HUGHES ANNOUNCES BUREACRACY BUSTER AND ANTI TERROR CHIEF FOR DAY ONE OF BEING MAYOR

5.08.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 3rd Jun 2004

Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidate, Simon Hughes, today announced two immediate key appointments if elected on the 10th June. Mr Hughes will appoint former BT Chairman, Sir Iain Vallance as a 'bureaucracy buster' at City Hall to strip waste and inefficiency and Air Marshall Sir Tim Garden as his anti-terrorism chief.

The first of Mr Hughes appointments have agreed to serve as his advisers on 11th June and will hit the ground running to provide immediate advice on day one. Both men will be recruited on a part time and unpaid basis to ensure that the new Mayor puts the right security and counter-terrorism measures in place and identify the money that can be released for front line projects from City Hall. They will also help recruit permanent advisors after serving an initial period.

Simon Hughes said:-

"I am very grateful that these two hugely respected individuals have agreed to assist me in my first months in City Hall. They both command the necessary respect that is needed inside and outside politics to get the job done.

"Work on making London safer and making London Government more efficient will begin on day one of my term in office. I have the will to win and will appoint the people to make sure London succeeds."

ENDS

Biography

Tim Garden was born in 1944, educated at the King's School, Worcester, and joined the Royal Air Force as a university cadet while at St Catherine's College, Oxford University reading Physics. He was a member of Oxford University Air Squadron from 1962 to 1965. He was a squadron pilot on No 3 Squadron flying Canberra light bombers in Germany before becoming a flying instructor on Jet Provosts. He has commanded a jet flying training unit, a Vulcan bomber squadron and a helicopter base.

He completed his staff training with the Army, and did a postgraduate International Relations degree at Magdalene College Cambridge. He spent three years as the Director of Defence Studies for the Royal Air Force, lecturing internationally on strategic studies. He was then appointed as station commander of RAF Odiham, where he flew Puma and Chinook helicopters. He then spent six years at the Ministry of Defence on both the air and central staffs, including a period on the Air Force Board as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff. His last MOD appointment was as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff(Programmes) with responsibility for long term defence programme planning for all three Services. He was subsequently appointed to be Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies and was in post for the 1994 and 1995 courses. He retired from the RAF in 1996 as an Air Marshal, and was a Web site consultant before being appointed as Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, London. Since mid 1998, he has been writing, broadcasting, lecturing and undertaking projects for the British Government, the US Department of Defence and NATO. He was joint chief editor for The Source, an internet public management journal from 1999-2002. In 2000, he provided advice to the Palestinian Authority on negotiations with Israel under the auspices of the Adam Smith Institute. He was Distinguished Visiting Fellow and Scholar-in-Residence to Indiana University for the Spring 2001 Semester, and continues to lecture there regularly by video. He returned to Indiana in early 2004 as the Wells Professor. He has been Visiting Professor at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London since 2000 engaged in research projects on improving European defence capabilities, Defence Diplomacy, interoperability for NATO forces and counter-terrorism.

Sir Iain Vallance

His career in the sector began in 1966 when, after an education in London, Scotland and Oxford, he joined the Post Office, of which his father had been Scottish director.

Helped by an masters degree from London Business School, he rose to join the inaugural BT board when the telecoms business was formed as a separate unit in 1981.

His reward for securing the privatisation of BT three years later, a move which set a trend for state-owned telecoms firms around the world, was to be appointed chief executive by 1986, and take on chairmanship as well a year later.