London Assembly members criticise conduct of Boris Johnson aide (London Assembly Liberal Democrats)

London Assembly Liberal Democrats <info@glalibdems.org.uk>

London Assembly members criticise conduct of Boris Johnson aide

November 24, 2009 12:00 AM
In Guardian online

A senior aide to Boris Johnson was asked to leave the City Hall chamber today following concerns over his conduct.

Dan Ritterband, the mayor of London's director of marketing, was told "you might as well go" after clashing with John Biggs, the chair of the budget and performance committee.

The clash occurred when Biggs started consulting a colleague while Ritterband was talking. Ritterband told the committee: "I won't bother answering if you won't listen."

Mike Tuffrey, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group, fired back that it was not "appropriate" for a paid public official to address the committee in that way and asked him to withdraw his comment.

Biggs, who is deputy leader of the Labour group, said the committee would not call Ritterband again if he did not "afford respect" to the committee. "You might as well go," said Biggs, prompting Ritterband to leave.

Ritterband, who spearheaded Johnson's mayoral campaign, was also rebuked for joking that next year's Labour party conference would "fit into a telephone box".

The decision to eject Ritterband from the scrutiny session will prove embarrassing to Johnson, who had given assurances to voters he would make his advisers available to scrutiny at the hands of assembly committees as part of his transparency and accountability agenda.

Johnson's chief of staff, Sir Simon Milton, accused committee members of "making a mountain out of a molehill" and refused to discipline Ritterband over his behaviour, although he said the matter was likely to be raised at a "postmortem" into the session.

Guto Harri, Johnson's director of communications, rallied to Ritterband's defence, insisting he was "the ultimate professional".

Harri told the Guardian: "Dan Ritterband is well known in the business as not only very effective but extremely charming. It is a reflection of the conduct of the chair - that he was being ignored after being asked a question - that he responded in the way he did."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/boris-johnson-aide-criticised