The Mayor, Boris Johnson, has delivered on his manifesto promise to be open about the roles and pay of his top advisers.

His appointment of Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross as his representative on the London Organising Committee for the Olympics is also welcome, as is his retention of Ken Livingstone's highly qualified aide Neale Coleman.

Openness about rewards is entirely the right approach - and so is a readiness to keep the best of those who served under the previous Mayor.

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  Sex, lies and the Stasi

  On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall was finally breached, ending the reign of East Germany’s feared security service. Here Anne McElvoy, who spent much of the Eighties in the city, recalls her encounters with the spooks

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  The geeky-girl solo artists descending on the music scene

  Kookiness is what sells music these days and these opinionated artists have it in spades, says Jasmine Gardner

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