There are now less than 20 weeks until the London Mayoral elections and most of the top candidates have laid out their key policies. Sadiq hasn't, his personal website is still a 1-slogan void, but as the incumbent it's easy to imagine what 'more of the same' might mean. Nobody is at the manifesto stage, it's too early for that, but many of the candidates' plans are already a little clearer. Here's my quick summary (and you can click through to read the official unfiltered version).
Her headline is "safer streets and more money in your pocket". She has five specific policies.
1. Get crime down and make our streets safer.
Everybody says that, but not everybody makes it number 1. She promises to "invest £200 million into the police to get crime down" and to "set up specialist units within the police to tackle burglaries, robberies, and thefts". She'll also "ensure all police officers have access to knife detection wands", i.e. more stop and search.
2. Scrap the ULEZ expansion on day one, and put more money back in people's pockets.
Not unexpectedly, Susan "will scrap it on day one, no ifs, no buts." 2024's mayoral candidates split very much into scrappers and not-scrappers. Instead of ULEZ she wants a "£50 million Pollution Hotspots fund to tackle air pollution where it is, instead of taxing people everywhere." One of the air quality improvement schemes in her "common sense environment plan" is to widen roads at pinch points and speed up traffic flow. She'd also scrap anything she thought Sadiq was wasting money on.
3. Build more homes in the right places.
In this case "the right places" to build new homes are across London but not on the Green Belt, and especially on brownfield land. She wants to resurrect the London Land Commission introduced under Mayor Boris which targeted public sector-owned land. Susan's dream is that new housing should be "beautiful, green, community-oriented places that are high density but not high rise".
4. Better, greener, more accessible transport.
That's transport, not public transport. Susan is on the motorist's side, so intends to remove any LTNs where City Hall is responsible and to remove 20mph limits on red routes. As a stalwart taxi-backer she'd also allow black cabs in bus lanes. She has no specific policies for buses, tubes, trains and trams other than reviewing TfL's finances for potential efficiencies and fixating on "air quality on the London Underground".
5. Support London's culture and values.
Susan loves London and wishes it was more like 2012 again. She blames Sadiq for making politics more toxic. In specific policies she wants to set up a 24 Hour London Strategy, to lobby government to make it easier for people in the arts sector to get visas and to commission a statue of Queen Elizabeth II in Trafalgar Square. She has the Bexley Bungalow vote in the bag.
Rob is a former digital communications executive and used to be an adviser to Charles Kennedy. He's failed to be elected onto the London Assembly on three occasions. He currently has three priorities.
1. Get the police to focus on serious crimes and earn the respect of Londoners.
Rob wants to 'Reset The Met', reforming it so it "represents all Londoners and works efficiently." He also wants less faffing around over possession of laughing gas and "using freed up police time to investigate rapes and serious sexual offences properly."
2. Proper public transport access for all Londoners and clean up our rivers.
That could easily be two priorities but Rob's brought them both together under the umbrella of "A Green Recovery". He wants to speed up our transition to lower carbon transport and would also introduce a Transport Plan for Outer London. ULEZ is safe on his watch. His eco-aims are promoting biodiversity, a Green Roofs policy, and phasing out chemicals to clean up rivers and protect pollinators.
3. Secure citizenship for long-time Londoners and support new arrivals.
To "Keep London Welcoming", Rob wants to help integrate new arrivals to the capital, to protect EU citizens threatened by the Home Office and to assist undocumented Londoners in securing British status. His portfolio appears much more likely to attract Fulham Flatsharers than Havering Homeowners.
Zoë is a councillor in Hackney and works for the NHS reducing health inequalities. She is one of her pronouns. Her website was not been significantly updated since she ran for the Mayoral nomination so remains focused her personal qualities and beliefs, rather than what she'd do for London. I have no specifics, sorry.
Howard has run the FairFuelUK campaign for over a decade, campaigning on behalf for motorists, bikers, van drivers, cabbies and truckers. He summarises his threefold campaign as Scrap ULEZ, Cut Crime and Ditch Khan. He wants London to "move away from the current debt-ridden virtue signalling idealism and move to a popular common-sense prosperity that benefits all, not just a vocal selfish minority." He also says "what is now clear is that a vote for the Tories is a vote for Labour's Sadiq Khan", and has likely explained why on GB News Breakfast.
He has five priorities which overlap substantially with Susan Hall's Tory offering.
1. Scrap London’s ULEZ cash grab programme completely, ditch LTNs and 20mph zones to get ‘London Moving Again’.
2. Extensively increase policing visibility 24/7 to cut crime and make streets safer for all but specifically for women.
3. Massively increase affordable housing numbers, particularly for young and low-income families.
4. Ensure 5G and higher levels of stable secure wi-fi connections are available throughout Greater London to help with safer reliable interaction and seamless business communication.
5. Incentivise drivers and internal combustion engine users to adopt clean fuel technology without using cash grabbing restrictive policies that hit the least well off the hardest.
It's too early to be certain which other politicians, businessmen, businesswomen, novelty dustbins and other egomaniacs might be adding themselves to the ballot paper, although George Galloway has said he's up for another delusional pasting.
Also, following central government tinkering, the usual Supplementary Vote system has been abolished in favour of First Past The Post instead. The Mayoralty is still effectively a two horse race, but now anyone voting for the third, fourth or fifth horse risks splitting the vote and letting the other side win. At some time in the future this may turn out to be an issue, but Sadiq almost certainly has 2024 sewn up so today's post has probably been a list of policy irrelevances.
There are now less than 20 weeks until the London Mayoral elections and most of the top candidates have laid out their key policies. Sadiq hasn't, his personal website is still a 1-slogan void, but as the incumbent it's easy to imagine what 'more of the same' might mean. Nobody is at the manifesto stage, it's too early for that, but many of the candidates' plans are already a little clearer. Here's my quick summary (and you can click through to read the official unfiltered version).
