The assembly is small & the Mayor is only one person, so these resources must be husbanded carefully. The old-style local authority committee structure would grossly over-work the members & allow a degeneration into inter party wrangling.

The Mayor's sources of income seem deliberately limited but there is more money around than immediately meets the eye:-

City's Cash

Everything & Ken means everything, associated with the work of the Mayor & the Assembly will be published on the World Wide Web, just like this campaign site. By the time London Regional Government has settled down, one can expect that most citizens will be able to access the Web through their television sets with a black box on top. They will be able to at the Public Library anyway.

London has this local government anomaly called the 'City of London'. Too small to be a proper local authority on its own, it preserves its status by confusing the leadership of the Financial Community with local authority functions that go back a very long time & have a tradition of opposing the central government. In practise, this corrupt little institution has vast funds tucked away which are used for junketing & the subsidy of the City Fathers' pet schemes. The electoral system is crooked, in that only 'good chaps' (i.e. rock-ribbed reactionary Tories) are allowed to join the Corporation even if democratically elected. No other British body can exclude elected representatives.

There is no reason why this body should not be subjected to the same constitutional scrutiny as the rest of the country. As Mayor, Ken will request from Central Government, as part of a general Mayoral Enabling Bill, that the Corporation of London be abolished & the money be handed over to the London Assembly. The administration of the City could be recast in several possible ways.

The most drastic would be for the area to be split between Clerkenwell & Bunhill Wards in the Borough of Islington. Perhaps a more acceptable choice would be for the London Mayor to be ex-officio, the Mayor of the City, which would have a normal electorate (i.e. residential) but like any local authority, be open to public lobbying from the commercial interests of the area. In practise, the Deputy Mayor would probably preside on most occasions. Places such as Hampstead Heath & the housing should be handed to the boroughs in which they are located, as was done with the GLC assets in 1986.

The Financial Community can then elect an appropriate representative without all the unnecessary flummery & the requirement that the Lord Mayor be a Mason. The Lord Mayor's Show will continue as the Mayor's Show & the Mayor will use the Guildhall as the seat of the London Assembly. Goodbye, City of London & Hello, London City.

The obvious place, since County Hall is ruled out, is the Guildhall in the City but....

The Norman Foster building

Very imaginative but designed to the wrong brief. While London Government will start small, it is sure to expand to absorb proper regional governmental functions, especially those which the London Boroughs are really too small to perform efficiently. One can envisage more development behind the 'car headlight' original building & one can bet that it will be done on the cheap.