UKIP is already making its presence felt at the London Assembly, which held its last Plenary session before the Summer recess on Wednesday 21st July. The main item of business was to finalise the Committees for the forthcoming term.

UKIP has now secured places on the following committees and functional bodies:

Damian Hockney has been appointed to:
Business Management & Appointments (BMAC); Budget; Standards;
Economic Development & Planning; Commission on London Governance;
Metropolitan Police Authority

Peter Hulme Cross has been appointed to:
Chairman of the Audit Panel; Environment; Transport;
Safer London; Elections Scrutiny Committee;
London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority

This is considerably in excess of the number of places UKIP is automatically entitled to under the Assembly's "proportionality" guidelines, giving us a huge opportunity to develop UKIP's media profile and to take an active part in "real" domestic politics. We have already achieved considerable national and London TV, radio and newspaper coverage (click here for more details). In the fortnight after the election, Damian received more coverage than any other Assembly Member. Even when he was abroad last week, he was interviewed by Time Out and appeared on CNN and on BBC Radio news. The Assembly Press Office is delighted that UKIP has given the Assembly a higher media profile since June 10th (even though our manifesto pledge is to scrap it!). In one BBC news interview broadcast in the UK and worldwide, Damian made clear that tube privatisation was enforced through compliance with EU rules and not by Ken Livingstone.

With two elected Assembly Members, UKIP has formed a separate Group. Damian is the officially designated UKIP Leader in the London Assembly. Each Assembly Member is entitled to two staff (typically a Researcher and a PA) and, as a Group, UKIP can also recruit additional staff, including a Press Officer. These are Greater London Authority posts which have to be publicly advertised, usually in the Guardian. If you are not a regular Guardian reader (!) but would like to be notified when these posts are advertised, please let us know. Michael Harvey is currently single-handedly manning our spacious sixth-floor office in City Hall - we are keen to fill the empty desks as soon as the bureacratic wheels grind into motion! And we need volunteers as well to help us with many other tasks.

We will be keeping in touch via e-mail updates. If you do not wish to receive these, please reply to this e-mail with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.

You can keep up to date with developments on a daily basis at our website, http://www.ukiplondon.com

UKIP Group, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London, SE1 2AA
Direct Line: 020 7983 4640
E-mail: assembly@ukiplondon.com
Web: www.ukiplondon.com
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