Campaign Team The London Borough of Bexley, under Clement was the first Conservative led London Borough to declare support for
Boris Johnson in his bid to be
Mayor of London. Clement was a senior member of Johnson's campaign team from October 2007 until Johnson became Mayor of London on 1 May 2008.
Deputy Mayor On 6 May 2008, Clement was appointed as
Deputy Mayor for Government and External Relations, to advise and lead on the Mayor's relationships with the Government and London Boroughs. Clement's salary was £124,364, the highest of Johnson's Deputies. In August 2008, Clement represented London at the opening ceremony of the
2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Although he was in a relationship at the time, and pre-briefed by
MI6, Clement later admitted that he had been lured into a
honey trap by the
Chinese secret service. After inviting a woman to his hotel room, was drugged to enable details from his
BlackBerry to be downloaded and secret papers to be copied. Clement also spoke on the radio in New York in January 2009 about closer co-operation between cities and what one city can learn from another. Clement worked on Johnson's Quality of Life agenda, where Clement was responsible for increasing access to
public toilets through open-access initiatives with various retailers, including
Sainsbury's,
Tesco,
Asda,
John Lewis Partnership),
Marks and Spencer and
Borders. Clement has also worked to secure
Freedom Pass funding, which allowed disabled residents and all over 60s in London to travel on
Transport for London during the morning peak, eradicating a long lasting hours' restriction.
Expenses scandal In June 2009, Johnson suspended Clement's use of his GLA credit card, in light of revelations of his use of his official card. It emerged that Clement used the card to buy business class travel on two long-haul British Airways flights to China for the Beijing Olympics, only weeks after the Mayor insisted he was going to fly economy. He also used the card to pay for lunches and dinners with fellow Conservatives and a £700 meal in New York City. Clement broke GLA rules by using his card for "private expenditure" totalling £2,300, including more than £200 on groceries at
Tesco and a £535.49 audio system for his
Jaguar car, which he then repaid. Clement was summoned in front of the Greater London Authority audit committee to explain himself, and faced pressure to resign or for Johnson to sack him after full details of his spending are revealed. Johnson initially declined to sack Clement, saying: ''"There's a difference between what is crass and what is appropriate, what makes me angry and what is actually dishonest. He shouldn't have been buying things on a corporate credit card, that is absolutely wrong. He did repay them, that was the critical thing for me."'' However, on 22 June, Clements submitted his resignation, which Johnson accepted with the words:
"In the light of the further discrepancies in your expenses that have emerged this morning, it is clear to both of us that your position is untenable." . On 4 September 2009 it was announced that Clement had been charged with five offences relating to the use of the credit card During February 2010 Clement made some strong statements regarding the mayor's lack of respect for the Conservative leader
David Cameron, highlighting in particular a serious difference of opinion over the wisdom of investigating the revived Marinair
Thames estuary airport proposals for an international airport in the Thames Estuary, east of the
Isle of Sheppey, a proposal seen by the mayor as a possible alternative to additional runways at London's existing airports. ==References==