Ten Questions For Boris

He's holding his first press conference tomorrow. I doubt I'll get the chance to ask more than a couple of these, so here's my full list for his and your consideration.

1. Do you accept the British Transport Police figures suggesting that knife crime and robberies on the Tube have been falling rapidly for a year? If so, will you accept the figures they publish next year as a test of the effectiveness of your policies for reducing crime on the Underground? If not, what alternative measure do you propose?

2. Were you aware before you were elected that you were not going to be able to arrange for a statue of Sir Keith Park to be mounted on the Fourth Plinth and if not, why not?

3. Will the interim report of the Forensic Audit Panel, due in a few days, be made public?

4. Following your announcement that the oil deal with Venezuela won't be renewed, you said you will ask TfL to look into ways of continuing to offer discount bus and tram fares for Londoners on income support. If TfL don't come up with anything, what will you do?

5. Some members of your 15-strong transition team are being paid roughly the equivalent of a full-time directors' salary. Given that you've also appointed a number of directors and deputies to paid posts, can this expenditure be justified and can you provide details about how the transition team members are providing Londoners with value for money?

6. Will the money for Ray Lewis's youth programmes come from any sources other than the charitable Mayor's Fund and if so, which ones?

7. Do you anticipate your appointees Tim Parker and David Ross contributing to the Mayor's Fund and will you be disappointed if they don't?

8. If your "New Routemaster" bus does not have an open platform which passengers can hop on and hop off, will it be worthy of the Routemaster name?

9. In your speech on the night of your victory you acknowledged that London contains great inequalities. Presuming that this was an expression of concern, how do you intend to address those inequalities?

10. If any Conservative local authority appears to be dragging its feet over helping you to deliver your target of 50,000 new affordable homes by the end of 2011 what will you do about it?

See you in the morning, Mr Mayor.

Comments

[Mr. Stop Boris]

Great list, Dave.

Is it true - and I ask this non-rhetorically, because I genuinely don't know, but think I heard it once - that Ken used to let his press conference continue until every journalist present had asked every last question they had for him?

I wonder if we'll see that approach from Boris!

[Doug]

Hasn't he already released a statement on question 1 - and surely he'd repeat that? From "Tackling Transport Crime" onwards here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/8382.aspx

I imagine most will be non-answers - on 8, for example, he'll probably bluster, as he did for most of the campaign on anything to do with buses.

But, then again, he might prove me wrong. I hope he does and answers them properly, as they're all nice and pressing...

[Rob]

Mr. Stop Boris: You can see the previous Mayor's press conferences here - http://www.london.gov.uk/webcasts.jsp

[Jim]

Please ask 10, I'd love to hear what he comes up with.

[Nick]

I reckon at this stage 3 and 6 are the ones that he can't pretend not to have an answer for yet so give those a go.

[Rob]

Regarding Sir Keith Park (question 2), I just read this and haven't seen it picked up anywhere else yet:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4572312a10.html

Looks like Boris is now backing the statue on the 4th plinth for six months in 2010 - to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Battle of Britain - before being moved to a permanent home elsewhere.

File this one under "the third way"?