by Martin Hoscik, Editor
First Published: Monday 12 May 2008, 10:18
During the election Boris Johnson vowed to "make City Hall more accountable" promising that "Information about Mayoral advisors will be available on the web with their contact details and their register of interests will also be available online."
Last Monday the Mayor announced Ray Lewis as so-called Deputy Mayor for Young People (see here for an explanation on why Mr Lewis isn't Deputy Mayor) yet as of 9am this morning there seemed no way to view contact details for Mr Lewis on the london.gov.uk website or any of the Mayor's other newly-appointed advisors or to view their entries in the register of interests.
From a technical point of view it's not hard to place this information on the web and it must already be known to the Mayor and his staff so why wasn't it - as an absolute minimum - included in the original press releases?
Also missing from press releases announcing appointments is any indication of remuneration. Of course it may be that everyone the Mayor has appointed is working for free but in that case why not just say so?
It's almost a week since these issues were first raised including (to their credit) by the Evening Standard and it's a worrying sign that those around the Mayor have allowed them to go unanswered for so long.
When campaigning for the job Johnson said "Londoners should have a greater say on how their city is run, more information on how decisions are made and details on how City Hall money is spent".
Hopefully this week he'll start living up to those ideals.
2. at 0:09 on Tuesday 13th May 2008, Damian Hockney wrote:
The election was fought on vague generalities, personalised smear, endless hype and an almost hysterical pro-Boris campaign by some parts of the London media...it does not surprise me for a moment that promises like this made by the new Mayor on the hoof and under pressure have not been honoured. What fascinates me, as someone who sat on the London Assembly for four years, is precisely how he is going to square the circle of implications to end waste, cut costs and stop "corruption" with the vague partially costed promises which could add a massive amount to council tax bills. The implication of any form of action in government (or anywhere) is the spending of taxpayers' cash. You cannot hide this 'inconvenient truth'. The main London media were simply not really prepared to challenge the new Mayor's assertions during the campaign (the BBC because it was simply giving non-journalistic puff advertising to the three 'main' candidates, the Standard because it was running a pro-Boris campaign). This will come back to haunt all parties: I'm not surprised the former Mayor is keeping his eye on things. This could be very interesting to anyone who is not tribally on one side of the other...
3. at 12:07 on Tuesday 13th May 2008, Mr. Stop Boris wrote:
Damien Hockney: I expect I count as 'tribally on one side' (or at least tribally off one!) but I wholeheartedly agree with the thrust of your point. Coming from where I was coming from in my own coverage of the election, I found it deeply frustrating that virtually none of the mainstream media outlets would address the issues that actually mattered and instead dwelt on watermelon smiles, concentration camp guards et al. The simple fact was that Boris's manifesto and campaign were shoddy, uninformative and lacking in detail and policy, but no-one (especially not the post-Newsnight TV debates - I thought Newsnight at least had a half-decent stab in a too-short time period) picked up on this properly and the result is that we basically have a roulette wheel for Mayor. Who knows what he'll do next? If those of us who spent most of the past two months studying his every pronouncement don't really know what he's actually going to achieve or how, what on earth can the average man in the street be expecting? But then the average man in the street appears to have been cajoled into voting for abstract concepts like "change" so I don't suppose he cares a great deal.
4. at 23:59 on Tuesday 13th May 2008, Damian Hockney wrote:
...and never forget, Mr Stop Boris, that the average man in the street did NOT vote in huge numbers for the Mayor. Only about one in four of the electorate actually gave their first and second choice votes to Johnson. Considerably fewer gave their first votes (around 20%, one in five). Amid all the hype about turnout, the actual figures get forgotten...we realised very early that there was going to be no real journalistic analysis of, or challenge to, the Tory contender on the basis of policies. Our team monitored the coverage and the summary they gave me makes a profoundly depressing read, if you believe in the idea that politicians should go to the voter armed with a vision and a plan. And that journalists should probe, challenge and debate.
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1. at 21:28 on Monday 12th May 2008, Paul wrote:
Absolutely. I'm sure putting full details of expenditure, salaries etc. online was one of the upteen things he (implausibly) claimed he would do "on day one". Yet here we are on day eight and nothing's happened yet.