The London Bill

The first thing to say is I am grateful that promises have been fulfilled & we do actually have a new bill for London Government.

December 9th 1998 - I have just obtained a copy of this & will fill this page with comment when I have had a proper chance to peruse it. There is nothing objectionable in the first 34 pages but the headings do seem a bit nannyish at first glance.

December 12th 1998 - I'm getting a bit further. There are fairly severe restrictions as to the amount of money the Mayor & Assembly can raise, so some of my agenda will have to wait a bit.

December 18th 1998 - Right, I've read the lot: a gruesome experience because of the peculiar dialect of English used by parliamentary draftsmen (& I'm sure it is men - women wouldn't be so obscure). Some of the detail seems unnecessary. Why do we have to change 'London Transport' to 'Transport for London', even though the scope is greater? Perhaps also, it would have been better to leave the working out of structures to the Mayor & Assembly.

It is clear that the Mayor & Assembly will have to earn the right to a full regional government by the way they administer the responsibilities laid out in the bill.

That said, the bill is a typical ultra-vires job. Power in Britain flows from the Crown down & so, every power delegated has to be described in the Bill. In a properly run country with a written constitution, regional powers would be the property of the regional government, delegated upwards from local government for those functions beyond it's scope. Likewise, national government should only exercise those powers the regions cannot handle, like the National budget, foreign affairs, national standards and so on. Not in Royal Britain, unfortunately.

However, as Mayor, I will be happy to show that, even with the limitations placed on us by Whitehall, we can do a better job of running our City than the present shambles of a bunch of quangos & odd corners of central government departments.

I feel that the powers of the Mayor & Assembly have been deliberately limited in case a terminally unsuitable candidate is elected. This may well change if the Mayor is a responsible person - like me.

Links to the other Mayor pages:-
Transport
Environment
Crime
Tourism & Arts
Organisation
Organisation chart
Training
'Coming clean' (exposure of assets & liabilities)

Contact: Ken Baldry at 17 Gerrard Road, Islington, London N1 8AY
+44(0)207 359 6294 or e-mail him

URL: http://www.art-science.com/London/bill.htm
Last revised 11/7/99