The former defender, who played for Tottenham and Arsenal in the capital, has been courted by the party and recently had lunch with the party chairman, Grant Shapps, amid suggestions he could run for mayor.
The newly elected police commissioner, Labour's Tony Lloyd, would go, replaced by the mayor.
They tried to persuade him to call the mayor "leader", but he laughed it off.
Bernstein's way of keeping the mayor under control might be constitutionally baroque, but as Osborne told Bernstein, "I know your record, so I will live with your model".
Asked if the London mayor was a statesman or a twat, he replied: "A bit more of the latter".
London's mayor, Boris Johnson, united with London Councils and the Core Cities group – made up of the eight largest cities in the UK – in calls for local politicians to have more power to raise and retain taxes.
Figures including the Yekaterinburg mayor, Yevgeny Roizman, have criticised the punishment given to the Novorossiysk women and Facebook users have expressed their support for the women by posting photographs of locals swimming, sunbathing and drinking alcohol on the beach next to the monument.
George Osborne, the chancellor and first minister, has ensured his northern powerhouse plan has a slot, but the number of cities apart from Greater Manchester that will want to be run by a directly elected mayor is currently small.
As New York's skyscrapers set new height records, mayor Bill de Blasio has also proposed building 80,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, much of it accomplished by building higher.
However, this warm welcome does not extend to his party and that is the real message that Livingstone must take away with him if he wants to be re-elected as London mayor in 2012.
I do believe that there is a progressive majority in London and that a London mayor, of whatever party, needs to respect that.
