What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Just read an opinion piece on him, seriously what is the point of him, an attention seeking self publicist with little to crow about, his record is one of dismal failure at almost every level. Highlights include

Rise in violent crime, which he has responded to by creating the mayor's office for policing and crime at a cost of 7 million quid plus a year, you'd have thought that cash would be better served putting more police on the streets but then that wouldn't have given him the photo opportunities he can't help but seek.

Pitiful affordable housing rate of building despite his grandiose pre election promises, 80 000 homes a year was never realistic but the 5000 he has delivered was worse than bozos record

Presiding over transport fiascos that include crossrail being delayed, his answer was to throw more cash at it btw and a fall in the number of people using public transport, that to me is the most unbelievable part of his tenure, for the first time in generations fewer people are using public transport.


Worst mayor ever imo and the best reason to abolish the role, he wasn't the reason I left London last year but not having him represent me is certainly one of the biggest plusses for going as the sad thing is I think he'll get re-elected, still at least he has stopped going on about his dad driving a bloody bus, that is until he throws his hat in for labours top job, he clearly sees mayor as a stepping stone to PM, just like his predecessor, I hope they both come a cropper and end up disappointed

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

You are so right. he is a sham grandstander. His political New Year fireworks display proves that.

He got to power by promising a 4 year freeze on tube fares which has left him financially crippled being squeezed at both ends with falling passenger numbers.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Cross rail is pretty hard to pin on him. A project like that doesn’t miss over a year suddenly. The project was already well underway when he took office.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

It doesn't have to a blunder from Johnson either. Crossrail is a massive project at least two levels removed from the Mayor's office (Mayor --> TFL --> Crossrail). The initial building work started in 2009. It's unlikely that everything was on time and on track until Khan arrived and then it misses a year. Especially since it's unclear what he possibly could have done to a project nearly completion to cause it. Especially since the funding, timetable, management structure, planning and companies involved where all decided long ago.

Some of the other stuff I think he is on the hook for. Although some of it has been happening for a while. I.E Police cuts have been happening since 2010. 9% police numbers have fallen by. Overall though he doesn't have any achievements to his name. The only good thing IMO is the single bus ticket fare thing.

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That said I don't understand why he is to blame for less public transport usage. It's not as if it's got expensive or less reliable. It's probably the rise of flexible working, uber and more cyclists.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

He lied about not knowing it wouldn't be completed on time and tried to throw tax payer cash at it so he wouldn't get the blame, speaks volumes about his character if nothing else does

It's all gimmicks and photo opportunities with him, the pr budget has shot up whilst police numbers are slashed, it's okay saying he's not responsible for the cuts but he's responsible for squandering fortunes on crap like the mayor's office for policing and crime and the violence reduction unit

He promised record investment in public transport as well as fare freezes and look what's happened, cuts to the network, tube upgrades cancelled and that's without mentioning the complete mess he's made of the roads, the maintenance of which iirc is currently suspended presumably due to a lack of cash? But what does that matter as long as he got his attention grabbing headlines about fares being frozen

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Well ultimately it needed more cash because of the overrun. I don't see how he would have avoided the blame as people would notice it's not opened yet.

He didn't create the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. That was already there. He has done a violence reduction unit based on something that worked in Glasgow to reduce violent crime. That was only a few months ago so it's hard to say if it's worth it or not, but something needs to be done to address the rise in violent crime. It's £7 million compared to the £110 million put into the Met from City Hall just last year. City Hall actually contributes more than it ever has done to the Met as of 2018.

I agree the freeze in fares was stupid. Although I think this is all an argument to increase the powers of the Mayor's office/London assembly. The government cut the TFL grant by quite a bit. As with the Met Office if London is to fund it's police and transport networks independently then it needs to be able to keep more of the money it generates to do so.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Don't think you know when you're well off in London. £708 spent per person on transport, where as it £289 per person in the North of England. (where we're rattling around in clapped out 2 carriage diesel trains - that were past their use by in the 1980's). Doubtless the income form the latest price rises will all be funnelled to the South East again.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...f-england-ippr

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

My sister who had lived there for 10 years had to move out of the Capital as with her reasonable salary it was a struggle later on from month to month with rental and other costs going through the roof as time went on..

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Well that’s the problem, when you centralise so much of a country’s decision making and major business in one city, competition for space and resources drives prices up. The way London has been allowed to unbalance this country over the last 75 years is insane, and still there seems to be little more than lip service paid to fixing it.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

In my line of work Den people get paid more and work shorter hours for working in London. Which even more farcical since most of them work from home.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

I usually watch the London New Year's fireworks but thank goodness I missed this political bullshit one and watched a local one from my bedroom window, drink in hand.

Sadiq is a disgusting individual, a total political self serving big nosed hack. Worse London Mayor ever!!!

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Sounds a lot like the last mayor really, maybe it goes with the post ?

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Absolutely agree 100% with your sentiments.

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Self serving for their own future political ambitions..

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

No, he wouldn't.. What about the Garden Bridge he wanted? £56m and what do we have? Zilch. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/l...-a8237636.html

Contrary to trumpeting this failure, Boris is actually going out of his way to deny responsibility for this, blaming everyone else but him.

As for the Emirates Airline cable car(another Boris project), look at the passenger numbers. https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publica...rformance-data . The average number of passengers per week is about 10% of capacity. Without sponsorship, I suspect it's highly unlikely it's making much profit, and unless passenger numbers improve significantly, I suspect that Emirates will not be looking to renew their sponsorship. On the average year, they get around 1-1.2m passengers. They are paying several times that.

I'm not a fan of Sadiq. I don't particularly dislike him, but I can't put my finger on anything and say he has achieved that. Regarding Boris, at the time, I liked him, and thought he was a good Mayor.

Regarding Crossrail, I think the problems there have been there since before Sadiq came to power, and I would argue that he, and TFL have been quite open about them.

One the plus side, he has pledged £110m more for the Met. https://www.london.gov.uk/press-rele...for-met-police , but of course the right wing media won't trumpet that. Nor will they trumpet the years of government cuts that likely contributed to the current crime figures.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

Not to forget the water cannon fiasco...

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

I had, thanks for reminding me.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

The Boris bus has also been a costly fiasco and to his credit Sadiq Kahn has now allowed the bus companies to purchase their own buses.

But BoJo was a great public figure at the Olympics and handled the zipwire fiasco very well.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Really? He just seemed a buffoon rather than a statesman.Personally I'd rather have a bit of gravitas in a City Mayor.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq
 

To me they're both different cheeks of The same arse, two desperados whose ambition and ego are far in excess of their actual talent for the role. It's also worth noting that bozo approved the cycle superhighway on the embankment knowing it'd have to be torn up in under a year for the super sewer to be built, still it's only money, he'd probably call it chicken feed

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

I see the leader of the free world has retweeted Katie Hopkins Londonistan tweet, she is a vile creature, there's so much to attack Khan over without bringing race into it, like shutting so much of londons roads yesterday for a poxy cycle race today, how anyone is supposed to work in this 24hr metropolis with this berk in charge is beyond me, it seems like it's every week huge swathes of the city are shut for some pathetic reason or other, it'd serve him and his ilk right if we just told him to shove it and took monday of

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Ride London isn't him though, that was set up under Boris. It's relatively popular (always full subscribed) so they won't be getting rid of it anytime soon.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

London . . .

Nice place for a 2 day visit annually.
Is probably a great place to live for the rich and the wannabe celebrities.
Has some rubbish football teams.
Attracts some very dubious characters/investors.
Has a 'town hall' full of spivs & charlatans.
Should be put on the Endangered Species list.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Most definitely if you can get reasonable priced accomadation.

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My sister lived there until 3 years ago but even with a reasonably good salary it became too expensive to live there anymore for her.

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Now that could be controversial.;)

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As do other big cities..

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Not the only one mind...

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l will let you explain that one as it could mean two to three different things.

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

Whose decision was it to shut 12 miles of the most important roads the day before it started? Whose great idea was shutting of large parts weekend before last, it's a city not a velodrome, whose idea is the car free weekend in October. After a year of being bored in Essex I'm back now and looking forward to playing a small part in booting this attention seeking, inept mayor from office, it's amazing his approval ratings are so low considering all the playing to the crowd and pr he does

Re: What's the Point of Sadiq Khan?
 

I don't know why they close it beforehand. Do you mean yesterday? Because the event takes place over the two days. The weekend before was the London Triathlon I think which I think has been happening longer than London Ride. The car free weekend was Khan's idea though.

My point being these things will continue. The long-term plan of the Mayor's office, though consecutive holders, and TFL has been to reduce car usage. Once Kahn has gone these roads will still be closed on these weekends. Paris is facing the same problems for example. Old European cities are struggling with polluting cars.

I think Kahn has been quite useless as Mayor but most of these road closers aren't him and will only increase as time goes on. Knife crime, housing and Crossrail are likely what'll hurt him. Whereas Trump's attacks only help him. He is also lucky the Tories seem to have chosen an idiot as their candidate.