How will Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Brian Paddick or Sian Berry spend London’s annual 11 billion-pound budget if they are elected mayor on May 1?
How will they tackle youth crime and congestion, and how will the capital maintain its position as a global cultural and financial hub?
The budget is in their hands, but you can quiz them on how they will spend it.
The four leading candidates in the Mayor of London election have agreed to answer your questions.
We asked you to send in your questions, and have now sent a selection to the relevant candidates.
Their answers will be posted here on April 24.
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18 comments so far
Is Boris Johnson going to rephase back the traffic lights which ken Livingstone changed when he was elected and get London moving faster again ???
- Posted by KISHORE MANDALIAWhat would you do as Mayor to improve paid employment prospects of disabled volunteers, who are all too frequently relegated to unemployment-related benefits and expenses due to lack of project funding?
Alan Wheatley
- Posted by AlanWheatleyWorking life-long disabled volunteer
What will you do to reduce, preferably eliminate the constant cycle of strikes that the RMT initiate most, if not every year on the tube ?
- Posted by michaelWe were promised a world class transport system from the first mayoral elections, but life on the tube has gone from bad ro worse. How do you propose to bring London’s Victorian age transport system to the 21st century?
- Posted by Raxa MehtaDoes Boris recognise that the biggest obstacle to his election, is his reputation as a wally?
- Posted by Ben SteedTo Ken Livingstone:
Did you in 1999 deny you had a 6 year old son?
If this allegation, your denial, is true then you really have gone too far.
- Posted by Kevin GreenanI work as a district nurse for Southwark PCT. We have to visit patients within the congestion area on a daily basis to administer various medical treatments. We have to pay the congestion charge, claim this back from our PCT who in turn reclaim this from TFL. If a nurse forgets to purchase a ticket and accrues a fine it has to be paid from his or her own pocket. One nurse last week had to pay over £160 in fines. Careless? No, not when we are dealing with seriously ill and dying patients. We cannot travel on public transport with medical records, body fluids and medical equipment. The sick people of Southwark are being penalised as nurses are loathe to visit the congestion area in fear of possible penalties. We are undertaking an essential service but if we were mini-cabs or vehicles for ‘pre-booked’ hire we would be exempt from the charge. This will never, ever make any sense to me. Please somebody help us.
- Posted by John BaileyWhat exactly, will the additional profit from the extended Congestion charge zone be spent on? Infact, what is the profit made from the original Congestion charge zone being spent on?!
- Posted by Annie SandersAs a London resident I have noticed an increase in hostility from the recently immigrated population towards the culture, lifestyle and the customs of the settled population of London.
- Posted by GenevieveWould you: as London mayor: encourage the settled population to change the way they live their lives to appease the new population or would you prefer to encourage the new population to learn and respect londons cosmopolitan but British culture. And how would you go about it?
To Livingstone:
- Posted by gael marksDo you regret purchasing the bendy buses for TFL?
If no, would you in retrospect still purchase them?
Would you ever be able to admit that you have made an error?
If we continue to experience the current levels of immigration into London will we be able to provide for the required infrastructure spending in order to maintain even the current poor levels of service in transport, health, education and policing. Do you not in fact reach a point where services just can not cope with the numbers and diversity of users?
- Posted by David CarruthersAs the heart of the nation, London’s arterial roads that transport the nation’s economic life blood have chronic blockages that impair its health and the health of all who use them. Under Mayor Livingstone, congestion charges (statins), new larger buses (cholesterol) , more and more traffic lights (heart valves) and narrowing of the arteries by constructing more and more granite-edged islands and wider pavements have made matters far worse not better. Major surgery is needed.
- Posted by graham mellorDo any of the candidates have plans for seriously revamping TfL, changing the policy (and attitudes) to, for example, adopt tried and tested Tokyo methods for preventing arterial blockages – all road work at night and especially large holes covered with plates during the day. Do they agree with me that we must move with the times and construct elevated sections of road like the old Mancunian Way (say above The Highway, Thames Street and the Embankment) and again, emulate Tokyo’s road system (but do it better) where there are heart bypasses for through traffic built on stilts or in tunnels?
The fact that Boris is even being considered as a viable candidate is the most humiliating indictment of Ken’s redundancy as mayor, and that he has a lead in the polls is surely just embarrassing. Labour has lost the plot and Ken lost the plot way before that. When Tessa Jowell issued the Stalinist edict to refrain from using ‘Boris’ as a name, it was clear to me that they’d lost it, and their big problem is that they probably don’t understand why. I”ll be voting Boris, with amazement.
- Posted by EdwardMessage for Ken,
If you are voted back in (I hope not) Will you be investigating(and sacking) your cronies at the LDA. After it was recently brought to the publics attention. That they (LDA) have invested £1000’s of pounds of public money into bogus company’s. Who, when they recieve their “cash” fold and are never seen again (in England)
- Posted by MarkWhat concrete steps would Boris Johnson take, if elected, to ensure that corruption, nepotism, waste of public money on foreign trips and on armies of unnecessary apparatchiks are not going to be a feature of his mayoralty, or does he think they are an inevitable feature of modern political life?
- Posted by AlexCan someone please ask the current mayor what the exact specifications are for his satellite please? what he is using it for, and please ask him to confirm or deny whether he is using it for anything other than traffic monitoring?
Thankyou
- Posted by JamieThe new congestion charges should apply to people who buy new band G cars now and not everyone. The current system will hit people with families who have already bought the cars having no idea this law was coming in. Selling a car and replacing it can be an expensive business for normally paid persons (Mayor livingstone obviously has no idea of this with his 137000 and perks pay),
- Posted by FredBoris was pushed into standing for London Mayor by his Party Leader. Isn’t this just case of getting rid of a huge embarrassment to the Conservative Party as Tony Blair did with Frank Dobson for the Labour Party in 2000?
- Posted by Mark Spreadborough