Sadiq Khan’s campaign to win a historic third term as Mayor of London got underway today with a joint appearance alongside Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at the Stowe Centre on Harrow Road.
In his first major pledge of the 2024 race, the Labour Mayor committed to the delivery of “at least 40,000 new council homes in our city by the end of the decade”, calling it “the greatest council house building drive in a generation” to be made possible by “working with a Labour government”.
Khan again insisted that a “two-horse race” between himself and Conservative candidate Susan Hall will be the closest for City Hall yet, and said that victory for him on 2 May will mean the city can “go from rowing against the tide of a Tory government to having the winds of a Labour government at our back”.
Describing Khan as a long time friend, Starmer praised the Mayor’s record over the past eight years in housing, police officer recruitment and with helping to ease the effects of cost of living increases, saying these have “transformed communities”.
Starmer’s support is a boost for Khan, with the launch event emphasising a shared Labour effort in a city where their party has long been politically dominant and opinion polls suggest is currently far more popular than the Conservatives, with a general election also expected later in the year.
The party hopes to also win the West Central London Assembly constituency for the first time and the Cities of London and Westminster parliamentary seat, both currently Tory-held.
Khan again warned that his position might not be as secure as it appears due to the government imposing the First Past The Post system on mayoral elections – a move widely seen as likely to help Tory candidates – and introducing Voter ID requirements, and his winning margin in the last, Covid-delayed, mayoral election in 2021 being far smaller than polls had indicated.
Starmer was indirectly critical of Khan following last July’s by-election in the Uxbridge parliamentary seat, when the Mayor’s then-impending expansion of his Ultra-Low Emission Zone was blamed for a strong swing to Labour falling just short of what was needed to gain the seat from the Tories.
However, at today’s launch he commended the Mayor’s drive for improved air quality, deploying an analogy Khan himself has used to say he wouldn’t give his children dirty water to drink so why would he expect them to breathe dirty air.
With less than seven weeks to go until the election for both a Mayor and 25 members of the London Assembly, Khan went on the offensive about his housing record, highlighting the contribution he has had from his government-funded affordable homes programme to London borough schemes and calling the Tories “blockers, not builders” who are “more interested in stoking culture wars than supplying quality housing”.
He also talked up his funding for free schools meals, ensuring that every child in a London state school receives one regardless of income, his freezing of Transport for London public transport fares, investment in youth services and what he called his “ambitious climate action and the world’s largest clean air zone” along with claiming progress with reducing violent crime involving injuries with knives.
On Saturday, Khan made an appeal to supporters of the Greens and Liberal Democrats to “lend” him their votes to help ensure that Hall, a Brexit backer from the Right of her party, does not win City Hall because of splits in the centre and Left “progressive” vote.
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