On general election day, Boris Johnson will almost certainly become a member of parliament as well as London Mayor. He won’t be the only City Hall politician to take up a Commons seat. Three of the London Assembly’s 25 members are just as sure of becoming MPs too, and may well be joined by a fourth. Conservative AMs James Cleverly, Kit Malthouse and Victoria Borwick have all been selected to contest safe Tory constituencies, while Labour’s Andrew Dismore is fighting to regain the ultra-marginal seat of Hendon he narrowly lost in 2010.
All four AMs have said they will complete their present terms in those roles, which end in May, 2016, even if they become MPs as well in a few weeks’ time (though, as we shall see, it seems that one of them might not). Meanwhile, one of Johnson’s most senior deputies, Stephen Greenhalgh, is campaigning to become his boss’s successor and much of Johnson’s activity as mayor seems primarily designed to persuade the nation that he’d be the best successor to David Cameron as Tory leader: that photo-op with Hilary Clinton on that meaningless jaunt to the US; the supposed “trade” trip to Kurdistan to get his picture taken holding a big gun.
With more than a year to go until the next London elections, the capital’s top tier of government is beginning to look a rather low priority for several of the very people we Londoners elect and pay to represent us there. Is there any way that this can be OK? Are we heading for a year of drift and lassitude?
In fact, the case against the politicians concerned is not as open and shut as it might appear. Johnson can point out that the prime minister himself is also an MP. Greenhalgh’s position as head of the mayor’s office for policing and crime does not disqualify him from making a pitch to be next Tory mayoral candidate, any more than AMs are prevented by their posts from campaigning for London parliamentary candidates representing their respective parties. As for the four AMs seeking Commons seats, their situations vary.
Three of them – Cleverly, Malthouse and Dismore – represent London Assembly constituencies. Were they to stand down after becoming MPs, by-elections would have to be held to find replacements. The Greater London Authority estimates that individual constituency by elections would cost £1m-£1.5m to conduct. There would be a bulk order discount, so to speak, if more than one were held on the same day and the cost would be roughly halved if the constituency AMs resigned now so that the by-elections could be held on the same day as the general election. Cleverly and Malthouse, who stand practically no chance of failing to win the Commons seats they’re after, could certainly afford to take that risk. Even so, it’s a lot of taxpayer dough to spend on replenishing a democratic body which, sad but true, few Londoners pay much attention to.
Cleverly gives the cost of by elections as his main justification for intending to stay on as an AM even if, as expected, he begins representing the electors of Braintree in Essex in the Commons as well as those of Bexley and Bromley at City Hall in a few weeks’ time. He says he will “honour his commitment” to the latter and points out that he has stood down as chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, a position he was appointed to by the mayor, thereby freeing up more time.
Likewise, Malthouse, who is line to win the parliamentary seat of North West Hampshire, has stepped down as Johnson’s deputy for business and enterprise, though his statement announcing this on the local Conservative Association website made no mention of his continuing as a London assembly member, representing the West Central constituency. Unlike Cleverly, he’s provided me with no assurance about honouring his commitment to the Londoners who put him into City Hall.
One consequence for AMs who hold down MP jobs as well is that they take a two-thirds pay cut, from just over £55,000 a year to around £18,300. The axe will fall on Johnson’s pay packet too, reducing it from £150,000 a year to £50,000. All this seems right and proper in one way but, of course, provides a further potential justification for not giving the responsibilities of being an AM (or mayor) a great deal of time or attention.
Doing the two jobs properly would, however, be a simpler matter for Dismore than for Cleverly or Malthouse, whose parliamentary seats are outside the capital. The Hendon parliamentary seat Dismore lost to Conservative Matthew Offord by just 106 votes five years ago is one of four that fit inside the Barnet and Camden constituency he represents on the Assembly. Dismore tells me that many of his former Hendon constituents still treat him as though he were their MP, with much of his caseload as an AM coming from that area. Like Cleverly, he points to the expense of an by-election as a reason for remaining on the Assembly until next year should he return to the Commons, but says that if this happens he will donate his reduced AM salary to charity.
With Borwick, the situation is significantly different from that of the other three AMs. Unlike them, she did not win an Assembly constituency seat but one of the 11 Londonwide ones assigned through proportional representation. This means that if she stood down as an AM, there would be no need for a £1-£1.5m by-election as her vacated seat would simply be offered to the highest placed unsuccessful Conservative on the party’s 2012 election candidate list. Unlike her two Conservative colleagues, she, like Dismore, is standing for a London Commons seat, in her case plum, True Blue Kensington, which makes combining the roles of Londonwide AM and MP easier.
Borwick, who is also a member of Royal Kensington and Chelsea council, confirmed on Tuesday that she intends to resign as Johnson’s statutory deputy, a role that would have entailed her taking over from him if he stepped down before the end of his mayoral term. This decision means she sacrifices £44,000 a year. Borwick’s son Thomas, speaking on her behalf, has told the Guardian that his mother will serve out her term as an AM, although I understand that, as the dust settles on the necessarily hasty process of finding a successor to the unfortunate Sir Malcolm Rifkind, she is now thinking through exactly what she ought to do.
As deputy mayor and AM, Borwick has had a number of largely low profile but important commitments which she believes she should not relinquish lightly for fear of letting people down. It would also, presumably, need to be ascertained that her first in line potential replacement as AM is still available, eager and in a position to get quickly up to speed. Good manners and proper timing are, I’m assured, the key considerations for Borwick.
Where does all this leave the democratic institutions of City Hall for the next twelve months or so? Labour group leader Len Duvall has gone on the attack, telling the Evening Standard that Johnson and senior colleagues are “in full retreat from City Hall” to pursue ambitions elsewhere, and claiming that it increasingly looks as though London will be “left treading water until 2016.”
This argument would gather further force if, as seems very possible, Johnson resigns as mayor before the next mayoral election. He would almost certainly wait until after November 5, this being less than six months before his second mayoral term ends and therefore avoiding the need for a mayoral by-election costing £12-£15m and all the criticism about wasted taxpayer money that would go with it.
Johnson would then be free to devote all his energies – as opposed to about 90% of them as at present – to becoming the next leader of the Conservatives should the Tories lose in May and Cameron resign as his party’s leader – or even being that new leader, depending on the timetable - or else filling some role in any second Cameron-led government without looking even more like a part-time mayor than he does already.
Of course, we might just shrug and say that Johnson would hardly be missed (correct) and that the Assembly is so toothless it’s not worth worrying too much about a handful of its members spending more time at the Palace of Westminster than in Norman Foster’s kinky glass globe by Tower Bridge (not so clear cut). After all, there’s quite a list of AMs who’ve made the move upstream over the years: Conservative Angie Bray, Labour mayoral hopeful David Lammy and Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone to name but three. The lure of the Commons for AMs will always be strong. But maybe it would be less so if the Assembly’s powers and status were to be enhanced - as, for the good of London and its future mayors, they surely should be.
