The last ten days have seen a growing sense of chaos and incompetence in Boris Johnson’s administration. The police have been called in over his disgraced deputy mayor, Johnson’s staggering taxi bills have been exposed, and there is growing concern over a multi-million pound Olympic budget shortfall. Johnson’s claim to be the “value for money” mayor is being exposed as nonsense.
 
Johnson’s Deputy Mayor for external relations has now gone after misuse of a Greater London Authority credit card. Clement is the third deputy mayor – Boris Johnson’s most senior level of appointments – to be forced out since the mayor was elected last year. It follows the forced resignation of deputies Ray Lewis and Tim Parker and the forced departures of deputy chief of staff James McGrath and Olympics adviser David Ross. London blogger Adam Bienkov comments: “You do have to wonder just what has been going on in Boris Johnson's administration. The man walks in dishing out vanity titles to any local big-wig, financial whizz kid, or snake oil salesman who wants one, and then stands in amazement as they fall down around him. And even after four of his other senior aides were forced out last year he’s still not learnt his lesson.”

Commenting on the resignation of Boris Johnson's Deputy Mayor, Ian Clement, Ken Livingstone said:

"Ian Clement is the third of Boris Johnson's Deputy Mayors to be forced to quit, following Ray Lewis and Tim Parker, in only a little more than a year in office. Equally forced out have been Boris Johnson's deputy chief of staff James McGrath and his top Olympics advisor David Ross. This is by any reckoning a record of extraordinary managerial incompetence at the top of London government.

"It is a total contrast to my administration - which saw in eight years only a single resignation.

"Boris Johnson has brought in a regime beset by the serial loss of top leaders who have been forced to resign due to misconduct or driven from office by the incompetence of the new Mayor's Office."

By Billy Hayes, General Secretary, Communication Workers Union

The government proposes to sell off up to 50% of Royal Mail. At the moment the second reading of the Bill in Parliament has not been timetabled. The rationale behind the privatisation is that only the private sector can supply the expertise, and the capital to transform the industry.

Now, Royal Mail has suffered from under-investment by successive governments.

At the start of the 1990s, successive governments have hoped to privatise the industry. As a consequence, money was taken out rather than reinvested. The Labour government has supported greater investment, particularly since 2004, but the industry has not received the most up to date machinery.

The annual Jewish cultural festival – Simcha on the Square – has been cancelled because Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson has withdrawn most of its funding.

In previous years the festival was strongly supported by Ken Livingstone’s Mayor’s Office, working with Jewish Culture UK, and providing an annual grant of £50,000 together with free use of Trafalgar Square.