Which member of the London Assembly finds Boris Johnson most infuriating? On the evidence of the four Mayor's Question Times so far, I'd say it was the Green Party's Jenny Jones. Her interrogations of him in the chamber have reminded me of a kind yet demanding primary school teacher having her patience sorely tested by a gifted but exasperating pupil. Yesterday, in the City Hall cafe, she gave me an insight into a less public exchange between the two. The way she told it, it went a bit like this:
The Blond: "Would you consider becoming my informal adviser on environmental issues?"
The Green: "What, so you can not pay me for the job and ignore everything I tell you too?"
The context for this rebuffed offer was the extremely long time it took Mayor Johnson to fill the environment post. At one MQT Jones had put it to him that this was simply because he didn't know anyone who'd be up to the task. Johnson's subsequent appointment of Isabel Dedring seemed to confirm this suspicion: Dedring is to be seconded from her present job as Transport for London's policy director, suggesting that a dearth of suitable Tory types had obliged Johnson to look within the GLA "family".
The fact that Dedring wrote Ken Livingstone's Climate Change Action Plan has amused Ken admirers and deepened Ken-haters' umbrage at Johnson's apparently becoming rather chummy with the TfL hierarchy, which both they and he accused during the election of being propagandists on Livingstone's behalf. The Greens, though are pleased: collaborators with Livingstone during his second term, they rate Dedring highly. That said, Jones noted at yesterday's MQTs that she is not to be given the title of Deputy Mayor, suggesting a low position in the adviser hierarchy reflected a low priority for green policies.
Johnson demurred. And perhaps environmentalists should take heart from Dedring's salary arrangements. Her pay from TfL is higher than that of the most generously rewarded of Johnson's lieutenants and she won't be taking a cut. If remuneration talks, Dedring's voice will be the loudest in Team Boris.
