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The Mayor of London and the Greater London Assembly

Since 2000 London has had a directly elected Mayor and Assembly.

Both are elected for 4 year terms. The last election was on May 1st 2008.

Mayoral election

The Mayor is elected on a two tier system.

Each voter has two votes. If the Winning candidate receives more than half the votes cast he or she is elected. If no candidate gets 50% or more, the second preference votes of those voters who did not vote for either of the two candidates who received the most votes, are allocated to the two remaining candidates and the one who then reaches 50% (first plus second preference votes) is elected.

Mayor’s powers

The Mayor is responsible for Transport for London, the London Development Agency, Strategic Planning and Housing. He nominates some of the members of the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Fire & Emergency Planning Authority.

Greater London Assembly

The Greater London Assembly comprises 25 members. 14 are elected for constituencies and the remaining 11 members are elected on a pan London basis. Beckenham is part of the Bexley and Bromley Constituency which is currently represented by James Cleverly AM. James’ website is at: http://www.jamescleverly.blogspot.com/

GLA Election

The 14 constituency members are elected on a first past the post basis.
The London wide members are elected by a complicated system of proportional representation, called the Modified d’Hondt Formula. After taking account of the result of the constituency elections, the d’Hondt formula is used to proportionally allocate the remaining 11 seats to the parties or individuals according to their total London-wide vote. Voters vote for a Party rather than individuals. The formula means that the larger the number of constituencies which are won by a particular party, the smaller their top-up on the London wide list. In 2008, the Conservatives won 8 of the 14 seats and received 3 members through the top-up system. 6 constituencies were won by Labour. No Liberal Democrat, Green or UKIP candidate was elected and therefore they were allocated seats through the London wide list election.
The composition of the Assembly is as follows: 11 Conservative members, 8 Labour members, 3 Liberal Democrat members, 2 Green Party members and 1 BNP member.

GLA’s role

The GLA’s role is to scrutinise the work of the Mayor and investigates issues that matter to Londoners. The Assembly works by directly questioning the Mayor about his activities, strategies and decisions. It also publishes the findings and recommendations from its investigations and makes proposals to the Mayor. In order for the Mayor’s decisions to be overturned two thirds of the Members of the Assembly have to vote for a motion.

Full details of the powers of the Mayor, Greater London Assembly, Transport for London and the Fire Authority can be obtained via this link: http://www.london.gov.uk

At the 2008 election Boris Johnson was returned as the Conservative candidate.

The election result was as follows:

Final Mayoral result

* On papers where the 1st and 2nd choice votes are for the top two candidates, the 2nd choice votes are not counted

Results by candidate for 2008

This information is taken from http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/elections/mayoral/

James Cleverly

James was born and brought up in South East London. His family moved to Downham and then Beckenham shortly after the Second World War, and he has lived in the area all his life.

He also writes a regular blog which you can access at:
http://www.jamescleverly.blogspot.com/