What's the best way to summarise this morning's proceedings? I know: with bullet points, in order of entertainment value.
- It swiftly emerged that Simon Milton, the Mayor's "chief of staff" - or not, as the case may be - was in no position to answer most of the committee's questions, whereas Boris himself might have been. It was therefore decided that Mayor Johnson himself would be invited to attend the next BMAC gathering. Oh joy: I think he'd sooner take tea with Richard Barnbrook.
- Milton revealed that Boris told Ian Clement last summer that he thought the latter shouldn't have a corporate credit card "and that he should hand it back." This happened after he'd learned that Clement had upgraded his July pre-Olympic flight to Beijing when the Mayor had made a show of travelling thriftily with the proles. Question time. How come that despite this Clement used the card to get his Jag fixed in November? No one, including Milton, seemed to know precisely why that came to pass. Perhaps only Clement himself does.
- New rules governing the approval of advisers' expenses came into force on 11 March. They require the Mayor himself to sign off his team members' expenses, and he did so for the first time in April. He did it again in May. The documents to which he added his signature were called GLA corporate credit card logs. In these were compiled the (arguably) legitimate expenses of Ian Clement, with any "personal use" ones already stripped out by the City Hall staff responsible. But if Boris thought Clement shouldn't any longer have had a corporate card at all, why was he content to effectively endorse his continuing use of one? Had he forgotten all about it? Had he assumed Clement had handed it in? Had he just changed his mind? Or did he simply not look at what he was signing?
- GLA director of finance Martin Clarke acknowledged that certain items, including refreshments for Brian Coleman, Kulveer Ranger and Gareth Bacon should not have been let through (it didn't help that "Bacon" was misspelled as "Balon") but stressed that any expenses system depends to a large degree on trust.
- Clarke also said that Clement had been told last November (those Jag repairs) and this February (the Sainsburys shops) that he shouldn't make personal use of the card, and that there was a history of informal challenges to other claims he made. Nonetheless, no disciplinary sanction ensued and Clement kept his credit card until three weeks ago.
- Veiled attempts by Tory Committee members to make out that it was all Ken Livingstone's fault did not get very far.
- Mike Tuffrey asked for all the expenses of the Mayor, his team and Assembly members to be published. The rest of the committee seemed to agree.
- The police have been called in.
- Boris Johnson was somewhere else.
Exit, stage left. Fat lady sings. The end.
