The Liberal Democrats’ candidate for London Mayor launched his campaign this morning, promising to “fix the Met” and arguing that Sadiq Khan “does not deserve a third term” while the politics of Conservative hopeful Susan Hall “have no place in our capital”.
Rob Blackie, who is also seeking a seat on the London Assembly, said this is “a great time” for his party to mount a “strong distinctive campaign” appealing to “millions of Londoners who are looking for a change but have no time for today’s Conservatives”.
Speaking at Pop Brixton, an arts and hospitality “meanwhile” venue on Brixton Station Road, he pointed to declining support for the Tories in the capital and underlined that crime and policing are his “top priority” for the weeks leading up to 2 May, as well as highlighting his approach to housing and environmental issues.
A long-standing resident of Lambeth, Blackie recalled being the victim of a mugging in Vauxhall that left him with injuries eventually requiring major surgery – an incident he’d previously recalled when interviewed for On London. “If you’re a victim of violent crime, it’s something you always remember,” he said, adding that “too many Londoners” suffer from it as “a brutal, dark reality”.
Drawing on Louise Casey’s damning report about the standards and culture of the Met, Blackie cited a Met officer describing the detection rate for rape and sexual offences as so low “you may as well say it’s legal”.
Despite this “shameful” state of affairs, Blackie continued, Mayor Khan “has the police spending scarce resources searching young people for cannabis and for laughing gas canisters”. Blackie said his priorities would be different, and vowed to face down criticism for that from rightwing media.
In passages about Europe, his London childhood and his recent, successfully-concluded NHS cancer treatment, Blackie embraced London’s cosmopolitanism, saying “that is the Britain we want to get back”. He condemned politicians as different as Suella Braverman and George Galloway who he said “talk up, rather than damp down conflict” and queried whether Hall even likes London, describing her as “beyond the pale”.
Describing the in-progress Silvertown Tunnel project east of Tower Bridge as “a motorway under the Thames” and criticising his record for planting trees, he was scornful about Khan’s claims to be a green Mayor.
And he pledged to use “the power of City hall to build more green homes – social homes, homes to rent, homes that young Londoners can buy”, as well as supporting getting more solar panels on people’s roofs and “dramatically” expanding the number of electric vehicle charging points. in the city.
In the only opinion poll about the mayoral election published so far this year, Blackie was in fourth place on eight per cent, behind Khan on 49 per cent, Hall on 24 and the Green Party’s Zoë Garbeet on nine, but ahead of Reform UK’s Hwaord Cox, who was one seven per cent.
Blackie is in second position on his party’s list of Londonwide candidates running in the proportional representation section of the Assembly elections. The Lib Dems won two Assembly seats through that avenue in 2021, having secured 7.3 per cent of the valid votes.
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