Emperor Ken

Picture Ken Livingstone in his favourite Ozwald Boateng suit, standing on a stone staircase strewn with rose petals. The £895 suit is of deepest purple, the colour worn by the Caesars, and as Ken speaks there is indeed an imperial quality in his bearing. He is celebrating the opening of his great construction epic, the £25 million north terrace at Trafalgar Square, which, he declares, he has handed back to the people. Fireworks light the darkening sky, wine is poured and Ken nods to the crowd as Lord Foster, his celebrated architect, stands at his side, beaming.

This is the charismatic figure, a modern political legend, who trumpets his successes unashamedly. And rightly so, perhaps. The central London congestion charge, he proclaims with pride, has led the world in implementing a radical answer to inner-city traffic chaos. The dramatic transformation of the capital's buses not only accounts for the entire Government target for increasing bus use across the country, but has seen the highest number of passengers since the days of the Beatles. His focus on increasing the number of Met police officers has seen numbers rise by more than 3,000 to 28,602, more than at any time in London's history.

This coming week sees two more major events in Ken's career. A report by the Standards Board for England into his conduct at a party, at which a guest suffered serious injuries after falling down a stairwell, is due to be released "imminently", though one planned release date has already had to be abandoned due to legal complications.

And tomorrow, a day of days for Ken, he assumes responsibility for the Tube, and with it a £2 billion land and development portfolio that will make him one of London's most influential property moguls. Given the fiasco that the Underground has now long been, many Londoners will warmly welcome Ken's hand at the controls. Yet despite his triumphs, the prospect of Ken assuming even more power through the Tube fills some London Assembly members with concern. The Assembly exists to hold the Mayor to account, but in some quarters there is near-despair over his secrecy and refusal to involve it in his decisions.

After his three years in power, there is unrest on Ken's Palatine hill - the rather absurdly shaped City Hall - and the anxiety spreads through London government circles far out into the boroughs. There are concerns about Ken's ever-expanding empire, his instinct for absolute control and his demands on London's public purse. His share of average council tax bills was recently increased by £50 to £224, and his precept has now helped to tip the average annual bill past the psychologically important £1,000 barrier.

BUT what can the boroughs do? The 1999 legislation that set up the Greater London Authority, the office of Mayor and the London Assembly was a gift to a political veteran like Ken. To overturn his budget, his opponents need a two-thirds majority in the 25-member Assembly. But by securing the support of the nine-strong Labour group Ken has rendered his opponents impotent. Wandsworth, which points out that his precept has risen by 82 per cent in three years, is campaigning to get the law changed so the budget can be approved on a simple majority vote, but the chances of this are slim. The reality, say his critics, is that Ken has London's government in his thrall.

He doesn't take criticism well, either. Take the congestion charge. Opinions differ on the charge as a concept, but the facts are unassailable. Motorists entering the zone have plummeted by 38 per cent, but shopping has declined, too. According to the London Chamber of Commerce, businesses are on the beat" advertising campaign cost £150,000 and another £100,000 was spent on St Patrick's Day celebrations. Recent estimates indicated his bi-monthly newsletter, The Londoner, would cost £2 million over the year.

ALL this public money, his opponents say, is doing no more than promoting Ken, creating a cult of personality to make him unbeatable at the polls. Can it be true? Certainly, the latest issue of The Londoner carries no fewer than three pictures of the Mayor and he has been teased mercilessly over the fact that the letters page is full of praise and admiration for him. He writes a lot of the paper himself, stressing what a great job he is doing. He insists it is published to meet the Mayor's obligation to inform Londoners about the policies and activities of the GLA. But what about all those photographs of himself ? Ken's reply was this: "I am a good advertisement of what London has to offer."

Was that what he was thinking when he launched into an attack on President George Bush, calling him "corrupt" and "not the legitimate president"? Did he give a thought for London's stricken tourist industry, once made prosperous by American visitors, when he arrived in New York and pronounced that he felt safer there than in London?

There are suspicions that the real Ken Livingstone is not the cheeky chappie of his own PR campaigns. Rather, it is said, he prefers to operate beyond the prying gaze of other elected representatives whom he believes are plotting against him. Under the 1999 GLA Act, Assembly members are charged with scrutinising Ken's activities. But, say some members off the record, he won't let them. His private

office is guarded by his chief of staff Simon Fletcher. Ken demonstrated his disdain for elected colleagues last year when he went on a long trip to Australia and left Mr Fletcher, rather than then-deputy mayor Nicky Gavron, in charge.

Only Mr Fletcher and an exclusive group of executives close to Ken really know what is going on, critics say. Witness Ken's response to one member who expressed concern about his plan for an Olympics bid: "This," Ken said, "is no time for gloom and doom." But there is gloom in some quarters, especially over the main instrument of Ken's power, Transport for London. This is the body that will run the Tube, with responsibility for staff, stations, timetables, fares, and deals to capitalise on the £2 billion worth of development assets. The question is, how will Ken use the Tube's wealth? The question is an important one, because so far Ken has kept very quiet about his plans for the Underground, and his handling of money has made a lot of people nervous.

Some have been trying for months to discover details of the deal TfL has done with Capita over administering a large part of the congestion charge, yet the Mayor says all information has been made public other than that deemed commercially sensitive.

None of the inquisitors can get past the inscrutable Bob Kiley, the ex-CIA man hired by Ken with the Orwellian title of Commissioner for Transport. Mr Kiley is Ken's proconsul, one of the few to share the emperor's secrets. He was lured to London three years

ago with a lavish rewards package including a £2 million Regency house in Belgravia, decorated and furnished to a brief provided by Mrs Kiley. His salary is £250,000 a year and it carries a bonus package worth £1 million.

These bonuses are paid if Mr Kiley meets "performance targets", but no one knows what these targets are. John Biggs, the Labour group spokesman on transport, is one of several Assembly members who have been trying to find out, without success.

HE TACKLED Mr Kiley directly about it recently and the old CIA man gave a masterful reply. He said bonus arrangements were not secret, but he was reluctant to share details about assessments of individuals. The Mayor this week told the Standard that Mr Kiley would be receiving his first bonus, for the financial year 2002/3, but did not specify the sum. Mr Biggs went on to tell Mr Kiley: "You would be hard-pressed to find any Assembly members who have not reached the conclusion that TfL is pretty closed in its dealing with us and with the public." Mr Biggs, of course, believes that that is the way Ken wants it. However, the Mayor says senior TfL officials appear regularly in front of Assembly scrutiny committees and all TfL board meetings are held in public.

Encouraged by Ken, Mr Kiley has hired an entire tier of American former colleagues. Among them is Tim O' Toole, a lawyer who previously ran a freight rail concern in the US. He has come to London as the Tube's managing director on a £250,000 salary, plus bonuses (undisclosed). There are six other American executives at the highest level in the Tube's management, all earning high sixfigure salaries. If this team turn the Tube around they may well justify their impressive pay packets, but their presence here also tells us a lot about Ken. They come with no political baggage, they have no enemies and - most importantly - owe no loyalty to anyone except him.

Ken's friends defend his efforts to expand his power and control by arguing that he has embraced a "growing strategic role", far beyond anything envisaged when the office of elected Mayor was devised. And it cannot be denied that Ken has made a difference. Part of his congestion charge policy included a promise that bus services would be improved, and they have. Passenger figures have risen by 18 per cent over three years, there are more buses on the roads and many more new routes.

But at what cost? New estimates show that there is a £500 million hole in Ken's bus budget. By 2007 almost £1 billion will be needed to cover the deficit. Ken has funded bus companies to buy new buses and pay drivers more. He has also cut fares to as little as 65p a journey. But how long can the service keep diving into the red? Ken talked up the £130 million he expected the congestion charge to produce, but now we know the true figure will fall vastly short of this optimistic estimate and will make little difference to the bus overdraft.

In the months to come Ken will increase the tempo of his campaign for re-election. We can expect to hear often that he has increased the number of police on London's streets, which is certainly true. The number of officers recruited in the past three years tops 3,000. But what exactly was Ken's contribution-to this? The Metropolitan Police Authority says around 35 per cent of the funding that made the extra recruitment possible came from government. And in the boroughs they swiftly point out that all Ken has done, after all, is spend our money, and while everyone has contributed not every borough has felt the benefit of extra police numbers. That was not part of Ken's "more police on the beat" advertising campaign.

A report produced by the Assembly budget committee in May revealed millions of pounds worth of contracts were being scrutinised, after it was discovered that some had been awarded by Ken's officials without competitive tendering or advertising, as the rules require. One was the £100,000 contract to an Irish company for delivering the St Patrick's Day celebrations. No one suspected criminality or corruption, but there was concern over missing paperwork and an inability to confirm a proper audit trail.

The contracts report for that event and for other sums exceeding £50,000 found that, on 21 out of 47 occasions, the process had not been opened up to competitive tendering as required by GLA rules.

The Mayor dismissed the committee's worries and said his audit procedures were fine. That may be so, but this has done nothing to persuade Ken's critics that he is wholly committed to the open government he promised London.