- Let's look at the Garden Bridge! Ooops!
- The President of RIBA is a person of substance often named as a contractual arbitrator on architectural and civil engineering contracts.
Halt contest to design London Garden Bridge, says RIBA presidentThe contest to design the Garden Bridge over the Thames in London should be halted following claims that the winner was selected unfairly, the head of the Royal Institute of British Architects has said. Jane Duncan, the president of RIBA, said she was extremely concerned by the allegations and that the procurement process should be stopped and scrutinised before more public money is put at risk.- Convoy's Wharf was 'called in' after Boris returned from a fact finding/sales meeting in China, where he met the developer.
Boris Johnson approves £1bn Deptford Convoys Wharf plans
The Mayor of London has given the green light to a £1bn high-rise riverside development in Deptford which will create 3,500 new homes. Boris Johnson approved the Convoys Wharf scheme by Hong Kong developer Hutchinson Whampoa yesterday (March 31) after dramatically seizing power over the plans from Lewisham Council last year.
Boris Johnson calls in plans for £1bn Convoys Wharf schemeLONDON mayor Boris Johnson has taken over control of the planning process for the £1bn regeneration of Convoys Wharf in south east London, after a clash between the developer and the council. Ambitious plans to regenerate Deptford by building 3,500 homes, a new wharf, a hotel and three new towers were submitted to Lewisham council in May.- His custody of the Metropolitan Police has been hands off at best, but the cuts, the loss of two Commissioners, and the perceived conflict of interest between his support for and from the Murdoch Press, one of the objects of the most significant enquiries to be run by the Met during his Mayoralty leave questions of a conflict of interest to be answered. Questions which led to the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson.
- The Mayor of London is London's Chief of Police whose job it has been to investigate the media after the phone hacking disclosures in the Guardian. He originally stated that the investigations into phone hacking by the press were “left-wing poppycock dreamed up by the Labour Party”. It’s hard to believe that Johnson did not repeat his views about the priority of the phone hacking investigation or make his views known through intermediaries to the investigating officers and their management.
- Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met Police Commissioner, a man who worked directly for Boris and ultimately responsible for these criminal investigations eventually resigned due to integrity issues related to the investigations into press and later police corruption.
The outrageous arrogance of Boris Johnson - Reason and RealityMurdoch's papers (among others) have clearly been involved in corrupt practices and there is even the case of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator who was said to have been close to exposing important police corruption when he was murdered in a pub car park.- I comment on it towards then end of the following article,
Labour's Lost MayorThis article was started just after the election in May 2012, and only finished over the Xmas break of 2013, nearly 20 months later. Some of the tenses may thus be a bit odd. I have backdated this in the blog to the time I started it.- This is a man who receives £250K p.a. from the Telegraph, a sum he has describe as 'Chickenfeed', in addition to his salary as Mayor of London working for a newspaper; it should be noted that he gets more from a newspaper than he does as Mayor of London, who do you think comes first?
The London Mayors and their tax affairs
There has been some complete shite written about Ken Livingstone's tax affairs; he has replied in this article at the Huffington Post. Here's the law. The HMRC insist that people once known as sole traders incorporate themselves and run fully regulated companies so that the might of the Companies Act applies to their record keeping.- Does he pay the appropriate tax on it? I am particularly interested in the employers N.I. contributions.
- The bridge isn't the only appointment where the competitive process may have been influenced.
Boris Johnson and the Veronica Wadley affair: an open letter to David Cameron and Nick CleggDear Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, When you gave your historic joint press conference in the Downing Street garden you pledged to clean up politics and build a new kind. Both of you had previously spoken many times of the need to restore public confidence in how politics is conducted.
