Local/devolved elections 2016

[Osem]

I must say that the Mayoral campaign was lacklustre in the extreme. I've heard it said that the Tories were quite happy to sacrifice Mayor of London in order to help keep Corbyn in a job and to discredit Goldsmith who's been a major pain re Heathrow expansion.
Goldsmith seems to have had a personality bypass and Khan is almost as odious as Red Ken.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by Osem

I must say that the Mayoral campaign was lacklustre in the extreme. I've heard it said that the Tories were quite happy to sacrifice Mayor of London in order to help keep Corbyn in a job and to discredit Goldsmith who's been a major pain re Heathrow expansion.
Goldsmith seems to have had a personality bypass and Khan is almost as odious as Red Ken.

Or the majority of those that turned out to vote would rather have a Labour mayor than a Conservative mayor.

Cheers

Grim

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Osem

I've heard it said that the Tories were quite happy to sacrifice Mayor of London in order to help keep Corbyn in a job and to discredit Goldsmith who's been a major pain re Heathrow expansion.
.

An interesting theory, probably concocted about 7pm this evening, by the same spin Dr. who persuaded Zac to go for the racist campaign??

Originally Posted by Osem

I must say that the Mayoral campaign was lacklustre in the extreme. I've heard it said that the Tories were quite happy to sacrifice Mayor of London in order to help keep Corbyn in a job and to discredit Goldsmith who's been a major pain re Heathrow expansion.
Goldsmith seems to have had a personality bypass and Khan is almost as odious as Red Ken.

What's wrong with Khan? Odious is pretty strong.

Also if it were the case they were 'sacrificing' the Mayoralty then Cameron wouldn't have bothered getting his hands dirty with it all. They seem to have simply lost because they ran a bad campaign, with a poor candidate in a city which trends towards Labour. The best quote I have seen was from an anonymous Tory who said "they ran a dog-whistle campaign in a city with no dogs", essentially pushing the Muslim thing isn't going to help you in London. It might even have hurt him as the turnout was the highest ever.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Damien

What's wrong with Khan? .

WTF, he hijacked the Reliant!

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Damien

What's wrong with Khan? Odious is pretty strong.

Also if it were the case they were 'sacrificing' the Mayoralty then Cameron wouldn't have bothered getting his hands dirty with it all. They seem to have simply lost because they ran a bad campaign, with a poor candidate in a city which trends towards Labour. The best quote I have seen was from an anonymous Tory who said "they ran a dog-whistle campaign in a city with no dogs", essentially pushing the Muslim thing isn't going to help you in London. It might even have hurt him as the turnout was the highest ever.

Odious, yes he is. It may be strong but it's just one of those pesky opinions we're all entitled to. He reminds me of Red Ken in a slimy sort of way and that's enough to make anything odious.

As regards the Tory campaign, I'm only repeating what I heard on LBC this evening, from people much closer to events than me - Andrew Pearce and Iain Dale IIRC. Unlike previous occasions, in this area all I saw of any campaign was a UKIP banner and flags on an Audi estate parked around the corner. No posters, no banners, no presence in the high street, no knocking on doors, nobody at the polling station - it was bizarre. What I saw/heard of Goldsmith was deeply uninspiring, devoid of passion and crass at times. Like or loathe Boris, you'll never forget him. Contrast that with the boring billionaire's son for whom it all appeared a bit tiresome, a boring interlude between far more interesting campaign quaffing events. Goldsmith was already on a hiding to nothing in London and it seems he's a bit of a masochist to boot...

As for Khan, he's on the record as saying that more migration is good for London whist moaning about all the cars, pollution etc. Presumably, therefore, he'll build the tens of thousands of homes he reckons we'll need every year and ensure they're all occupied by people who walk everywhere, wear thick woolly jumpers to keep out the cold and don't want gardens. When all the available brown field sites are built upon he'll start building on the green belt because who needs that anyway and we need more people who'll live longer to look after all the older people who're living longer and causing so many problems...

Originally Posted by Osem

As for Khan, he's on the record as saying that more migration is good for London whist moaning about all the cars, pollution etc. Presumably, therefore, he'll build the tens of thousands of homes he reckons we'll need every year and ensure they're all occupied by people who walk everywhere, wear thick woolly jumpers to keep out the cold and don't want gardens. When all the available brown field sites are built upon he'll start building on the green belt because who needs that anyway...

Most people in London don't drive, especially not migrants. The issues with pollution and cars is just because it's an old city with congested roads. Oxford Steet is two lanes and most of the surrounding area isn't friendly to cars either. If it was me I would start to look at banning private non-commercial cars in London and speed up the use of electric taxies and so on.

As for homes London needs more but it would be a damn sight more helpful if every development wasn't for luxury apartments. It's not relatively poor migrants that are the problem there but rich foreign investors that buy apartments as a place to store their money.

I would suspect migration probably is good for London given the constant demand the city has for more workers. Unemployment is low and the city has a very high amount of educated migrants. It's obviously in a different situation than the rest of the county. More people in means we need more housing and transport yes but London has a pretty high churn of people, few stay in the City for long, and it also has a load of people from around the UK coming down as well.

After all if London is to step-up it's house building and transport expansion then we may well need migrants to build them: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...sebuilder.html

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Pierre

WTF, he hijacked the Reliant!

and put that thing in pavel's lug hole

[rhyds]

Originally Posted by Pierre

WTF, he hijacked the Reliant!

That poor Reliant...

Me thinks I hear the sound of sour grapes..

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Damien

What's wrong with Khan? Odious is pretty strong

It's been a bad day for some: London has overwhelmingly chosen a Muslim, Labour, Immigrant's Son

[heero_yuy]

I think the Tories are quite happy for Khan to screw up London just to remind everybody how bad it could be under Labour.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

I think the Tories are quite happy for Khan to screw up London just to remind everybody how bad it could be under Labour.

There's some pretty desperate straw grasping going on at the moment , I'm pretty sure the Conservatives would have preferred a win so Zac could remind everyone how great they're having it. Unfortunately the people of London had other thoughts.

Cheers

Grim

[denphone]

As l say none of the two candidates impressed me but l will pause judgement for several years and see how much he improves or does not improve things in the next couple of years for our great metropolis.