Don’t abolish the Mayor, just get rid of Sadiq Khan
The problem facing London is not the institution of the Mayor or the London Assembly that scrutinises him – it’s the incumbent, Sadiq Khan, says Neil Garratt
Tony Lodge’s recent article in Morning Wire questioning the value of London’s Mayoralty after 25 years provokes an important debate, but reaches the wrong conclusion. The problem facing London is not the institution of the Mayor or the London Assembly that scrutinises him – it’s the incumbent, Sadiq Khan.
Lodge correctly identifies serious issues plaguing our capital: transport woes, rising crime and housing challenges. But these failures aren’t inherent to the mayoral system, they’re the consequence of poor leadership and misplaced priorities.
Take Transport for London. True, it’s become bloated and top-heavy under a Mayor who instinctively sides with striking Tube drivers against Londoners trying to get to work. Witness his disastrous strategy of trying to buy off strikes by handing over large sums of Londoners’ money. Who could possibly have foreseen that they’d just come back for more?
Witness Sadiq Khan’s disastrous strategy of trying to buy off strikes by handing over large sums of Londoners’ money. Who could possibly have foreseen that they’d just come back for more?
But think about the Oyster card. We take for granted having a single pay-as-you-go card to seamlessly travel across the whole city, but it wasn’t always thus. Before Mayor Livingstone introduced the Oyster in 2003, you had to buy a paper ticket in advance.
It became even simpler in 2014 when Mayor Johnson added contactless bank cards to the mix. TfL now accounts for around one in 10 of all UK contactless card transactions. It’s not a coincidence that this happened after the creation of the London Mayor in 2000, just as in Manchester Mayor Burnham has introduced a similar contactless system.
It is also hard to see major transport projects such as the Elizabeth Line and Silvertown Tunnel happening without a Mayor to drive them – both started under Johnson and completed under Khan.
On policing, Lodge is right to identify genuine concerns about crime levels and police morale. But the answer isn’t abolishing the Mayor’s oversight role, it’s electing someone who will properly support our police while holding them to high standards.
I’ve pressed Khan repeatedly on crime affecting Londoners, but his political instinct is to stonewall. In contrast, my February report Tackling London’s Theft Epidemic showed a positive plan for keeping Londoners safe and united with their mobile phone. That neither Khan nor his hapless Deputy Mayor for Policing has shown similar leadership is their individual failure.
Housing is perhaps the most telling example. London’s affordability crisis continues unabated despite Khan’s powers to direct strategic development. While he wastes everyone’s time with excuses and blame-shifting, his vast portfolio of London land holdings (GLAP) is years behind on redeveloping the Greenwich Peninsula and the Docklands. A different Mayor with better priorities than Sadiq Khan could use his office to deliver housing that meets London’s needs, as Boris Johnson was able to.
Meanwhile, as Britain seeks a new role and a renewed economic strength on the world stage, London’s mighty services economy must be the nation’s engine room. From its traditional strengths of finance, consulting, and law to the modern world of media, music, and IT, Britain needs London to thrive and London needs its Mayor to lead.
Where would the funding go instead?
The question is: if it were abolished, where would the funding and powers go instead? With the GLA gone, its main powers covering transport and policing would not go down to the boroughs but back up to the national government. These are two areas in which London is very different from the rest of the country, so having our police and transport folded into the national debate risks making our capital city a half-forgotten afterthought.
While national governments’ interest in London may wax and wane, Londoners should always have in the Mayor a champion focused on improving our city, answerable to us.
The fact that even Labour council leaders are publicly fed up with Mayor Khan’s high-handed me-first attitude is a red flag signalling his inability to lead. A better Mayor would bring people together while providing the decisive leadership only a directly elected figure can offer. Could London boroughs have given the same leadership on the Olympics as either Johnson or Livingstone were able to?
The beauty of the Mayoral system is precisely that people can see who is responsible and directly vote them out. Sadiq Khan’s failures should not condemn the institution but highlight the importance of electing a Mayor who will show the real leadership we deserve to get London moving, keep Londoners safe, and solve our housing crisis.
Neil Garratt is leader of City Hall Conservatives and Assembly Member for Croydon and Sutton