of the

problems is young people we do feel they are being discriminated

against. I'm not sure how the mayor can implement some policy which

will stop people thinking... Because you think that is central

government? Exactly. It's a question of Boris. London has been

used as a cash cow for the rest of the country for far too long. Given

the situation that your party in government now, you have an

aspiration to be the next leader of your party, how can you believe

that you will be the best person to stand up for Londoners for this?

Let's leave that question hanging there, including Boris' leadership

hopes. The gentleman in the leather jacket. There is the ability for

small businesses to access the capital, that's the big problem. We

need things like Grant funding for that. What could the mayor do about

that? I can tell you. There's a policy that I'd be happy for the

others to take up. We have a budget of about �15 billion. At the moment,

it's invested with banks who don't lend to small and medium-sized

businesses. We should put out to tender to all of the banks and say

we will only invest our money, let our money move through banks, that

do give those sorts of loans. We can do it. It's a very simple

method. We have just set up, because of the cash I got from the

Treasury in the last Budget, a London Growth Fund which is

specifically that. It's rather on the lines of what Brian is talking

about. It's happening now, it's there to give businesses low-cost

loans, particularly the small and medium-sized businesses that are

the potential motor of the economy. To answer the question I was asked,

I quite agree with you, London exports huge sums of tax to the

rest of the country. This is the great motor of the UK. And you've

just woken up to that? �19 billion a year we are exporting in good

times. Much of it going to Scotland. Not enough to where I live in

London. Exactly right. You think London subsidises the rest of the

country? It does. This isn't the Bullingdon Club, I will speak now.

The real problem is when the government came along and cut about

�4 million going into job regeneration or �400 million into

the bus subsidy, this mayor rolled over A I've been told we haven't

even got time for a final question. That is it from us. Discussion

about the race for City Hall continues now on the BBC News