London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced he is developing a Economic Recovery Action Plan to help support Londoners through the economic downturn and expected recession.
City Hall says Johnson is considering a range of measures including “bringing forward large scale infrastructure investment projects to help secure London jobs” and making it easier for small companies to bid for contracts with the Greater London Authority.
The announcement comes after former Mayor Ken Livingstone published an eight point recovery plan and called on his successor to implement it “immediately”.
In a statement issued this morning Mayor Johnson said “Sitting back is not, and never was, an option and my team and I are redoubling our efforts to sell the benefits of London to the rest of the world.”
“Although we might be in for a bumpy ride, if we handle this right, we can come out of the slump in a stronger position than before. London is the world’s greatest city, and I am determined it will remain so.”
The Mayor also stressed that “London retains the many strengths that propelled it to becoming a world leader not just in financial services, but in media, fashion and high technology.”
Responding to the news, Green party Assembly Member Darren Johnson said “the Mayor’s Economic Recovery plan seems more oriented towards defending City bankers than helping ordinary Londoners through the crunch or putting London’s economy on a long-term stable footing.”
The Assembly Member called for “a new Fares Fair campaign to cut the cost of travelling by public transport, and for energy bills to be slashed by making free insulation available to everyone that needs it.”
The plan is expected to be published before Christmas.
votedforken says
It’s all very well for Boris Johnson to say that London should not sit back and should take advantage of an exchange rate that is now more favourable for tourism, but this is totally undermined by the fact that – as Ken Livingstone points out elsewhere on this site today – Johnson has been cutting back on the promotion of London abroad.
Furthermore he says he will have a plan by Xmas – but what is he doing now? In contrast Ken Livingstone has announced what he would be doing immediately.
Thomasthetaxi says
votedforken;
Ken lost, Votedforboris, Boris won.
Get over it.
votedforken says
Thomasthetaxi seems to operate on the principle that because one side lost an election they are not entitled to any views for the next four years. This is a very funny notion of democracy.
Over a million people voted in either the first or second round for Ken – a significant constituency that is certainly not going to be silenced, especially when the Mayor is planning to hit Londoners with a totally unecessary fares increase this January, having first ensured that drivers of heavily polluting cars can continue to drive into central London without having to pay a #25 congestion charge. When Londoners are being forced to pay for such ideologically-motivated errors, those of us who backed the progressive candidate in the election are likely to be more vocal, not less.
Thomasthetaxi says
You seen to have read a lot in to a my eight words. Seems to be the way of the opposition to Boris at the moment . Just look at the statements made of late by Jenny Jones and Val Sharcross about the mid term inspections on Taxi’s, totally uninformed, totally unnecessary. Ms Sharcross even mixes up the distinction between purpose built Taxis and mini cab cars.
Name calling is an ugly weapon in politics, shows ignorance.
You are wrong, I do support democracy, that’s why I voted the Marxist dictator out of office.
votedforken says
‘Name calling is an ugly weapon’ argues Thomasthetaxi, yet calls Ken Livingstone a Marxist dictator (that’s a lot of votes for Marxism, Thomas!), and also wrote on the thread about Ken’s proposals on the economy:
‘Ken is like an old boxer, punch drunk with power, he was removed by the voters.
‘Now, just like Rocky Balboa he doesn’t know when to quit.
‘The Tax payers most of whom are motorists have had enough of Ken and his Marxist leadership in City hall. He turn the centre of London in to an unsafe hell-hole for the ordinary motorist and small businessman.
‘The words sour grapes filter through from the scribings of this bitter loser.’
This is the method at shooting down someone’s arguments without really dealing with them. Yet over a million people voted for Ken in the election and in his response to the economic situation – by actually setting out some real immediate steps as well as more medium and long-term measures – they were shown to have voted for the more serious candidate.
On the issue of taxis, it’s Boris Johnson’s administration that took loads of licensed London cabs off the streets recently, stopping cabbies earning money, not Labour or the Greens.
Roger Evans says
Of course Ken’s supporters are entitled to promote their views. The problem they face is that precisely those policies were rejected by the voters in May. A rational person might want to reconsider some of those policies, taking the opinions of Londoners into account.
Unfortunately the ex mayor and his sock puppets have failed to come up with anything new or attractive. Their offer to Londoners is entirely made up of defending the discredited old policies – embassies abroad, £25 congestion charge, bendy buses, Sir Ian Blair, Venezuelan oil deal – to name a few. Without an attractive new narrative they are doomed to the wilderness of opposition.
thomasthetaxi says
On the issue of taxis, Boris Johnson’s administration did not take loads of licensed London cabs off the streets recently. It was TFL and the PCO. The orders were signed by Ed Thompson and Mary Dowdye, after consultation with Peter Hendy. The action was taken with the safety of the travelling public in mind and would have been the same no matter who was in the Mayors job. It was never perceived by the trade as a political point scoring exercise but was used by certain members of the Labour group and the Green party in an argument to continue the mid term inspections. Fortunately Boris has seen through their shenanigans and will shortly by announcing the withdrawal of this unnecessary added expense to the London Taxi Trade.
You said, “in his response to the economic situation – by actually setting out some real immediate steps as well as more medium and long-term measures” shame it will come to nothing, or we could wait four years. But will these measures still be valid then?