Ken Livingstone yesterday declared congestion charging the make-or-break issue for his London mayorship, as defeated Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Susan Kramer accepted a job in his administration and Industrial Society director Will Hutton agreed to report on the tube funding controversy.
Facing his first Greater London assembly question time as mayor, Mr Livingstone said that "getting the congestion charge right" was the single biggest issue facing London's new government.
Although the first of what will be monthly sessions was billed as a grilling, the man Tony Blair warned would be a "disaster for London" exuded benign consensus and dominated proceedings effortlessly. Continuing to deploy his powers of patronage to draw potential critics into his administration and put opponents on the back foot, the mayor used his report to assembly members to announce the appointment of Ms Kramer to the board of Transport for London, which will oversee bus, tube and train services from July.
He also revealed that Mr Hutton, former editor of the Observer and a consistent critic of the government's use of private finance initiative schemes in the public services, will head the planned inquiry into the relative merits of John Prescott's and his own rival proposals for funding tube modernisation.
Mr Hutton will take the place of journalist and rail expert Simon Jenkins, and report in September on whether the government's public-private partnership or Mr Livingstone's bond-financed public sector scheme offers Londoners a better deal.
Throughout the two-hour meeting in a church hall in Westminster, Mr Livingstone exchanged quips with Labour GLA chair Trevor Phillips, while continually emphasising the common ground with government ministers and between the assembly's political groups.
After listening to his explanations about early budgetary decisions, Tory GLA member Elizabeth Howlett told the mayor: "That all seems terribly prudent".
"That's me," replied Mr Livingstone, to widespread laughter from members of the public and GLA workers listening to the debate.
