Team Boris

Dream team: Tim Parker and Boris Johnson at City Hall

5 April 2012

New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, writes handsomely of Boris Johnson in this week's Spectator.

In voting Boris in at City Hall, Londoners proved more sophisticated than the chattering classes gave them credit for, Mr Bloomberg says.

It was a neat compliment, both for the mayor and the people of this city, and "sophisticated" was an interesting word to use. It suggests London voters refined their thinking through experience and careful analysis, which they probably did.

Interestingly, these were precisely the elements used to put together the team now clustered around Boris. With the appointment of Tim Parker as chief of staff we see the administration that will run London for the next four years, or more. And what we see is individuals who have one thing in common: a personal record for getting results.

When Parker's role was announced, I asked an executive at the AA, who worked with Parker when he ran the organisation, what he thought. "He'll go at it with a passion," he said. "Boris is extremely lucky to get him."

There was a lot more to it than mere good fortune. In the early days of the election campaign a number of people, including me, chided Boris for not hurling himself into the fray with more vigour. In fact, a tremendous amount was being done below the radar.

Winning London was always going to be more than just a symbolic victory for David Cameron's Conservatives. The capital offered a perfect template upon which the coming general election could be modelled.

But installing a Conservative in the Mayor's office, while a major feat in itself, was not enough. Boris had to then succeed and do so convincingly so that where London went, the nation would be persuaded to follow.

The question was, how could that success be achieved? One answer was to surround Boris with the best people it was possible to find. This led to the creation of a wish list and as Boris's campaign gathered pace, the headhunting began.

Lord Marland, the Conservative party treasurer credited with restoring the party's finances, was one of the key figures in Boris's camp. He was tasked with finding people to fill the big jobs.
Parker featured near the top of his list, as did David Ross, the Carphone Warehouse tycoon who has taken up a role on the board of the 2012 Olympics organising committee. In complete secrecy, Marland recruited these two men to hold important corners in Boris's administration.

Parker's friend at the AA talked of his passion and it is intriguing to see that he has accepted the job of First Deputy Mayor at a salary of £1 a year. So what is he doing it for?

Perhaps he, Ross and the other clever people who have joined the Boris project have caught a whiff of history in the making. The Conservatives have not had power for 11 years. Under Cameron, they have re-grouped and realigned the party more fundamentally than at any time since Mrs Thatcher entered Downing Street in 1979.

If Boris succeeds in London, Cameron's chances of following her are dramatically enhanced. No question. Boris's victory has electrified politics; those who march with him have an opportunity to help create an epoch. There is a sense of quiet revolution, reinforced today by the emphatic Conservative win at Crewe. The chance of being in on one of those step-changes that defines an era is always irresistible to those who have done brilliantly by taking risks.

Parker is just such a man. In 1989, he was running Kenwood, a kitchen machine company, for Thorn EMI. Thorn wanted to sell. Parker borrowed £150,000 and organised finance of £54 million to buy the firm. Within three months of taking over the business interest rates soared to 15 per cent. Many thought he would go under and stay under. He didn't. Some nifty renegotiating saw him through the crisis and he went on to turn ailing Kenwood around, raising the value of his initial stake to £2 million. In 2002 he was running Kwik-Fit. When the company was sold, Parker pocketed £25 million. Then came the AA. When he bowed out, after a merger, he took £44 million with him.

Good for him, many will say, but what does running a roadside breakdown service have to do with running the world's greatest city? Parker has been criticised for making painful cutbacks and slashing jobs in the companies he has run to make money for shareholders. Now he and Boris want Londoners to think of themselves as shareholders in this city. The council taxpayer-shareholder can profit from getting high-quality services at the best price, they say.

The phrase heard constantly around Boris is "value for money" and Parker's job will be to deliver that. It will mean reducing the size of Ken Livingstone's bloated mayoral machine; the number of staff at City Hall almost doubled to around 750 during his two terms. Every London council taxpayer forks out an average of £30 a year just to cover the costs of running the GLA. Parker will be looking into every cranny of the City Hall operation to see where savings can be made.

Lord Marland is also on a value-for-money crusade. He is currently examining the 30-odd quangos that advise the Mayor on everything from culture to housing. The appointees to these bodies are not paid but they receive an attendance allowance of £200 for turning up, considerably more than members of the House of Lords.

Lord Marland said: "It's a question of whether the Mayor is getting the right advice, whether the representation from the community is right. And we have to determine how these bodies can deliver value for money."

He is hoping to finish the task in a month and is making recommendations as he goes along. They are not known outside the Mayor's office but it can be safely assumed that they will involve slimming down the entire quango operation.

Boris cannot claim success in London if the Olympics are judged a failure, and he knows it. So David Ross was a crucial appointment to the organising committee board. Ross has a reputation for turning vision into reality. He and his partner, Charles Dunstone, the current chief executive, started Carphone Warehouse in 1989 with £6,000 in savings. The company now has revenues close to £4 billion. Ross is said to have personal wealth of £873 million.

Like Parker, he has teamed up with Boris not because he needs a job but because he wants to get a result. Other big names have waived salaries and fees to join the Boris project. Kate Hoey, the Labour MP and former minister, has brushed aside her party's fury to be the new Commissioner for Sport. Sir Simon Milton, former leader at Westminster City Council, will work on planning. Bob Diamond, boss at Barclays Capital, will run the Mayor's Fund, a vehicle for raising money, especially among rich companies, to help London's poor.

The stature of the team around Boris has put a purposeful stamp on his first 100 days but the speed at which people were brought in has caused complications. The proposal to appoint Parker to chair the board of Transport for London, in tandem with his chief of staff role, raised concern in some quarters. It is subject to consultation with London Assembly members and cannot be considered a done deal.

Similarly, when Sir Simon Milton was taken on as a planning adviser there was near-crisis when it was realised the job conflicted with his role as a councillor in Westminster. That was resolved when Sir Simon agreed to be an unpaid consultant.
More bear traps lie ahead. London government guru Tony Travers has eloquently explained, here in the Standard, just how difficult it will be for Boris to improve the Tube. Travers says there is a £3 billion black hole in the Tube's finances and the nature of the PPP contracts, foisted upon London by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor, give the Mayor virtually no room for manoeuvre.

There are uncertainties about funding for Crossrail and the cost of the Olympics rises ever higher.

Boris made crime his priority in the election campaign and people are going to want to see results sooner rather than later. How is he going to produce them? Knife culture appears to be woven into the very fabric of many young lives and the experts agree a quick fix is unlikely.
Youth crime is the confederate of poverty, one of London's oldest battlegrounds and one on which no one has scored a decisive victory.

Ken Livingstone set up a commission to tackle the problem but all it really achieved was to produce a report that showed how bad the situation is. The research, published last year, showed the number of children gauged to be living in poverty in London is around 40 per cent, after allowing for housing costs. Nationally, the figure is 29 per cent. Worse, perhaps, was the report's conclusion that under current policies the situation is unlikely to improve.

In a city as rich as London this is shameful, and Boris knows it. His Mayor's Fund will attempt to shift wealth from those who have been so adept at creating it to those in need, while making both sides feel good about it. It's too early to say how Bob Diamond intends to achieve this but the fact he is trying says a lot about how Boris means to run London.

The Mayor's Fund may seem a bold departure but some would describe it as a political necessity. As the Conservatives edge Labour away from the centre, Cameron knows he must persuade those closer to the bottom than the top that he has something for them. The Conservatives have started eyeing seats that were once considered unwinnable. Emphasis is shifting from the marginals to constituencies where Labour have always felt safe. This security depended on the perception that only Labour cares about those in low-paid jobs or those left behind in the great economic and industrial changes since the 1960s. Cameron wants to reverse this thinking and London has handed him a timely opportunity.

If Boris's administration at City Hall can demonstrate that the old politics really are dead, the Tories who are now daring to dream of a landslide in the coming general election may not be as mad as would have been thought just weeks ago.

Boris has hit the ground running and as people such as Tim Parker, Bob Diamond and David Ross take up their roles, it is worth noting that a lot of the people around the Mayor have no strong Conservative ties.

This is as it should be, Michael Bloomberg believes. In his Spectator article he advises Boris to remember Fiorella La Guardia, New York's greatest mayor. As Mr Bloomberg reminds us, La Guardia said there is no Democratic or Republican way of cleaning the streets.

BORIS'S WHO'S WHO

TORIES

David Cameron
Tory leader
Competitive relationship but as party boss will have final say
George Osborne
Shadow Chancellor
Friendships will ease role as key linkman between leadership and London
Lord Marland
Campaign fundraiser and unofficial headhunter
Will share wealth of City experience and help to streamline City Hall
Michael Gove
Shadow education secretary
Pushing for London to be testing ground for Tory national policies
Ed Llewelyn
Tory leader's chief-of-staff
As Cameron's gate-keeper a key player in relationship with City Hall
Andy Coulson
Director of communications
Former News of the World editor with traditional Tory view of world
Nicholas Boles
Acting City Hall chief of staff
Policy adviser will return to Central Office to prepare for government
James McGrath
Chief political adviser
Helped to win London and now faces the same task nationally
Dan Ritterband
Back Boris campaign manager
Earned his spurs on campaign and now set for bigger things
Gaby Bertin
Tory leader's spokeswoman
Inexperienced but charming and bright, a trusted Cameron aide
Steve Hilton
Director of strategy
Svengali-type figure who shares Boris's interest in social justice

CITY HALL

Tim Parker
First Deputy Mayor
Private equity millionaire known for "slash and burn" technique
Richard Barnes
Statutory Deputy Mayor
In touch with grass roots but at odds with modernisers
Ian Clement
Deputy Mayor for government relations
Former council leader earned Boris's trust during campaign
Ray Lewis
Deputy Mayor for young people
Inspirational black youth leader with record of getting results
Kit Malthouse
Deputy Mayor for policing
Bright and ambitious former councillor
Guto Harri
Director of communications
Easy-going former BBC correspondent with "can do" style
Munira Mirza
Director of culture
Relative unknown who is expert on race and identity
Kulveer Ranger
Director for transport policy
Bright but in danger of alienating senior TfL bosses
Sir Simon Milton
Senior adviser, planning
Heavyweight former council chief will be a safe pair of hands
Kate Hoey MP
Commissioner for sport
Former sports minister angered Labour colleagues by working for the Tories
Bob Diamond
Mayor's Fund chief
Millionaire Barclays boss will run fund for underprivileged kids
David Ross
Mayor's nominee on the board of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games
Carphone Warehouse boss will keep an eye on Olympic budgets
Richard Sharp
Adviser to Mayor's Fund
Retired Goldman Sachs banker can tap into wealthy City contacts
Wasfi Kani
Adviser to Mayor's Fund
Charity fundraiser with years of experience getting money from the rich

FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Marina Johnson
Wife and mother of four children
Left-leaning lawyer who is husband's social conscience
Matthew d'Ancona
Editor of The Spectator
Enthusiastic journalistic champion of the new Mayor
Rachel Johnson
Sister
Close confidante will get late-night calls on all Mayor's worries
Stanley Johnson
Father
Former MEP will offer advice
Nell Butler
Family friend
Sounding-board who offered Boris safe haven during affair row
Hugh Powell
Senior Foreign Office diplomat
Son of Thatcher's right-hand man who despite a posting to Afghanistan is in close contact
Justin Rushbrooke
Top media lawyer
Married to Nell Butler, gives Boris legal insight and media analysis

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