Curt or curtsy - that's the question when the Queen drops by

Written by Lynne Featherstone on Fri 2nd Aug 2002

As the Queen moved down the line of Assembly Members towards me, meeting and greeting, I hastily asked the member next to me whether she was intending to curtsey. I wasn't - but was trying to strike the correct balance between politeness and undue deference, as republicans do when faced with the reality of royalty.

And I would certainly never wish to be rude. Apparently, curtsying wasn't required, so the Queen and I just shook hands. I made an attempt at conversation and asked her if she had enjoyed her recent jubilee visit to Haringey. She smiled, made a polite reply and moved on.

So that was that. She's very professional. She'd arrived, made her official speech in the chamber, toured the building and met the great and the good of London government in just over an hour. She then exited via the aptly named Queen's Walk, which runs along the Thames, to watch the fireboats shooting magnificent jets of water 100 feet into the air in patterned formation. A crowd had gathered, the dancers danced away and the Queen departed. City Hall was duly opened.

The Queen and City Hall were sort of the old and the new, really, appropriately symbolic of our democracy and our monarchy and the strange juxtaposition of these two worlds. Absolutely nothing in common - but it kind of works.

Business proper started the next day with the first Mayor's Question Time in our new and magnificent debating chamber. Sadly the debate wasn't quite up to its new surroundings. Dwarfed by his new surroundings, even Mayor Ken - sitting at his little desk all alone facing a horseshoe of Assembly Members - looked shrunken.

First question from the Deputy Mayor, Nicky Gavron. It seems to me that Ms Gavron has barely said a word in the chamber over the last two years but today she did. This was strangely co-terminus with her announcement the previous day of her candidacy for Mayor of London.

Her question was around the issue of 'the poor' having been left out of the Mayor's Draft London Plan - the document that will become the blueprint for development in London over the next 15-20 years.

Given that Ms Gavron was the main author of the plan as the Mayor's adviser on Spatial Development, if 'the poor' are excluded from the plan isn't it Nicky who has excluded them? I presented a petition from Southwark Liberal Democrats asking for Kennington and Bermondsey tube stations to be rezoned from 2 to 1 - sort of compensation for the congestion charging boundary dividing their communities. It could happen for Mornington Crescent and others too were the Mayor to agree. But he didn't. He said he would set up a review and look at the whole question of re-zoning in due course.

And now, school's out for summer. The Assembly is in recess for August. And me, I am off to Spain for a couple of weeks with a friend and her children and my children. See you in the autumn when the fun never stops.

Coming up (yes already) are the selection of candidates for the next elections for the London Assembly and Mayor! Seems only a moment ago we were all just a gleam in some politician's eye ...