There’s going to be a lot of confusion in some quarters following the first in what is likely to be a series of announcements.
This morning the Mayor’s press office announced that: ‘The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has today announced the appointment of Ray Lewis as Deputy Mayor for Young People.’
Now I’m an awkward sort of a chap and I have an issue with the use of the term ‘Deputy Mayor’ because the role of the Deputy Mayor is a constitutional one set out in the 1999 Greater London Authority Act.
The acts allows for “a” Deputy Mayor who “shall be appointed by the Mayor from among the Assembly members” and so Mr Lewis doesn’t fulfill the legal requirements under the 1999 to be called the Deputy Mayor.
The Mayor’s press office assure me that there’s no suggestion of this being the statutory Deputy Mayor (a post to which I hope he’ll appoint Brian Coleman assuming Labour’s Nicky Gavron is out of the frame) but for the life of me I can’t understand why the Mayor’s people are set on causing confusion by using the term.
