Comeback Ken?

Mayor Johnson has written to Hazel Blears demanding that no London mayor be allowed more than two terms. "Without any limits on the number of times an individual can serve as Mayor," he says, "there is a real danger of cronyism, misconduct and corruption at City Hall." Not a bad little spoiler in view of the confusion over Sir Simon Milton, who was first hired as Johnson's planning adviser but has now announced he'll be dispensing his wisdom free to avoid breaking the law. Not that Milton's Westminster opponents seem likely to leave him alone. Labour group leader Paul Dimoldenberg has writtten the following to Colin Wilson, Director of Legal and Administrative Services at WCC.

"I know that you will share my concerns following the statements made during ‘Question Time’ at the Council meeting on 7th May by Councillor Robert Davis, Chairman of the Planning Committee and Cabinet Member for Planning, that following the appointment of his civil partner, Councillor Simon Milton as Mayor Johnson’s Senior Planning adviser, he is looking forward to having ‘pillow talk’ conversations and a ‘word in the ear’ with Councillor Milton about how Westminster planning matters will be dealt with by Mayor Johnson. Before the Council meeting I had already written to you to express my concerns about the protocols which would be put in place to ensure that Westminster planning matters are dealt with openly and transparently by The Mayor and his advisers, given Councillor Milton’s continuing membership of the City Council and his relationship with Councillor Davis. Following Councillor Davis’ statements on Wednesday I consider that it is even more important that these protocols are drafted and issued without any further delay. I am copying this to the Chief Executive and Anthony Mayer at the GLA for their urgent attention."

Tomorrow, the GLA's Standards Committee sits for the first time. Mayor Johnson is a member of it. Could be fun. Oh, and what's this that's just arrived? Why, it's an email from Ken Livingstone:

"Only three weeks into his Mayoralty Boris Johnson's letter to Hazel Blears calling for no Mayor to be allowed to serve more than two terms shows he believes his administration is going to fail and he is manoeuvring to try to undemocratically prevent Ken Livingstone running against him in 2012.

This assessment by Boris Johnson is entirely realistic. After only three weeks it is already evident his administration is a going to be a shambles - it has abandoned his flagship pledge to introduce a new Routemaster, it has been forced to abandon as illegal its attempt to employ Sir Simon Milton as the planning adviser, it has moved to scrap half yearly taxi safety testing and, in what will be the first of many steps alienating environmentalists, it has backed an energy guzzling desalination plant for Thames Water rather than keep up the pressure for them to stem to (sic) vast loss of water from its antiquated pipe network.

In these circumstances it should come as no surprise that one of Johnson's first concerns is to try to undemocratically block Ken Livingstone from unseating him in 2012."

What was that about the next few years being the best of Boris's life?

Comments

[The Tory Troll]

Fascinating stuff Dave. I was just posting on this myself when I saw your email from Ken. I can't believe he's getting involved already. I wonder what the Standard will say about that?

Also really interesting to see Dimoldeberg putting his pennyworth in. I am just reading his book 'The Westminster Whistleblowers' at the moment. A great, if worrying read if you haven't already read it. From what I've read so far, Millton was not as detached from Homes for Votes as I had previously thought. I think Dimoldenberg may end up being a real thorn in the side of the new administration if he carries on like this.

[Rob]

What do say they about people that talk about themselves in the third person?

[The Tory Troll]

That they're really great people?

[angela]

There seems to be a feeling amongst Ken supporters that Boris Johnson won by some fluke or trick of fate, and he is just the usurping upstart Pretender who has replaced the true Mayor. They think that all of London is longing to return to what they remember as KEN! THE GOLDEN AGE! What they seem to forget is that Boris was democratically chosen by Londoners in preference to Ken, he won fair and square and Ken actually lost.

Vox populi vox dei est.

Ken certainly did some good things but there were huge areas of concern regarding him that his supporters totally ignore, and not the least of these was that people just don't trust him anymore. That is just one of the reasons why he lost though. (I'm thrilled, by the way, that Boris is protecting the historical views of London and banning loads of skyscrapers - this is probably seen by Ken troopers as another attempt to emasculate Ken).

Ken's supporters are taking Ken's defeat incredibly personally - to them the only thing that matters is getting Boris out and Ken back in, and they don't care how they do it or how dirty they fight. What is best for Londoners is totally disregarded.

Ken obviously has an exciting media career to look forward to, which I am very happy about. Instead he is lurking on the fringes of City Hall, attending meetings, and breathing fire, vitriol and doom like some ailing Torquemada obsessed by his blond Nemesis. The awful thing about having a nemesis is that they always ARE your nemesis and they continue to get the better of you. It would be better if he developed his other interests, even if that is only for a year or two, because the person who is going to end up most hurt by his behaviour is Ken.