Mayoral election 2024: Last push as London heads to the polls
Campaigners are set to give it one last push today as London heads to the polls to cast their ballots in the mayoral election.
Labour’s Sadiq Khan and the Conservative’s Susan Hall will go head to head as votes are counted under the first-past-the-post system following May 2 for the first time, after polls narrowed on Wednesday to just a 10-point lead for Khan.
Khan told Morning Wire he was taking nothing for granted as he urged voters to back him for a “fairer, safer, greener London” and insisted: “This has been a close two-horse race. I don’t believe the polls at all.
“I think the most important part is the election day. That’s why I’m encouraging anybody who’s a Londoner to vote.”
Hall reached 32 per cent support among Londoners yesterday, with Khan ahead on 42 per cent, but the Savanta and Centre for London findings marked the closest they have come.
Hall said: “Thursday is Londoners’ last chance to stop the Ulez expansion, our last chance to stop pay-per-mile, and our last chance to reform the police with borough-based policing, put more police on the street, and get crime under control.
“I have been listening to Londoners, and this Thursday I ask Londoners to lend me their vote.”
Hall and Khan have both rolled out a battle bus and an ad-van respectively in the last few days of the campaign.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will be voting at a London polling station, his spokesperson has confirmed, while it’s understood Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be out campaigning.
Efforts will be focused on getting out the vote today, with Londoners having to bring voter ID to the polling station for the first time in a mayoral election in order to cast their ballots.
Voters can find the location of their nearest polling station on their local council website or on the poll card which may have been sent to them at home.
Polls open at 7am on Thursday, May 2, and close at 10pm.