Crime and Failure, the Labour Party made the wrong choice backing Sadiq Khan for London Mayor, Khan’s popularity crumbles to dust after summer of violence in the Capitalsees Mayor’s ratings hit lowest level, Labour need a replacement for the election 2020, the party cannot go into that election with Khan as candidate, he is a serious liability

Dear All

Here is a stat that you may find rather shocking; London has overtaken New York City for number of murders for the first time in over 200 years.

New York is seen often seen in movies as a violence place but the fact that London leaves this behind now is unacceptable. The London Mayor is Labour's Sadiq Khan, his tenure as Mayor has seen him making bad decisions to the point that his approval rating has slumped to its lowest level on record.

Far from being a decisive Mayor, Khan’s attitude is ‘I can’t do anything about…’ In London as we keep seeing there has been an escalating surging violence in the capital. Certain types of crime such as Moped and acid attacks have effectively led people to have no confidence in him.

How much longer the Labour Party can continue to support him as their candidate for Mayor is debateable, personally, I think after his term ends, he should go. What is needed in London is a strong Mayor who is willing to bring back stop and search; who are willing to campaign for severe measures and sentences to be used on those who do violence in the City.

And have exclusion orders to remove such people from the City of London with severe penalties for those who think they can flout the law. Acid attackers should be given sentences inline with those who carry a weapon such as a gun.

It is a fact of life that you don’t stamp out violent crime by being nice; there is ‘no talking people round’ who are active gang members. The time is coming where action is needed, and the rather weak response from Khan shows that there is no leadership worth following in City Hall.

In April, Andrew Gilligan wrote a hard hitting piece, where he looked at Khan’s promises such as on social housing.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/sadiq-khan-is-a-lousy-london-mayor-why-hasnt-anyone-noticed/

Khan promised that his housing policy would ‘rival the NHS with its transformative effect on society’ but the reality apparently according to Gilligan was that City Hall figures failed to realise the promise. In the first year of Khan’s term, London did not start building a single social rented home.

In politics, the folly of hanging onto deadweight is well known in Scotland as the Westminster 2015 and 2017 elections showed rather painfully for the Scottish Labour. You might think Scottish Labour learned their lesson, but you would be wrong, former badly defeated Holyrood MSPs are slotted to be Westminster candidates for some of their seats, probably in the 2022 election.   

Although we have seen the problems of Boris Johnson and his martial problems played out in the press, one thing you can say about Johnson was he started 7,439 homes for social rent in his first year as mayor and 1,687 in the first year of his second term.

Even after the economic crash!

I believe that ideally policing should be kept under the scope of the Mayor but given the surging violence, there maybe a case for policing in the Capital to come under direct responsibility of the Home Secretary.

Something has gone badly wrong, and the state of affairs is such that something has to happen to move forward, at present there is an impasse, the new idea of a ‘violent crime taskforce’, in a City of circa 8 million, 120 officers isn’t even a drop in the bucket.

On thing which did have a WTF moment writing this piece was finding out that while an MP, he once went straight from voting in parliament for post office closures to a public meeting where he protested against post office closures. If such an act of stupidity cannot be seen for what it is then the Labour Party has even bigger problems that it realises.

Philip Cowley, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary and Director of the Mile End Institute said regards to the poll findings on Khan:

“In April 2018, Sadiq Khan was still ahead among those aged 50-64, working class Londoners, those living in outer London and white voters. He’s now behind among all of these groups.”

Cowley added:

“When we first started polling, he was one of the most popular politicians in Britain. Such was his cross-party support, he even had net positive support from Conservative voters. Those days are long gone.”

The professor argues with some cause that Khan can be beaten at the next mayoral election in May 2020, if he faces a strong Tory candidate, given Boris Johnson’s troubles which effectively kills off a leadership bid, could he return as Mayor?

The defining issue of Sadiq Khan’s term as Mayor has been crime; this is not the type of failure that you want hanging round your neck entering an election.

Murders in London have overtaken New York for first time since 1800; that is quite a headline which no one can spin away from. If I was a party manager for the Labour Party, I would say that Khan has to be brought in for a serious talk regarding what he doing with his time. Khan has taken a strong stance on politically correct cultural issues, moving to ban attractive images of women on the Tube, fast food adverts, and campaigning against a clean Brexit and U.S. President Donald J. Trump all the while people are being murdered and robbed all around him.

London needs a tough Mayor on crime and a series of measures that meet the needs of the Capital; it rather seems that Khan isn’t that man.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University