finsobruce
Labour
Five people have watched this in the last hour.
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Post by finsobruce on Sept 27, 2020 15:00:21 GMT
Farage is too busy circling the white cliffs of Dover in a dinghy. I'd like to see anyone try to circle the White Cliffs of Dover in a boat, unless it was a DUKW. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 27, 2020 20:50:09 GMT
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Post by LDCaerdydd on Oct 4, 2020 16:06:08 GMT
Susan Hall is third on the London wide list for the Conservatives - any chance she’ll be defeated?
She comes across to me as far to winey, amateurish and completely out of her depth.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
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Post by neilm on Oct 4, 2020 16:39:09 GMT
Susan Hall is third on the London wide list for the Conservatives - any chance she’ll be defeated? She comes across to me as far to winey, amateurish and completely out of her depth. According to her bio, her passion is 'community safety in all its forms.' I will leave others to make their mind up on what they think of that. |
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ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,371
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Post by ColinJ on Oct 4, 2020 22:17:20 GMT
Susan Hall is third on the London wide list for the Conservatives - any chance she’ll be defeated? She comes across to me as far to winey, amateurish and completely out of her depth. If Labour take the lion's share of constituency seats, she should be safe enough. I've no idea if Susan likes a tipple or not, but I can report she's always been most pleasant to my wife and I. During our complex house move 13 years ago, she did offer storage space, if we needed it, for some of our "stuff"! And then there was the photo opportunity for the two of them in Wealdstone...... while I struggled with focusing the camera and the composition of the aforementioned photo, she teased my beloved: "Where did you find him from?" Possibly she was serious........  . |
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neilm
Non-Aligned
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Post by neilm on Oct 5, 2020 0:10:13 GMT
You'd think the Assembly group leader would have a higher profile in the party.
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ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
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Post by ColinJ on Oct 5, 2020 7:04:36 GMT
You'd think the Assembly group leader would have a higher profile in the party. It seems to be the case that other than the Mayor, few politicians have significant profiles outside of City Hall. I am struggling to think who the Labour Assembly group leader is .... Len Duvall? |
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Post by heslingtonian on Oct 5, 2020 9:58:06 GMT
Most of the capable GLA members have left to become MPs from Bob Neil, James Cleverley and Kemi Badenoch through to Meg Hillier and Florence Eshalomi.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
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Post by neilm on Oct 5, 2020 10:06:44 GMT
You'd think the Assembly group leader would have a higher profile in the party. It seems to be the case that other than the Mayor, few politicians have significant profiles outside of City Hall. I am struggling to think who the Labour Assembly group leader is .... Len Duvall? I had to check. I wonder why these people have such low profiles in their own party? That said, I expect whoever is the Lib Dem leader (Caroline Pigeon?) hyperactive in their party and that the Green one is off the scale for prominence. |
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Chris from Brum
Lib Dem
What I need is a strong drink and a peer group" - Douglas Adams
Posts: 4,978
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Post by Chris from Brum on Oct 5, 2020 10:26:29 GMT
It seems to be the case that other than the Mayor, few politicians have significant profiles outside of City Hall. I am struggling to think who the Labour Assembly group leader is .... Len Duvall? I had to check. I wonder why these people have such low profiles in their own party? That said, I expect whoever is the Lib Dem leader (Caroline Pigeon?) hyperactive in their party and that the Green one is off the scale for prominence. The London Assembly is - quite deliberately - a low-profile body. It's too small for the city that elects it, and is thus unable to challenge the Mayor effectively when required. So it's no surprise that its members are also pretty invisible. |
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ilerda
Conservative
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Post by ilerda on Oct 5, 2020 10:37:55 GMT
What really shocked me when I looked into it was how little power the Assembly actually has.
It's essentially just a scrutiny body that exists to ask questions and write reports, with only limited powers to sign off on the Mayor's strategies and budgets. It is so far removed from a real devolved legislature that the use of the word Assembly should be challenged under the Trade Descriptions Act.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
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Post by Sibboleth on Oct 5, 2020 16:37:54 GMT
What really shocked me when I looked into it was how little power the Assembly actually has. It's essentially just a scrutiny body that exists to ask questions and write reports, with only limited powers to sign off on the Mayor's strategies and budgets. It is so far removed from a real devolved legislature that the use of the word Assembly should be challenged under the Trade Descriptions Act. It was designed to be to avoid re-opening all of the controversies associated with the GLC. |
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peterl
Green
Read My Lips: No New Lockdowns!
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Post by peterl on Oct 8, 2020 20:54:08 GMT
The GLA is essentially a sui generis county council with its own unique governance arrangements. Seen in this way, the Assembly is to the Mayor what a council is to the cabinet, a scrutiny body.
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Post by londontory on Oct 8, 2020 21:05:27 GMT
The GLA is essentially a sui generis county council with its own unique governance arrangements. Seen in this way, the Assembly is to the Mayor what a council is to the cabinet, a scrutiny body. Not true. A County Council can remove its Leader - the GLA cannot remove the Mayor as he is directly elected in his own right. There are some districts, mets, unitaries and London boroughs that have directly elected mayors but there are no counties (yet) that do so. Also a council needs an overall majority to approve its budget, the London mayor only needs at least a third of AMs to vote with him. Those two things are more than just mere “unique governance arrangements”, they are fundamental to the distribution of power within the authority. |
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Chris from Brum
Lib Dem
What I need is a strong drink and a peer group" - Douglas Adams
Posts: 4,978
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Post by Chris from Brum on Oct 8, 2020 21:21:19 GMT
The GLA is essentially a sui generis county council with its own unique governance arrangements. Seen in this way, the Assembly is to the Mayor what a council is to the cabinet, a scrutiny body. Not true. A County Council can remove its Leader - the GLA cannot remove the Mayor as he is directly elected in his own right. There are some districts, mets, unitaries and London boroughs that have directly elected mayors but there are no counties (yet) that do so. Also a council needs an overall majority to approve its budget, the London mayor only needs at least a third of AMs to vote with him. Those two things are more than just mere “unique governance arrangements”, they are fundamental to the distribution of power within the authority. This. The governance of Greater London is desperately in need of reform, with a larger, more empowered assembly able to call the mayor properly to account (I'm not a fan of directly elected mayors anyway, but let's assume that the post will continue for the time being). The saving grace right now is that the mayor has control over only a few areas, with the boroughs keeping most of the everyday stuff. This probably stopped Boris Johnson from doing too much damage during his term. |
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peterl
Green
Read My Lips: No New Lockdowns!
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Post by peterl on Oct 8, 2020 21:52:55 GMT
The GLA is essentially a sui generis county council with its own unique governance arrangements. Seen in this way, the Assembly is to the Mayor what a council is to the cabinet, a scrutiny body. Not true. A County Council can remove its Leader - the GLA cannot remove the Mayor as he is directly elected in his own right. There are some districts, mets, unitaries and London boroughs that have directly elected mayors but there are no counties (yet) that do so. Also a council needs an overall majority to approve its budget, the London mayor only needs at least a third of AMs to vote with him. Those two things are more than just mere “unique governance arrangements”, they are fundamental to the distribution of power within the authority. My point was not that the GLA runs exactly like a county council, but that it is essentially the same animal, rather than being similar to a devolved assembly. The word "assembly" is really somewhat misleading, and is probably indeed more to do with avoiding associations with past London councils than to provide an accurate description. |
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Post by greenchristian on Oct 9, 2020 13:40:56 GMT
It seems to be the case that other than the Mayor, few politicians have significant profiles outside of City Hall. I am struggling to think who the Labour Assembly group leader is .... Len Duvall? I had to check. I wonder why these people have such low profiles in their own party? That said, I expect whoever is the Lib Dem leader (Caroline Pigeon?) hyperactive in their party and that the Green one is off the scale for prominence. The only source I can find for which of our AMs is Green group leader is Wikipedia, and she's actually the less prominent of the two within the party by quite a long way (though she's still reasonably well known). |
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