Over to the Mayor of London and his minions. While the Prime Minister has been busy giving pay rises to train drivers, it seems London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan continues to employ Amy Lamé as his night czar on, er, £132,846 per annum – after already receiving, as Mr S revealed, a 40 per cent pay hike. Good heavens…
However it appears Lamé hasn’t being doing much work for that payout. Following six weeks of ‘unplanned sick leave’ – during which London’s night czar curiously still managed to host her BBC radio programme – Lamé then proceeded to take yet more time off work for a holiday in August, leaving the Beeb’s Emily Pilbeam to fill in for two weeks. While Mr S is naturally delighted to report Lamé has returned to her radio show, it appears that the night czar can’t quite manage to turn up to City Hall – from where she takes her six-figure salary – when she’s meant to. Despite returning to work this month, it transpires that for Wednesday’s Economy, Culture and Skills Committee meeting on, er, London’s nighttime economy, Lamé herself was a no-show. Oh dear…
Although the night czar – who has presided over the UK capital’s flailing nightlife culture since 2016 – didn’t bother attending Wednesday’s meeting, her name still came up over 20 times. Committee members repeatedly pointed out that Lamé was ‘not able to be here’ – although no one quite elaborated on why she felt unable to attend. Instead, meeting delegates defended the night czar’s ‘infrequent’ engagement with the Greater London Authority by claiming she was dealing a ‘plethora of issues’ and therefore has been, presumably, too busy for such insignificant matters as, um, reporting to elected representatives. Perhaps if her London Assembly colleagues wanted more engagement with Lamé, they should have booked a slot on her radio show…
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