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• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 12 June 2002

You talk about the huge burden that falls on the Mayor's sole shoulders and that you are important to him because you help him to carry that burden. Isn't the real problem that the Mayor has to do with his non-membership of any of the mainstream political parties? He's here as an independent and he cannot actually rely on any of the political groupings to help him shoulder the burden in the usual accountable, transparent way. He has to rely on people like you precisely because he has no relationship with any of the other political parties here.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 12 June 2002

Why is it then that the Mayor does seem to have made it very clear that he'd actually rather like to go back inside the Labour Party? Clearly, he is finding it a strain to carry this entire burden without party machine support of any particular party.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 12 June 2002

Let me put it this way to you. You talked about other mayors elsewhere. Actually, any mayor I can think of - whether they be in Paris where they are drawn from the successful party, or indeed New York where you have either a Republican or a Democrat - they are able to draw on their own party resources and loyalties which are transparent to the people who are then electing the parties. I put it to you that one of the reasons why he couldn't use the services of his Deputy in his absence was precisely because it would...