Boris, beware the battle of the egos

The Mayor is in his 13th week of power, with 195 to go. He is still in his honeymoon period; no one can have expected him to be 100 per cent effective from day one. But the issue of his developing style of government is more serious than any hiccups caused by resignations.

Boris has evolved a governing "collective" rather than a machine. He has appointed serious figures with minds of their own - but without, yet, the fully evolved leadership needed to get a grip on London's anarchy of boroughs, quangos and officials, never mind the citizenry. And it will take some time to gain full control over the hundreds of officials inherited from Ken.

Partly it is the act he followed. Just as almost any successor was bound to be less articulate and decisive than Tony Blair, so Boris Johnson faces a parallel problem in taking office after Livingstone. Not only did the former mayor famously understand the business of government, he created a City Hall machine designed to work perfectly for his style and objectives. However, Ken's mastery of London government can provide Johnson with clues as to how to fashion the new regime.

Livingstone ran City Hall and its agencies with a rod of iron. He may have looked like "cuddly Ken" to distant supporters but his team were cuddly only in the sense that a boa constrictor embraces its victims. Put more positively, the Kenocracy governed the capital with a well-understood plan of what it was trying to achieve - and iron discipline. Decisions were made in the Mayor's Office or in agencies such as Transport for London where the Mayor's policies were, metaphorically, carved on the walls. Those who stepped out of line were banished.

Boris will never run a Stalinist administration on the Livingstone model, which in some ways is a blessing. But there are key lessons to be learned from the previous regime. First, the most senior figures in the administration - deputy mayors, executive directors or whatever - must act with the Mayor's total trust and authority.

When Livingstone's chief of staff (Simon Fletcher) or his economics adviser (John Ross) spoke they were understood to be speaking with their master's voice. Second, everything Ken's people did had its roots in documents such as the London Plan, a catch-all strategy covering Livingstone's policies on planning, transport, economic development and much else. But, more than that, the former mayor's view of how London should develop was widely understood well beyond City Hall. Borough leaders, developers, Whitehall and non-governmental organisations knew, for good or for ill, where they stood. Boris's team has been created in a very different way from the one Ken imported in 2000. While people such as Fletcher, Ross, transport director Redmond O'Neill and environment adviser Mark Watts had worked with Livingstone during his years of exile in Parliament, Johnson has created a team from scratch. He has brought individuals together from the private sector, the London Assembly, the boroughs, think-tanks and not-for-profit organisations.

If they are to work effectively as a team, someone will need to be certain all of them know what the Mayor's line is on each issue and to ensure that such a line, taken as a whole, is coherent. Boris can surely also learn from the problems besetting Gordon Brown as a result of the PM's failure to develop a "narrative" for his government. Yesterday, Boris suggested that during the autumn he will publish a thought-through "plan of action" for London. It will be an important statement of what he stands for. It needs to be coherent and then transmitted across the city.

So who is now best placed to give the Mayor's Office the necessary degree of coherence? Boris is an ambitious political creature but, like Tony Blair, probably not a "details man". The first deputy mayor, Tim Parker, is the obvious candidate to be the regime's nerve centre. But we have recently seen the appointment of Sir Simon Milton as a deputy mayor and ex-think-tanker Anthony Browne as policy director.

Milton and Browne have significant experience in the corridors of power. However, there are also two other deputy mayors: Kit Malthouse and Ian Clement. Johnson, Parker, Milton, Malthouse, Clement and Browne are all individuals used to projecting their own views. As a result, there must now be a risk of a polycentric administration - and a confused mayoral voice. Choices about both the content and style of government will need to be made soon - and then implemented with certainty and clarity. The change of City Hall regime in May has also thrown up many longer term questions. For a start, it has proved impossible to change over this "American" system of city government at British speed; that is, overnight. There may in future need to be an interval between election day and "inauguration" so the Mayor can appoint his key staff in line with British employment practice. Yesterday's story about pay-offs for ex-Livingstone advisers suggests this issue, too, should be addressed.

An independent appointments office may be needed to oversee, though not impede, the Mayor's decisions. The power to delegate responsibility to deputy mayors should be enshrined in law.

But for the next three years and nine months, at least, Boris Johnson is Mayor of London. It is in everyone's best interest that he governs well. An economic downturn will, of itself, require the Mayor to come up with proposals to mitigate the impacts on the property market, jobs and regeneration. A "recovery plan" would be no bad thing. His City Hall team needs to know exactly what its boss wants it to deliver for his city.

That message then needs to be transmitted to every corner of the Mayor's empire: it needs to be heard in Hillingdon and Havering just as much as at London Bridge. Boris may be too good natured to operate a Ken-style machine. But at some point - probably sooner rather than later - he will have to impose his settled will.