The resignation of another key aide to Mayor Boris Johnson has sparked renewed questions over the Mayor of London’s leadership, with opposition leaders at City Hall charging that the “wheels are coming off” his new administration.

Tim Parker , the First Deputy Mayor and Chairman of Transport for London (TfL), has stepped down from both jobs, saying it was inappropriate for him to hold them as an unelected official. His resignation is the third of a key aide in the four months of Johnson’s mayorship.

Despite having a rather big job to do already in running the capital, Johnson will now chair TfL himself. In his usual combative style he announced: “Over the last few weeks, it has become increasingly apparent to both of us that the nature of the decisions that need to be taken are highly political and there is no substitute for me, as the directly elected Mayor, being in charge.There are limits, therefore, to what can be delegated.”

It begs the question why Parker was installed in both roles in the first place - the running of London’s transport system has always been a politically charged issue.

More important for the future though is whether Johnson is biting off more than he can chew by chairing TfL. Even in times of crisis, delegation to top aides will be crucial for the mayor’s success. One of the key arguments against voting for Johnson as mayor was his perceived lack of managing a large organisation, and judging by the rate at which senior aides are disappearing, he looks set for a rough ride, not least as yet another strike is looming on the London Underground.

Should Shakespeare be a factor for Londoners voting for their next mayor on May 1?

The three leading mayoral candidates revealed their knowledge of the Bard on Friday in a live phone-in debate with host Vanessa Feltz on her BBC London morning radio show .

Asked by “David in Finchley” which Shakespearian character best described them, London Mayor Ken Livingstone said he would like to be associated with Julius Caesar .

“Trouble is, I’m sitting next to a couple of Brutuses,” he japed.

Conservative rival Boris Johnson said he hoped to be likened in future to Pericles.

“Pericles, of course, was responsible for the rejuvenation of Athens … and the wonderful thing about the Athenian system was its democracy.

“Everybody had the chance to vote and to decide the future of the policy, as they do on May 1, and that’s why I hope that Londoners in a Periclean way will vote for change for the better,” Johnson said, warming to his theme.

Liberal Democrat ex-policeman Brian Paddick opted out of the contest, protesting he didn’t know enough about Shakespeare to choose a role model. (”Come on,” cried Felz. “You’ve got a degree from Oxford.”)

“Lady Macbeth?”, suggested Livingstone. “Screw your courage to the sticking place, Brian,” said Johnson — an Oxford Classics scholar — quoting the Scottish play .

But it was the candidate without a degree that spotted Johnson’s Shakespearian trickery.

“I think we just caught Boris out,” said Livingstone. “The play Pericles by Shakespeare is not about Pericles, the ancient Greek, is it?”

“I don’t want to disappoint the mayor,” admitted a rueful Johnson. “He’s actually completely right. The Pericles in question is of course Pericles, Prince of Tyre.”

After the broadcast Johnson was unrepentant about his debating dodge, telling me he was just “taking liberties” with the title of the Shakespeare play, about a shipwrecked prince.

“It’s not the same Pericles, but it doesn’t matter. I was just using the name.”

Livingstone was delighted: “I never thought I’d catch Boris out on a classical anything.”

Which Shakespearian characters do you think the candidates most resemble?

Reuters Online invited readers to send in their questions to the four leading candidates in the Mayor of London election.

Transport and the Congestion Charge dominated your questions, but you also wanted to know about race relations.

Here are the answers from Labour’s Ken Livingstone, Conservative Boris Johnson, LibDem Brian Paddick and the Green Party’s Sian Berry.

For Ken Livingstone’s answers, read here

For Boris Johnson’s answers, read here

For Brian Paddick’s answers, read here

For the Sian Berry’s answers, read here

** For full coverage of the mayoral election go to our special report **

Safer streets, better housing, more reliable transport….that’s what Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Brian Paddick all want for London and it’s probably what most Londoners want for their city. But what’s the big difference then between “Red Ken”, “Crazy Boris” and …”Policeman turned Politician” Brian Paddick?

That’s still hard to fathom two weeks ahead of the May 1 London mayor election. But there was an air of tetchiness and getting personal during a Reuters Newsmaker debate at Reuters headquarters in London in front of an invited audience of around 250 people.

Liberal Democrat candidate Paddick told Livingstone he had “lost the plot” during his second term.

Ken “vote for me, I’m worth it” Livingstone hit out at Conservative candidate Johnson saying among the hardest decisions he ever had to take was to decide where to go for lunch with his former staff at “The Spectator” while he was editor of the right-wing magazine.

Johnson himself lashed out at the mayor for being inconsistent in his policies (”he wants millions of Chinese to come to London as tourists but is against a third runway at Heathrow” he said of Ken) and for “overpaying” his officials at City Hall. Ken himself was candid about what type of tourist he wants - the ones who spend the most money….not the Belgians…who according to him spend the least.

Under pressure from a lack of experience in managing large teams and projects, Johnson broke new ground (for himself) by finally announcing one person to join his ranks - Bob Diamond, the U.S.-born president of Barclays will join his team of advisors.

“I’m for taxpayer value” the Conservative candidate extolled, having collected the largest number of laughs for his customary one-liners…such as a commitment to keep funding the European Space Agency so he could send the (incumbent) mayor into orbit.

A business-like Livingstone weighed in with his eight-year track record as mayor, the safest pair of hands to run the capital’s 11.3 billion pound budget. Conscious of his audience of business professionals he stressed how he injected new life into the City of London, which apparently had been in decline when he took office.

“Slightly less regulation than our competitors” was his blueprint for future success of London as a financial centre.

Another one of Ken’s big themes for the next term, apart from the 2012 London Olympics, is the Crossrail, the much-delayed high-speed train linking east and west London, most importantly giving City workers quick access to Heathrow airport. There were a few gasps in the audience though when he prided himself on having improved London’s transport system…better than ever in his eyes but a source of frequent frustrations for most Londoners.

There was even a rare flicker of passion from earnest Paddick, when he was tackled by a member of the audience about his light-touch approach to drugs in south London when he was police chief - a policy, he said, he had pioneered in Brixton because that was what the “community” wanted and which had led to more arrests for drug dealing.

But as so often Paddick, struggling way off in third place in opinion polls, spent most of his time extolling his virtues as the man who will “listen and understand” and be “capable and competent”.

A straw poll on voting intentions among the audience saw Johnson, who is neck and neck with Livingston in real opinion polls, leading by a small margin. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority didn’t raise their hands at all - still unsure on who should be leading London in the future?

Just in case you’re not sure….here’s a five-word primer for what they stand for …in the candidates’ own words at today’s Newsmaker:

- Paddick: listen, understand, act, capable and competent
- Johnson: change, democracy, safety, taxpayer value
- Livingstone (in 7 words): vote for me I’m worth it

** For full coverage of the mayoral election go to our special report **

Every time Labour ministers call the Conservative candidate for London mayor by first name alone they’ll have to pay £5 into a ’swear box’.

“What we have to avoid is a situation where people think this election is a joke and that the future of London is not serious,” Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell told Sky News.

If this is all about taking the upcoming election seriously though, why has there been no similar decree regarding “Ken” (Livingstone), the equally maverick Labour candidate? And what will Labour do with all the money it makes from ministers who slip up?

Last week in an interview with Reuters Ken Livingstone dismissed his rival Boris Johnson’s 12 point lead in the race for London Mayor in a YouGov poll as a quirk, resulting from its method of surveying voters over the internet.

He said a Guardian ICM poll using more traditional methods — telephoning a sample of voters — would show him in a much better position.

He would appear to have been proved correct — the poll, published online on Wednesday evening, shows he has narrowed the gap with Johnson to just 2 points, once second preference votes are counted.

The poll forecasts a narrow victory in the election on May 1 for Johnson with 51 percent of final votes and Livingstone on 49 percent.

On first choice votes the gap is even slimmer, with Johnson on 42 percent, Livingstone on 41 percent and Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick trailing far behind on 10 percent.

Sitting at the Evening Standard’s London Mayor debate last night, it occurred to me how cosy this election is. Whoever wins the contest on May 1 will lead one of the world’s most high-profile cities with an 11.3 billion pound budget to run public transport, police and fire services and promote the economy of this global financial centre. Yet at times the candidates seem to think they are engaging in some kind of school debating contest.

First there was breathless Boris, who bounded up to the podium like a precocious teenager and raced through his speech to cram in as much as possible during his allotted eight minutes. Then a more nervous, and far less exuberant delivery from the class swot — Brian Paddick — the former policeman turned Lib Dem mayoral candidate, who delivered a serious and earnest “Why I should be head boy” speech.

Throughout Paddick’s speech, Boris and Ken whispered to each other on the podium as if they thought they were at the back at the class and couldn’t be seen. Boris could barely contain his glee when Paddick slipped up in his bid to assert his desirability over a candidate (Johnson) who spends his time at the “Henry” regatta. His conflation of Henley with the Hooray Henries associated with Johnson’s consituency prompted a barely disguised giggle from Boris and his supporters.

Then came Ken, who looked a little beyond the city’s borders to place London in its global context: “The things we do in the city set the agenda for the world,” he told the audience of “influentials” in west London’s Cadogan Hall.

But still, it was difficult to shake the sense that this election contest is more village hall than City Hall. Questions and answers centred around the congestion charge, beat police officers, free travel passes for the under-16s and preserving gardens. It was only at the end that we got a real sense of the scope of this newly created role when columnist Simon Jenkins asked what vision the candidates had for the city. The answer seems to be not too many skyscrapers but well-designed ones are OK. The future of London as a world financial centre seemed less clear.

Ken Livingstone talks to Tim Castle about standing for a third term as Mayor of London.

He dismisses a recent YouGov poll that shows him trailing Conservative rival Boris Johnson and says his rival candidates are all “Ken Lites” who have moved their policies closer to his.

He says questions about his age or suggestions that he has been in the post too long are “ephemera” designed to avoid the real issues in the campaign.

Click on the video below to see the full interview.

[flv:http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters42/mojo/2008/03/26032008053.flv 314 235]

Brian Paddick talks to Tim Castle about his autobiography and his candidacy for the mayoral election in London.

He says not being a politician is a “distinct advantage” when running against Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson.

“They are big personalities but they are not the sort of personalities that Londoners really want running London.”

Click on the video below to see the full interview.

[flv:http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters42/mojo/2008/03/19032008048-002.flv 314 235]

*For all the latest Reuters news, analysis, pictures and blogs from the campaign trail, visit our special London elections site*

The mayoral candidates have set out their plans for London.

Crime, affordable housing and public transport are discussed at length in their manifestos.

Ken Livingstone says he will raise the congestion charge in October for drivers of cars with high emissions. Boris Johnson says the plan is flawed and should be scrapped.

The mayor says that crime is falling and more houses are being built for ordinary people.

If he wins a third term, he promises that trains and buses will improve.

He says that only he can be trusted to oversee the huge public transport improvements planned for the capital ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Johnson and Paddick say it’s time for a change on May 1.

The Conservative hopeful thinks Livingstone has become stale after eight years in power.

The mayor’s rivals tell voters they will offer a new approach.

They’ve unveiled their campaign proposals. But what would you do if you were in charge of City Hall for the day?