“I’m under no illusion, I could lose in May”
It’s a political paradox: the biggest thing standing in the way of Sadiq Khan winning a third term as London mayor is that there appears to be so little standing in his way.
Susan Hall, his opponent, was selected by the Conservatives after a messy and divisive internal battle and there has yet to be a poll that suggests she has even a slim chance this May.
That terrifies Khan and his team – they insist that new polling ID rules and the ditching of second preference votes combined with complacency mean that Hall is much closer to pulling off a shock victory than people think.
“The election in May is too close to call – with the Tory Government introducing new voter ID laws and a new voting system, it’s likely to be the closest contest we’ve ever seen,” he told the i. “I’m under no illusion, I could lose in May.”
If that does happen it will be because the Tories managed to repeat Boris Johnson’s so-called “doughnut” that saw the capital’s bluer outer boroughs vote while Ken Livingstone’s red inner London heartland stayed at home in 2008.
After eight years in the job Khan, 53, knows he has to work harder than ever to inspire Londoners to back him and a heavy hint of a bid for the 2036 Olympics – backed by a Keir Starmer government – is one offer.
“The idea of being a London mayor with a Labour government is so exciting. The last eight years have been hard for a variety of reasons, Brexit, terror attacks, the pandemic, austerity, but I’ve had a Conservative government working against me.
“Now a Labour government isn’t going to give me everything I want, they are not going to write a blank cheque by any means, but the idea that we are all trying to achieve the same thing is so exciting.
“In 24 years there has only been one four-year period with a Labour mayor and a Labour prime minister. In that one four-year term we got funding for Crossrail, we built 8,000 council homes in one year and we got the Olympics.
“Watch this space in terms of a Labour government and Labour mayor doing some exciting stuff. The prize is this – the greenest Olympics ever. Because everything is there, we wouldn’t have to spend billions because most of it is there.”
In December, Khan’s team were reprimanded by the Office for National Statistics for claiming falsely that knife crime was falling when it was injuries not so-called “knife enabled” crime that has dropped.
The London mayor dismisses it as “just one press release” and insists that the statistics on the “things Londoners care most about” are heading in the right direction despite cuts to police funding.
Khan precipitated the removal of former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick and says he will be “disappointed” if the force doesn’t get taken out of special measures by the end of the year.
The London mayor’s claims to have increased affordable housing have also come under scrutiny of late but he insists that current provision – not just starts – are higher under him than Johnson, accusing his predecessor of using a “dodgy definition”.
He also fights off Tory attacks over his refusal to use new anti-strike legislation to thwart disruption to the capital’s transport system insisting it is not fit for purpose. The proof, he says, is that ministers haven’t themselves used the so-called “minimum service level” laws to force employees back to work when they had the chance.
A new trial of Friday off-peak fares will start next month, he says, to tempt people back into central London. He says “nothing is off the table” when asked if we could see off-peak Mondays to drive workers back into the office at the start of the week.
If Hall manages a 2024 “dougnut” she will have to make the most of the lingering resentment felt by those living in the outer boroughs at the expansion of the Ulez scheme under which owners of older more polluting cars have to pay £12.50 a day to drive them.
Starmer distanced himself from Khan, suggesting the scheme wasn’t “proportionate” when it was blamed for losing Labour the Uxbridge by-election in October.
Khan promises there won’t be any changes to that scheme, making more cars liable for example, during a third term. He also promises not to expand the congestion charge zone or introduce any “pay-per-mile” road charging other than the Silvertown tunnel.
He insists he and Starmer can agree to disagree on some policies because they have a strong and amicable relationship.
“I can understand the nervousness about Ulez,”he said. “What Londoners want from the mayor is not someone who is going to be their party’s representative on earth but someone who is going to champion London. There are going to be occasions where we don’t agree – Keir knows this – and that’s perfectly healthy.
“Let be quite clear, Keir is one of my best friends, I’ve known Keir for the last 30 years. I will do everything I can, working night and day to make sure Keir is the next prime minister. There will be far, far, far, far more things we agree on than don’t.”
One of the biggest, however, is Gaza. Khan was among the first to call for a ceasefire when Starmer was echoing Rishi Sunak’s steadfast support for Israel’s military operation in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October atrocities.
Unsurprisingly, the London mayor angles his criticism towards the prime minister and tries to minimise the differences with his party leader. “I’ve spoken to Keir on this, he does believe in a two-state solution, he does believe there has to be proportionate force and you’ve now seen the language change from the national Labour Party.”
But Khan is clearly concerned that Starmer is risking the sort of damage the Iraq War did to Labour’s vote after Tony Blair’s support for George W Bush.
“I lived through the noughties in relation to how helpless people felt in this country. I’m not excusing it but it led to a whole generation being put off politics. And I worry that people are seeing a failure of politics by the lack of a ceasefire,” he said.
One reason, perhaps, for Khan’s closing shot at those he fears will stay at home come May’s election. “Liberal values are under threat this year in a way that they haven’t been for decades. This year will be a year of decision – it is entirely possible we could see Donald Trump in the White House, Suella Braverman in Number 10, and Susan Hall in City Hall.”
