Search questions

• Reference: 2021/1199
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 18 March 2021

I note that on 24 February 2021 Mr Toyin Agbetu - one of your Commissioners for Diversity in the Public Realm resigned, after his blog posts commenting on Jewish people were brought to City Hall’s attention by Jewish News . One of his posts claimed there was an ‘immoral hierarchy of suffering’ which had seen victims of the Holocaust ‘served well by Nazi hunters’ compared to African victims of the slave trade. Agbetu has also claimed that Jews played a leading role in the Atlantic slave trade. In 2007, he also heckled the Queen, during a service at Westminster Abbey...

• Reference: 2021/1200
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 18 March 2021

Given that your recruitment due diligence failed to uncover the alleged anti-Semitism of one Commission appointee, what else might it have failed to pick up? How can Londoners have confidence in the people you have selected?

• Reference: 2021/0043
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 21 January 2021

Is the Mayor happy with the public’s response to his New Years’ fireworks display?

• Reference: 2021/0047
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 21 January 2021

To ask the Mayor what progress has been made in appointments to his Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm?

• Reference: 2020/4067
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 19 November 2020

Given that Historic England - the statutory advisor to central and local government on heritage proposals - has clearly stated its position that contested statues should not be removed, can the Mayor provide assurance that the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm will abide by that guidance and not recommend the removal of any statues?

• Reference: 2020/4068
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 19 November 2020

Further to that same guidance from Historic England, can the Mayor confirm that he would follow it and not support the removal of the statues of Thomas Guy and Sir Robert Clayton from Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals?

• Reference: 2020/4070
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 19 November 2020

Your press release of 28 July 2020, announces the formation of a ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm.’ What do you understand to be the meaning of the term ‘public realm’ - most specifically in the context of private property, non-public spaces and government-owned land?

• Reference: 2020/4071
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 19 November 2020

In your press release of 28 July 2020 you state: ‘The Mayor is creating the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to help ensure London’s achievements and diversity are suitably reflected. Statues, plaques and street names largely reflect Victorian Britain…’ As a statement of fact, it is demonstrably untrue that London’s statues, plaques and street names largely reflect Victorian Britain, a period of only 60 years. London has a well-documented commemorative and location-naming timeline of at least a thousand years, which also stretches long beyond the Victorian era. Why would you suggest otherwise?

• Reference: 2020/2916
• Question by: Peter Whittle
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

I note Haringey Borough Council are setting in hand the removal of the name of Rhodes from Rhodes Avenue Primary School - even though it was named after the philanthropist Thomas Rhodes, the great-uncle of Cecil Rhodes, the person who donated the land for the school, which today would cost tens of millions, who had no historical links to colonialism. Is this development a harbinger of the kind of decision-making we can expect from your Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm?

• Reference: 2020/2924
• Question by: David Kurten
• Meeting date: 17 September 2020

Given the paucity of commercial advertising currently available to TfL to entertain London’s commuters on the tube, I welcome the return of ‘Poems on the Underground’. However, the current offerings available read like the maunderings of the disturbed. Whilst I am well aware that there are some in our city who are not keen on British culture, the English language has always offered a rich poetic tradition. Is it possible that those involved in this initiative could be persuaded to provide Londoners with something slightly more uplifting in these difficult times?