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Comment: The lessons of a lost deputy
Evening Standard19 Aug 2008
The Mayor, Boris Johnson, has lost another deputy. Tim Parker, the first deputy mayor, has resigned once it became clear he would not, after all, be running Transport for London, as he was officially set to do next month. Instead, the Mayor himself will take charge of TfL. Certainly there is a sound case for the Mayor to run TfL - Ken Livingstone did so. Transport is the major part of the mayoral brief, with a budget of £6.5 billion, and contentious issues such as setting fares should be decided by someone who is directly elected.
This is an awkward loss: Mr Parker was a respected private equity boss with a genius for cutting unnecessary costs in the businesses he took over, an invaluable attribute for reforming the bureaucracy at City hall. But this resignation also suggests Mr Johnson may need to think again about the nature of the roles within his administration. It should not have come as a surprise that so many decisions to do with transport are highly political; this should have been apparent when he was planning for office before the election. Mr Parker's resignation is not anything like as serious as that of another of Mr Johnson's deputy mayors, Ray Lewis, but it does not look good.
It would be a pity if this deterred the Mayor from making bold appointments to other positions from outside the ranks of career politicians and administrators. Individuals with experience from the private sector can be a real asset in public office, and Mr Parker, with his grasp of financial detail, provided skills that the Mayor lacks. Mr Johnson should continue to spread his net wide - unlike Ken Livingstone, who was too narrow in his choice of adjutants - but he will need to think more clearly in future about what job his appointees are expected to do. Fortunately, his other deputy mayors, sir simon Milton, Kit Malthouse, Richard Barnes and Ian Clement, are capable men, with extensive experience of local government. Let us hope the mayor retains their services - he can survive the loss of two deputies; any more will look like carelessness.
