'Time is running out for Citizen Ken'

I can't claim to have been entirely surprised when Ken Livingstone called to tell me he was ringing down the curtain on our own version of the Odd Couple. When he first asked me to join his Transport for London board, I told him I would only accept on the basis that I could speak my mind. We had, after all, campaigned on very different agendas during the Mayoral elections. But he wanted to build a big tent, and I wanted to make a contribution if I could, and we agreed to give it a go.

Ken and I have always got on well at a personal level despite being miles apart politically, but it has become very obvious over the past year to both of us that good will is not enough. Ken has accused me of constant criticism of TfL policy and frankly he's right. I've been critical of just about everything he's done, or more accurately not done, since he took over more than a year and a half ago. Start with the fact that the TfL board itself makes no real decisions. These are presented by Ken as a fait accompli or increasingly left to Bob Kiley and his ever-expanding coterie of Americans who now effectively run the organisation. While many are no doubt competent professionals, the recent farce over the bungled cycling budget shows how difficult it is to graft US ideas on traffic on to a European city like London.

And while Kiley was hired to sort out London's transport, he seems more than ever drawn by Livingstone into the political arena where his touch is less sure. Ken has so far made a complete hash of his congestion charging proposals and is only now beginning to see how damaging they are. He now claims that the scheme was never intended as a revenue earner, which is about all he can say when the costs are already massively over budget. Congestion charging was only ever fair to Londoners if there were decent public transport alternatives in place first, but I defy anyone to tell the difference by the time Ken wants to start charging.

Nor can he make a convincing argument for reducing pollution, where many experts predict the effect of the scheme will be negligible. Meanwhile, those driven off the streets will be those least able to afford the charge. Not quite what we might have expected from Citizen Ken.

I'm also critical of him over the Tube. Like this newspaper, I believe the PPP could be improved on but I also know it is the only game in town and there is no Plan B. No one expects London's Mayor to lie down and have his tummy tickled by the likes of Stephen Byers but I question whether it is in London's interest for Livingstone to have been so confrontational from day one.

Ken has blithely alienated all the genuinely conscientious staff of the Tube by being gratuitously offensive time after time and completely oblivious to the real effort hundreds of them put in every day to keep a run-down, under-resourced system going. And out in the street, Londoners have searched in vain for any evidence of anything this Mayor has actually achieved.

Traffic volumes are up, congestion is worse, motorists and pedestrians alike are increasingly fed up and the only sign of change is that since he declared war on them, there are now more pigeons in Trafalgar Square than there were before.

The problem Ken has is that while the job of an elected mayor should be all about delivery, Ken is all about politics. He seems more interested in picking fights with his former colleagues than he is in showing Tony Blair how devolved government could work better for London if a responsible mayor and government worked together. This is exactly what he did last time round at the GLC. He is a natural rebel, but the price we pay for his rebellion is that where London should be high on the list for Blair and Brown, Livingstone has comprehensively alienated both.

Ken Livingstone's record so far has confirmed what I and this newspaper predicted before he won. He is a charming and astute political tactician, but he has yet to prove that he can be a good Mayor for London. Time is already running out for Livingstone - and he knows it.