Reflecting on election night, Tory AM Roger Evans at Conservative Home:
As the results became clear, one Labour member sourly remarked, "You are about to discover that Assembly Members are lower than dirt on the Mayor's shoes." Thanks to a more collegiate approach from Boris, this prediction has not come to pass, however it casts an interesting light on the relationship between the Mayor's office and the group which shares his politics but has a responsibility to scrutinise the executive – the key question being "What is the point of the Conservative Group?"
His thoughtful answer includes pressing the mayor and GLA group on constituency issues, some of which Evans, who represents Havering and Redbridge, blogs about here.
This brings me to a couple of this blog's countless noble objectives. One is to get out and report on aspects of London life that tend to go unnoticed: a visit to Havering and Redbridge is overdue. Another is to make Assembly Members better-known.
In keeping with the latter I can exclusively reveal that Roger Evans writes fiction in his spare time. His self-published novel Gremal Quest tells the story of a creature from a subterranean world and its adventures overground in the capital, beginning in Greenwich Park. I'm a third a of the way through and finding that the novel is passing the most basic test of fiction: I want to keep turning the pages. More on Gremal Quest after I find out if it was successful.
