I must be going senile. Damian Hockney, the ex-Tory, ex-UKIP, ex-Veritas and now very much ex-Assembly member has written a really rather good article at Mayorwatch on how the new London Assembly is even more supine than the last one, which isn’t saying a lot. The Assembly isn’t designed to be able to do much to stop the Mayoral will, but previously the Greens could at least get some traction on budgetary issues, siding with Labour in return for a quid pro quo. You know, proper PR politics.
The new Assembly has a completely impregnable Conservative group of 11 votes which means that whatever budget Boris sets is automatically rubber stamped, since you need only 9 votes loyal to the Mayor to defeat any attempts to change it by the 14 non-Tories. Therefore, if you didn’t vote for Boris or the local Tory and don’t live in one of the Tory boroughs from where Boris is drawing his team, you can get stuffed as far as accountability is concerned. He doesn’t care about you. Isn’t that rather wonderful?
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Having established power over the assembly, one can’t help but predict that Team Boris will wield the scythe in City Hall. The Telegraph warns of resignations “across the board”.
[...] the impotence of the London Assembly already established, it seems that much of it’s work will be concerned [...]