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Some Green pressure
• IN his recent letter to the press (Greens pushed Ken Hard, Mar 29) Councillor Adrian Oliver defended Ken Livingstone’s tax rise by pointing to the concessions (eg cycling lanes) which the Greater London Greens have supposedly obtained from Ken Livingstone.
Considering Ken was actively promoting cycling at least as long as four years ago, one suspects they didn’t have to push overly hard, but let’s assume that this is true.
Adrian quotes figures totalling £73m. Not only are these spread out over three years (actually it’s £47m in a single year), this is a miniscule fraction of the GLA budget (£9.6bn gross).
The Greens are reduced to claiming that they exert “influence”. In fact the Greens, with two out of 25 GLA members, make up eight per cent of the GLA, and they supported a 13 per cent rise in Ken’s tax take. Yet they have obtained increased spending for their projects of less than half a per cent of the turnover.
CLLR PAUL BARTON(CON)
Highgate Ward
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