Season 3, Episode 4

On Inside City Hall this episode, London Assembly Members Neil Garratt and Emma Best discuss:

Waste of the Week: TfL union facility time Mayor axes cyber crime helpline. A trivial saving, an important service lost. Mobile phone and bike theft missing from Mayor's Draft Police and Crime Plan. Net Zero. The Mayor's completely unrealistic "ambitious" Net Zero by 2030 plan. The W14 bus that doesn't quite go to Whipps Cross hospital. Black Cabs: twenty years until the London black cab is no more.

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Season 3, Episode 4

On Inside City Hall this episode, London Assembly Members Neil Garratt and Emma Best discuss:

Waste of the Week (0:57): pub quiz question, how many Deputy Mayors does London have?

Conservative Budget Amendment (3:50): Police funding, police officers v staff, phone and bike theft, night life prosperity fund, pot hole fund, London investigation into child grooming,

Tech issues (18:02): For the biggest meeting of the year, none of the mics in City Hall's Chamber were working, and the live stream wasn't working. City Hall's lengthy saga of IT and tech problems.

People's Question Time (21:30): in Haringey. Thanks to the Mayor making the location secret, the public are staying away. Who would have guessed?

Rachel Reeves doesn't mention London (28:45): recalling last year's national Labour budget following the election, and the strains of the Labour Mayor Khan finding his new post-election place in the new Labour pecking order. Nationalised rail? Rent control? What will the Mayor's strategy be now he can no longer blame everything on the government?

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Welcome to Inside City Hall series 3 episode 3

This special episode is all about Tackling London's Theft Epidemic, especially mobile phones and bikes.

The rest of this episode consists of the full as-live recording of our launch event in City Hall from last Tuesday, for those who weren't able to attend in person.

You'll hear me introduce the event, launching my new report.

Then Dr Lawrence Newport (10:58) independent researcher and founder of the Crush Crime campaign. Then you'll hear from Chris Philp MP (21:15) the Shadow Home Secretary.

Finally we go to a Q&A with the audience (31:49) and some fascinating discussion and answers.

I hope you enjoy it and I hope to see you at our next City Hall event.

Don't forget to like Inside City Hall, follow or subscribe on your podcast app, and leave us a review as it helps other people to find the podcast.

Read the report: TACKLING LONDON'S THEFT EPIDEMIC: CITY HALL CONSERVATIVES LEADER JOINED BY SHADOW HOME SECRETARY AND CRUSH CRIME FOUNDER

Crush Crime: Petition - Crush Crime

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Series 3 Episode 2

We are so back! On Inside City Hall this episode, London Assembly Members Neil Garratt and co-host Emma Best discuss:

• Waste Of The Week. Through GLAP, the GLA owns 6.3 square km of London which was supposed to be redeveloped. It is many, many years behind schedule having languished under Mayor Khan, leaving the GLA parent at least £250m out of pocket.
• Police Budget Pressure (2:40). Thanks to the Mayor's spending choices, the Met is going to have to lose many officers. But how many? 2600? 1300? Some other number?
• Labour Attack On School STEM (6:29). Emma's motion to the Assembly challenging Labour's attack on maths, physics, computer science, and adult learning.
• Tackling London's Theft Epidemic (12:10). Neil's report launched on Tuesday with Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp and Dr Lawrence Newport founder of the Crush Crime campaign. We show how the fact that crime is concentrated among certain highly prolific offenders and in certain places, you can target them and get huge results.

Read the report: TACKLING LONDON'S THEFT EPIDEMIC: CITY HALL CONSERVATIVES LEADER JOINED BY SHADOW HOME SECRETARY AND CRUSH CRIME FOUNDER

Crush Crime: Petition - Crush Crime

Do you have a question for us?

Tweet us:

@NeilGarratt

@EmmaBest22

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[email protected]

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Neil's City Hall Diary on substack

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Series 3 Episode 1

On Inside City Hall this episode, London Assembly Members Neil Garratt and new co-host Emma Best discuss:

• Election Results. Including a sales pitch for the modified d'Hondt electoral system used for electing Assembly Members.
• Tram Trouble. Rolling stock problems on the Croydon Tram, echoing Central Line problems. The repeated fares freezes sound good, but is it short-term gain, long-term pain as they drain capital investment from London's infrastructure.
• Pay Per Mile. The media have been reporting that Conservative pressure forced Mayor Khan to abandon plans for Pay Per Mile. That's curious because he never really admitted to having such plans! Regardless of your view, it would fundamentally change the way people think about the roads across London and such a change needs an open debate not to be snuck through.

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Series 2 Episode 13

On Inside City Hall this episode, Neil Garratt and Nick Rogers discuss:

• ULEZ - a "major" announcement. The Mayor makes a "major" announcement about ULEZ Scrappage, but it looks more like a rounding error that fails to solve the cost of living impact of the Mayor's charge and still leaves companies playing ULEZ Musical Chairs with too few compliant vans available to meet the demand.
• Solar Together. The contractor that caused so many problems with their Mayoral-approved solar panel programme has gone into liquidation, making a bad situation worse. A follow up to the story in Series 2 Episode 7, in January.

What have we been reading, watching, or listening to this week?

Nick. After the movie, now the book: Master and Commander and the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin series.

Neil. Human Factor by Graham Greene, my first Greene but certainly not my last!

Do you have a question for us?

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Series 2 Episode 12

On Inside City Hall this episode, Neil Garratt and Nick Rogers discuss:

• Shawcross review. The Police and Crime Committee looked at the major review of the Prevent anti-terrorism programme.
• ULEZ. Unusually, not the charge itself but TfL's "computer says no" approach to people trying to pay it.
• Wennington fire. The London Fire Brigade's review of last year's major blaze which highlights that the LFB faces some distinctly rural firefighting problems, as well as more familiar urban and high rise challenges.
• Mayor's Junk Food ad ban. Research widely quoted by the Mayor and his allies has been cited by academics as case study for bad science, the kind of activist "research" that undermines public confidence in science.

What have we been reading, watching, or listening to this week?

In a naval-themed discussion, Neil's been watching the classic Master and Commander starring Russel Crowe, while Nick watched BBC documentary The Warship: Tour of Duty following Britain's biggest ever warship HMS Queen Elizabeth's maiden voyage through disputed waters around China.

Do you have a question for us?

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Series 2 Episode 11

This week on Inside City Hall, Neil Garratt and Nick Rogers discuss:

• People's Question Time. The people want to talk about ULEZ, but the Mayor wants to smear critics as "holding hands with the far right".
• City Hall Budget. And the Conservative alternative to tackle dirty air and the cost of living.
• Road Pricing. The Mayor's post-ULEZ pay-per-mile plan to charge every vehicle in London every time it moves, which is starting to look increasingly like a plan to tax outer London to fund TfL services in central and inner London.
• Operation Elaborate. A major police operation to tackle organised online and phone fraud by shutting down iSpoof.
• Met Recruitment. Mayoral rhetoric meets reality: the Mayor has been claiming the government must fund 6000 extra police officer this year not the 4077 offered. But they've only managed to recruit about 3000.

What have we been reading, watching, or listening to this week?

Clarkson's Farm, on Amazon Video

Do you have a question for us?

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Series 2 Episode 10

This week on Inside City Hall, Neil Garratt and Nick Rogers discuss:

• The Mayor's Cost of Living Summit with Martin Lewis the Money Saving Expert does not go as planned when the public bring up ULEZ and Martin thinks they have a point. Then undermines the Mayor's rent control obsession.
• Blue light shared working, eg police making use of space in fire stations.
• Missing children. Staggeringly, Police in London record 25,447 cases of missing children per year relating to 8,414 individuals.

What have we been reading, watching, or listening to this week?

Diary of a CEO Episode 216 interview with the Mayor (YouTube)

Ealing Comedies: Passport to Pimlico, The Titfield Thunderbolt, and Whisky Galore!

Do you have a question for us?

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Series 2 Episode 9

This week on Inside City Hall, Neil Garratt and Nick Rogers discuss:

- The new ULEZ Scrappage scheme, which launched on Monday,

- How Sir Mark Rowley is cleaning up the Met, while the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime may not be helping,

- Nick's article on the future of Conservatives in millennial London,

- The Night Czar gets 40% pay rise, but what is there to show for her existence?

What have we been reading, watching, or listening to this week? - City Journal's 10 Blocks podcast - Short Circuit (1986) classic 80s sci fi - I, Robot by Isaac Asimov - Exploring ChatGPT and Novel AI

Do you have a question for us?

Tweet us:

@NeilGarratt

@NJROnline

@CityHallPodcast

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Links we mention in this episode:

Neil's City Hall Diary:

Neil Garratt's City Hall Diary | Substack

TfL scrappage scheme:

Scrappage scheme - Transport for London (tfl.gov.uk)

There's a ~1 minute excerpt of Neil's Q&A with MOPAC in the podcast, here's the video of the full exchange:

https://youtu.be/skC7ZxUoubo

Nick's OnLondon article:

Nick Rogers: Millennial voters are key to restoring Conservative fortunes in London - OnLondon

This is the 10 Blocks podcast episode about the way crime is concentrated:

Stubborn Facts About Crime: 10 Blocks podcast | City Journal (city-journal.org)

ChatGPT, the new AI system everyone's talking about:

New chat (openai.com)

Novel AI, an AI bot powered by ChatGPT that apparently will write a novel for you, or help you play a game of quasi-Risk!

NovelAI - The AI Storyteller