MIPIM Japan: The next mayor of London needs to be a nerd, according to Ken Livingstone.
Speaking to EG after a session in which he offered advice to Tokyo on preparing to host the Olympics, the former London mayor said: “The next mayor needs to be a bit nerdy like me, obsessed with detail, wanting to run the whole show and actually leaving a legacy to his successor.
“The next mayor has got to make a pretty rapid start or by 2020 London will be seen as failing.”
Livingstone was critical of Boris Johnson’s legacy, labelled London’s air transport provision “ridiculous” and urged Olympic host cities such as Tokyo to resist political interference.
“If you make changes, it’s a disaster,” he said. “Don’t have politicians or civil servants come in and say ‘we could change this and it would look better’ because that’s always lethal.”
