Billionaire bachelor media tycoon Bloomberg TV etc who had to follow the ultimate hard act to follow Rudolph Giuliani

Billionaire bachelor media tycoon (Bloomberg TV etc) who had to follow the ultimate hard act to follow, Rudolph Giuliani.The mayoral style: Lower profile, less hands-on, less populist than his predecessor, but seen as urbane and calm in a city not known for a low-key approach. Expensive suits.The houses: New York State, Bermuda, London.The hobbies: Collecting modern art (Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol), mainly hung in LondonDrives: His own helicopter.The city: Population eight million. Smartened up capital of the Western world, according to New Yorkers Sex and the City and Woody Allen. Now for ever linked to 11 September.Livingstone’s LondonThe man: Left-leaning former leader of Greater London Council, who triumphantly returned from parliamentary obscurity to land mayoral post in the teeth of opposition from his own party. Which sacked him.The mayoral style: Nasal-toned, chirpy man of the people. Criticised for not doing much, but suffers from lack of powers invested in role Covets Bloomberg’s control over police and schools.

Wears Ozwald Boateng suits.The houses: Brent, Brighton.The hobbies: Breeding newts.Drives: Doesn’t Uses Tube and taxisThe city: Population seven million. Multi-faceted, sometimes deprived, sometimes glamorous, always crowded capital of the Western world, according to Londoners Tate Modern and the Tower of London.. Tony Blair announced a month’s postponement of elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly early this morning after failing to reach full agreement with parties following two days of talks. In particular, Sinn Fein said it was completely opposed to British and Irish government proposals for a package of sanctions against parties deemed to be in default of political undertakings.Mr Blair and the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, are to return to Northern Ireland in early April to present parties with a final document.The original election date had been 1 May, but extra time will be needed to clear up the outstanding issues. The Government’s position had been that it had no plans to postpone elections, but many observers thought it possible they could be shelved. Legislation will be needed to shift the election date, but this is not seen as a problem.

Earlier yesterday, a new element of uncertainty appeared when the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, left the talks at Hillsborough Castle, near Belfast, to fly to London. His departure suggested plans to set an election date would be thrown into doubt.Mr Blair’s continuing presence at the talks meant he missed an audience with the Queen, and delegated Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to stand in for him at a Downing Street meeting with Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, at Downing Street.The widespread sense yesterday was that the talks, chaired by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern, had not hit the jackpot of across-the-board agreement. The agenda included policing, criminal justice, the treatment of republican fugitives and, above all, the question of how to resurrect the suspended Belfast assembly.But significant movement appears to have been made on contentious issues, such as policing, which until now had posed serious problems. If a new deal is nailed down it will open the prospect not just of a restoration of the assembly but also of moves to give it policing and justice powers. The talks were held on the basis of a 28-page blueprint by the British and Irish governments, detailing the most difficult issues. A final document is now expected to be published early next month, in effect providing the background for an election campaign to decide which are the larger parties within both Unionism and nationalism.

A document that is acceptable to both Unionists and Sinn Fein is expected to produce a significant response from the IRA.The Sinn Fein chairman, Mitchel McLaughlin, said a deal was close. He said: “What we are going through are teething problems.” Mr Trimble said: “The logic of the republican position points towards them doing something The question is ­ will it be enough?”. Gordon Brown promised the Government would spend “whatever it takes” to deprive Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. Treasury officials said it was too early to predict the cost.Mr Brown told a conference at Canary Wharf in London: “I make no apology for saying we will spend what it takes to prevent the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons by states that defy the international community and to advance the cause of disarmament.”Giving his personal backing to Tony Blair’s stance on Iraq, he added: “The international community must not stand by whilst a regime that proliferates weapons of mass destruction defies more than a decade of international agreements.”The Chancellor denied that finding more money for a Gulf War would jeopardise Labour’s plans to boost spending on health and education despite this week’s warning by the International Monetary Fund about the state of the British economy. “We will discharge our international responsibilities and we will also discharge our domestic responsibilities,” he said.His open-ended “war chest” angered Labour MPs who oppose military action. Yesterday they launched a campaign to “reclaim” the Labour Party from Mr Blair by urging opponents of a war to join the party.Alan Simpson, chairman of Labour Against the War, said: “This is both pro-peace and pro-Labour It may be a battle for the soul of the Labour Party. If there is a gap between the leadership and the membership it is the membership that has to reclaim the confidence and attempt to change the leadership by saying ‘this is not the direction we want to go in’.”Tony Benn, the former cabinet minister, said: “If this Prime Minister takes us to war in any way it will amount to a personal resignation from the Labour Party.