Phil I think you're focusing on the wrong things, understand most politicians have a home in London, therefore they consider themselves to be part of London hence why they want London to be good, after all where you spend most of your time you want improved?!?
as for number of police, well having spent the past 2 years working down there I can assure you there is far more crime that goes on in London than other areas of the country so I say let them have the police as they've got the crime!
I don't think they are ever going to grasp the concept of £43pwk to live on, even after mandleson did his little TV experiment nothing changed so I doubt very much it will improve anytime soon.
Let them get on with what they do as they will anyway and you and I shall just go about our lives, I stopped reading newspapers, watching the news and listening to phone in radio debate shows many moons ago as I found I was getting too worked up about it all and nothing ever changed. I was constantly on a downer as the negative energy given out by these was having too much of a bearing on me. Now I just ignore them and get on with my life!!