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| London mayoral election hustings - live | London mayoral election hustings - live |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 1.59pm: Over to Ken. He's setting out three pledges around fuel bills. He says Boris promised four years ago to insulate 200,000 homes, but he's done just 40,000. If elected, he would call an immediate meeting of energy suppliers to get the maximum money available (which I think he said was £400m) to make sure more homes are made energy efficient to insulate them against rising bills. | |
| Secondly, Ken pledges to set up a London energy purchasing co-operative that would allow the "bulk buying" of energy, again to bring down bills. | |
| Lastly, he will protect the Freedom Pass. He says he's pleased Boris has recognised that increasing the eligibility threshold from 60 to 66 (it went up to 65 in 2010, I believe). He says it's a shame Boris only decided to protect the age threshold when he (Ken) pulled ahead in the polls. | |
| 1.53pm: Boris says he'd delivered more affordable homes and invested in upgrading the transport system, and of course work on Crossrail - the rail service linking the east and west of London - is starting soon. He says he's going to expand his popular bike hire scheme, and his first new Routemaster is going to hit the streets (though he doesn't mention the fact this has been delayed). | |
| He also highlights the merit of conductors on these buses (there will be seven on the streets by May), which is ironic since in 2008 the cost of his 21st century Routemaster caused rows because he hadn't appeared at first to factor in the fact it would required conductors (ie increasing cost). | |
| 1.50pm: Johnson says he froze the council tax precept and stopped the "madness" of it going up and up. He promised and delivered the 24-hour Freedom Pass to help people get to work, stay in work. In tough times it's right to help people whichever way we can. (He got a bit of applause for that) He says he's going to keep it at 60. (It was to go up in light of the equalising of the pension age to 65 from 2010). | |
| 1.47pm: So... I managed to have my first technical glitch just as the mood rose in the room. It was when Deuchars touched on transport (point 2). A smattering of applause to show just how much this issue matters. A bit later, when the need for good health and social care came up, a few "hear hears" emerged. | |
| Deuchars talks about digital inclusion of older people, (good point, given the surge in social networking. It went down well with the audience. | |
| Now it's over to each of the contenders to pitch to the audience. | |
| 1.42pm: We're off. Age UK London's chief executive, Samantha Mauger, is introducing the event. Her colleague Gordon Deuchars is outlining the main tenets of the Age UK London manifesto for older people. The charity wants the new mayor to make older people a priority action (there 2 million people over 50 living in the capital). The charity wants action (on nine areas, so the audience will want to know what the contenders have to say on these issues). They are: | |
| 1 Challenging stereotypes to highlight older people's contribution to society. | |
| 2 Travel accessibility issues and maintaininng access to the Freedom Pass, ensuring that it is not means-tested. | |
| 3. Increasing the visible police presence and empowering as well as assisting older people in relation to crime. | |
| 4. Helping older people to stay in their own homes or move to be close to family, and ensuring that homes are easy to heat and suitable for their changing needs. Also the needs of older homeless people need to be address. | |
| 5. Good health and social care. | |
| 6. Support in training and finding jobs as well as finding volunteering opportunities. | |
| 7. Suitable seating in public places and clearly signed public toilets in street. | |
| 8. Fitness and leisure: Help lift financial and physical access barriers so that Londoners, irrespective of age, disability or means, are able to participate in London's cultural, leisure and intellectual life. | |
| 9. Making information on London's facilities and services accessible and easily available in a range of written formats, as well as electronically. | |
| 1.41pm: All three candidates are at the table and ready to go. Ken (black suit, yellow tie) is on the left (ho), Paddick (blue suit and shirt, royal blue tie) on the right, with Boris (dark blue suit, salmon pink shirt and blue tie.) They're posing together for photos. | |
| 1.39pm: There's a story in today's London Evening Standard about fears of vote fraud in the capital. | |
| Dozens of flats in a key borough are holding up to eight people per bedroom, according to the electoral register. Tenants in Tower Hamlets said it was "impossible" for so many residents to share one property and some admitted they had never heard of their apparent flatmates. In one case, 12 adults are still listed as voters at a three-bedroom flat in Mile End despite having moved out about four months before officials gathered data for the register. | |
| 1.33pm: On the crime and policing front, Paddick has quite a lot to bring to the party as a former Metropolitan police officer who rose to the rank of deputy assistant commissioner before retiring from the Met in 2007 after 30 years' service. The election on 3 May is the first in which Londoners will also vote for an elected crime and police commissioner. | |
| While YouGov polling suggests transport is the top issue of concern, his director of campaigns tells me internal polling suggests crime is the number one concern, which naturally plays to Paddick's advantage. (In the February YouGov poll, Johnson led as the best man to tackle crime. But it was Paddick's best polling on issues by a stretch (15%), compared with improving transport (1%), cost of living concerns (4%), and creating jobs (3%). | |
| Paddick says if elected, he would take on the policing role himself. (Boris received new powers as head of the mayor's office of policing and crime in January, a day-to-day role he has delegated to his deputy mayor for policing, Kit Malthouse.) Paddick says that keeping the capital safe "is something too important to be delegated to a deputy". | |
| He said he would reinstate 150 sergeants that have been removed from safer neighbourhood teams under Johnson's watch and restore police numbers to the high of 33,500. | |
| On transport he has pledged: | |
| • A one-hour bus ticket that would reduce fares for bus users by allowing them to hop on and off as many times as necessary within an hour. | |
| • Early bird fares that would reward passengers starting their journeys before the morning rush hour, to reduce the numbers of passengers on peak services. | |
| • Part-time travel cards that would introduce special rates for those who do not travel so frequently, helping low earning part-time workers in particular. | |
| He has also pledged to cut £13 off the annual council tax precept. | |
| 1.26pm: The candidates are still setting out their stalls, and today is likely to be as much as each of the three candidates attacking each other's records or in the case of Paddick, who is bereft of a stint in political office, the ideas he has in mind. | |
| The two big issues playing out so far between the mayors past and present are transport fares and policing. | |
| Livingstone has pledged to introduce an emergency fares package in the autumn of 2012, which would cut fares by 7% and bring them down to "at least 2011 levels" thereby overturning the fare hike averaging 5.6% which kicked in this January. Bus fares would be cut by 11%. Transport fares would be frozen for 2013 and he vowed to end plans for above-inflation rises beyond. | |
| Transport for London, which Johnson chairs, has dismissed Livingston's claim that he can fund the cut, followed by a three-year freeze on fares, by drawing on £729 m surplus in its operating budget. Tfl says the money "does not exist", and that any cash raised from fares is spent on investment project. | |
| Johnson says you can't trust Livingstone on this, and he has on two occasions made pledges to cut or freeze fares that were never delivered. | |
| But polling in January suggested Livingstone's promise, backed by intense campaigning, was playing well with voters. Clearly rattled and keen to show he is also aiming to keep more money in Londoners' pockets, Johnson suddenly announced that he was not only freezing the council tax precept for the fourth year (City Hall's share of the levy, which funds Tfl, the fire authority, the Met Police and the Olympics) but cutting it slightly by 1% in the next financial year. | |
| But that didn't seem to impress as much, not least when it worked out to be a 26p cut a week on the average band D property. | |
| Johnson upped the ante in what was effectively his first pledge of the campaign to take shape when it was announced that the 1% cut was just a downpayment on what would follow in his second term: a cut every year funded by making £150m ore of savings across the Greater London authority group over the four-year term. | |
| Tellingly, this did not come from Johnson's lips, but was delivered by proxy courtesy of Sir Edward Lister, his City Hall chief of staff and deputy mayor. | |
| The other big battle is over policing. Livingstone has pledged to reverse Johnson's cuts to police numbers and return officer numbers to their 2010 peak of 33,260. | |
| This will be funded by increasing the amount Tfl pays to the Metropolitan police for deploying officers on the transport network, and efficiency savings. (London received a £90m grant in January to keep numbers in recognition of the major policing challenges posed by the Olympics and Queen's diamond jubilee celebrations.) | |
| 1.20pm: I've been lucky enough to bag a seat at a table quite near the top table, sitting alongside two women providing "speech to text" for those in the audience who are hard of hearing. The only downside is that I'm at a side angle to where the contenders will be sitting, so I won't necessarily be able to see their expressions. | |
| I'm going to provide a bit of background and policy text while I'm waiting. | |
| So where are our candidates on issues affecting older people in London? | |
| Yesterday, Livingstone pledged to extend the Freedom Pass to include free use of the Cycle Hire Scheme to get more older people cycling. | |
| Apparently, a recent London assembly investigation found the profile of users of the scheme is mainly young-ish (68% are aged 24-44 years) as well as mostly male, and white (80% of users), and 60% have a household income of over £50,000. | |
| The Labour contender reckons it would the cost of letting Freedom Pass (FP) users to use the bikes for free would be less than £250,000 a year and no new bikes would be needed because the scheme is not operating to capacity. | |
| Johnson, on the other hand, can point to the fact that he extended the Freedom Pass to 24 hours (until 2009, it was restricted to off-peak hours). It covers tube, bus, the London overground, the tram, etc. (There are currently 1.2 million FP holders, including some disabled people and army veterans). | |
| This from the City Hall press office: | |
| "The mayor has protected all free and concessionary travel for older people, students, veterans and disabled Londoners remains protected in full, which means that 40% of bus passengers will continue to travel free or at a substantial concessionary rate." | |
| As for Brian Paddick he would appoint a deputy mayor for older people – ensuring a dedicated deputy mayor for older people to ensure they have a voice at City Hall and preserve the Freedom Pass. | |
| 1.13pm: It's only just past 1pm, and already the meeting room is filling up. Demand for tickets far outstripped supply, and I overheard someone saying that some people had turned up without one hoping for the best. | 1.13pm: It's only just past 1pm, and already the meeting room is filling up. Demand for tickets far outstripped supply, and I overheard someone saying that some people had turned up without one hoping for the best. |
| Age UK London tells me there are 1.2 million people in London aged 60 or over – the majority of whom are women. There are 5.8 million people registered to vote at the London mayoral and assembly elections on 3 May (now 72 days away), and older people are far more likely to vote than their younger counterparts. That makes them a pretty big constituency to woo. | Age UK London tells me there are 1.2 million people in London aged 60 or over – the majority of whom are women. There are 5.8 million people registered to vote at the London mayoral and assembly elections on 3 May (now 72 days away), and older people are far more likely to vote than their younger counterparts. That makes them a pretty big constituency to woo. |
| So the heat is on for our three candidates. | So the heat is on for our three candidates. |
| 12.58pm: I'm at the Friends Meeting House in Euston Road, London, to witness round one of the mayoral campaign. In the blue corner Boris Johnson, in the red corner Ken Livingstone. Let's hope this particular bout does not end up like the David Haye - Dereck Chisora brawl. Also on the platform is Brian Paddick for the Liberal Democrats. | 12.58pm: I'm at the Friends Meeting House in Euston Road, London, to witness round one of the mayoral campaign. In the blue corner Boris Johnson, in the red corner Ken Livingstone. Let's hope this particular bout does not end up like the David Haye - Dereck Chisora brawl. Also on the platform is Brian Paddick for the Liberal Democrats. |
| Those turning up for the mayoral election question time, organised by Age UK London and the Greater London Forum for Older People (GLF) may be forgiven for seeing the past flash before their eyes, since the line-up for the main three parties is exactly the same as the last mayoral election in 2008. And just like last time, the race is widely seen as a two-horse race between the Conservative and Labour candidates, both on first-name terms with the nation, both with records to defend, with polling putting them neck-and-neck. | Those turning up for the mayoral election question time, organised by Age UK London and the Greater London Forum for Older People (GLF) may be forgiven for seeing the past flash before their eyes, since the line-up for the main three parties is exactly the same as the last mayoral election in 2008. And just like last time, the race is widely seen as a two-horse race between the Conservative and Labour candidates, both on first-name terms with the nation, both with records to defend, with polling putting them neck-and-neck. |
| A handful of debates were staged before Christmas, but none to date with Johnson, who still has a city to run. | A handful of debates were staged before Christmas, but none to date with Johnson, who still has a city to run. |
| The trio facing the 200-strong audience do not represent the full slate of prospective candidates planning to put their nominations in when the formal campaign period begins on 20 March. | The trio facing the 200-strong audience do not represent the full slate of prospective candidates planning to put their nominations in when the formal campaign period begins on 20 March. |
| Jenny Jones, the Green party's mayoral candidate, last week tweeted her frustration about not appearing in a debate organised by charities for older people, pointing out that she is herself 62 years old, and would also have broken up the all-male platform. | Jenny Jones, the Green party's mayoral candidate, last week tweeted her frustration about not appearing in a debate organised by charities for older people, pointing out that she is herself 62 years old, and would also have broken up the all-male platform. |
| But the charity (which is independent charity to the national Age UK charity), said resource restraints and a desire to ensure as many questions as possible were put to the main contenders meant they regretfully had to restrict the debate to the three main political parties. | But the charity (which is independent charity to the national Age UK charity), said resource restraints and a desire to ensure as many questions as possible were put to the main contenders meant they regretfully had to restrict the debate to the three main political parties. |
| I'll be blogging throughout the event. Here's the short schedule. | I'll be blogging throughout the event. Here's the short schedule. |
| 1.30pm: Age UK London's chief executive, Samantha Mauger, is giving a short speech. | 1.30pm: Age UK London's chief executive, Samantha Mauger, is giving a short speech. |
| 1.45pm: Age UK will launch an Older People's manifesto, which calls on the incoming mayor and London assembly to take action in nine areas to improve older Londoners' lot. Each candidate will be asked to say what they will do. | 1.45pm: Age UK will launch an Older People's manifesto, which calls on the incoming mayor and London assembly to take action in nine areas to improve older Londoners' lot. Each candidate will be asked to say what they will do. |
| 2.00pm: The one-hour question-and-answer session begins. It will be broken down into four areas: stereotypes and diversity; transport; housing and then general. There will be two prepared questions and two from the floor for each section. | 2.00pm: The one-hour question-and-answer session begins. It will be broken down into four areas: stereotypes and diversity; transport; housing and then general. There will be two prepared questions and two from the floor for each section. |