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| Sadiq Khan: London mayoral race is 'referendum' on Tory housing policy | Sadiq Khan: London mayoral race is 'referendum' on Tory housing policy |
| (about 14 hours later) | |
| In telling Labour’s conference that housing will have pride of place in his already up-and-running London mayoral campaign, Sadiq Khan not only pledged action on soaring rents, falling home ownership and big, unfriendly property giants, he also made his likely Conservative opponent Zac Goldsmith an offer designed to be awkward to refuse: “Let’s work together and stop the government making the housing crisis even worse.” | In telling Labour’s conference that housing will have pride of place in his already up-and-running London mayoral campaign, Sadiq Khan not only pledged action on soaring rents, falling home ownership and big, unfriendly property giants, he also made his likely Conservative opponent Zac Goldsmith an offer designed to be awkward to refuse: “Let’s work together and stop the government making the housing crisis even worse.” |
| Khan had the forthcoming Housing Bill in mind, but more than that he was aiming to make the well-heeled MP for sylvan Richmond Park and North Kingston squirm. Goldsmith has been touting himself as a dissident free spirit, more than ready to break with his party’s line. Khan was putting Goldsmith’s line to the test. | |
| You can’t accuse the Labour man of failing to look for chinks in the shiny armour of the Tory Prince Charming or of missing any chance to contrast his own, upwardly mobile, life story with Goldsmith’s text book tale of Etonian privilege and wealth. He began his speech with a new variation on his now familiar account of being the council house-raised son of a bus driver, recalling works family outings to Brighton when he and his siblings were children “or as we in Tooting call it in ‘London by the Sea.’” | You can’t accuse the Labour man of failing to look for chinks in the shiny armour of the Tory Prince Charming or of missing any chance to contrast his own, upwardly mobile, life story with Goldsmith’s text book tale of Etonian privilege and wealth. He began his speech with a new variation on his now familiar account of being the council house-raised son of a bus driver, recalling works family outings to Brighton when he and his siblings were children “or as we in Tooting call it in ‘London by the Sea.’” |
| “Hackney-on-Sea,” surely? But never mind. Khan said the mayoral vote will be “a referendum on London’s housing crisis” which he insists he can find ways to fix, including, significantly, by helping to “make Labour the party of home ownership” as well as of social housing. He drew attention to his attempts to have more housing and other powers devolved to the capital - powers which, it is rumoured, may be in pipeline from Whitehall. | “Hackney-on-Sea,” surely? But never mind. Khan said the mayoral vote will be “a referendum on London’s housing crisis” which he insists he can find ways to fix, including, significantly, by helping to “make Labour the party of home ownership” as well as of social housing. He drew attention to his attempts to have more housing and other powers devolved to the capital - powers which, it is rumoured, may be in pipeline from Whitehall. |
| He dubbed the Housing Bill the “No Home Of Your Own Bill”. Khan also pledged to spread opportunity, the sorts that London enabled him to enjoy, by tackling air pollution, helping Londoners acquire skills, making transport cheaper, backing the London Living wage while also being “the most pro-business mayor ever, creating jobs and wealth,” and by defending Britain’s membership of the European Union - are you listening, Euro-sceptic Zac? | He dubbed the Housing Bill the “No Home Of Your Own Bill”. Khan also pledged to spread opportunity, the sorts that London enabled him to enjoy, by tackling air pollution, helping Londoners acquire skills, making transport cheaper, backing the London Living wage while also being “the most pro-business mayor ever, creating jobs and wealth,” and by defending Britain’s membership of the European Union - are you listening, Euro-sceptic Zac? |
| The speech confirmed some of the energetic political positioning Khan has been engaged over the past two weeks, although on this party occasion he diplomatically steered clear of underlining a readiness to fall out with Jeremy Corbyn he’s made a virtue of elsewhere. | The speech confirmed some of the energetic political positioning Khan has been engaged over the past two weeks, although on this party occasion he diplomatically steered clear of underlining a readiness to fall out with Jeremy Corbyn he’s made a virtue of elsewhere. |
| Corbyn’s speech was not so much Old Labour as Old Islington, I thought, but, either way, Khan has so far placed himself at a measured distance from the new Labour leader. It’s just one of several canny moves to disarm voter prejudices and block potential enemy lines of attack, including some any Tory opponent will be wary of using directly but whose many media agents in the field may be less inhibited about. | Corbyn’s speech was not so much Old Labour as Old Islington, I thought, but, either way, Khan has so far placed himself at a measured distance from the new Labour leader. It’s just one of several canny moves to disarm voter prejudices and block potential enemy lines of attack, including some any Tory opponent will be wary of using directly but whose many media agents in the field may be less inhibited about. |
| Khan is a Tooting-born Muslim with impeccable liberal credentials – a former civil rights lawyer who voted in favour of gay marriage. But some non-Muslim voters, saturated with news of brutal atrocities committed in Islam’s name from around the world and with tales - some of them very shoddy indeed, by the way - of furtive “extremists” subverting democracy at home, might be forgiven for wrongly assuming that Muslims as a whole are incapable of accepting the cultural plurality London embraces. | Khan is a Tooting-born Muslim with impeccable liberal credentials – a former civil rights lawyer who voted in favour of gay marriage. But some non-Muslim voters, saturated with news of brutal atrocities committed in Islam’s name from around the world and with tales - some of them very shoddy indeed, by the way - of furtive “extremists” subverting democracy at home, might be forgiven for wrongly assuming that Muslims as a whole are incapable of accepting the cultural plurality London embraces. |
| Early markers have been planted by Khan to deter these threats: Jewish and gay Londoners have been firmly assured of his strong support against hate crime and bigotry. He’s also moved to pre-empt assumptions that he, coming from his party’s “soft left” and helped in the candidate race by strong union backing, will be anti-business, telling the Financial Times of his misgivings about the views of shadow chancellor John McDonnell and that he favours Britain’s “competitive tax policy” to attract firms to the capital. | Early markers have been planted by Khan to deter these threats: Jewish and gay Londoners have been firmly assured of his strong support against hate crime and bigotry. He’s also moved to pre-empt assumptions that he, coming from his party’s “soft left” and helped in the candidate race by strong union backing, will be anti-business, telling the Financial Times of his misgivings about the views of shadow chancellor John McDonnell and that he favours Britain’s “competitive tax policy” to attract firms to the capital. |
| He’s also been quick to get on the right side of cycling campaigners and cabbies, two vocal and influential groups in the fraught arena of transport, where the mayor’s largest and most hands-on powers presently lie. Pledges to improve air quality and plant trees will please the environmentalist vote, much of it Green or Lib Dem-inclined and likely to look kindly on Goldsmith. He’s said he’d scrap Boris Johnson’s controversial garden bridge plan and divert the money saved into pedestrianizing Oxford Street (a fine ambition although, as London politicians of many stripes will testify, fiendishly hard to fulfill). | He’s also been quick to get on the right side of cycling campaigners and cabbies, two vocal and influential groups in the fraught arena of transport, where the mayor’s largest and most hands-on powers presently lie. Pledges to improve air quality and plant trees will please the environmentalist vote, much of it Green or Lib Dem-inclined and likely to look kindly on Goldsmith. He’s said he’d scrap Boris Johnson’s controversial garden bridge plan and divert the money saved into pedestrianizing Oxford Street (a fine ambition although, as London politicians of many stripes will testify, fiendishly hard to fulfill). |
| Conventional wisdom has it that you cannot win a London mayoral race without attracting many voters who normally vote for politicians from different parties and by mobilising support in the suburbs, where most Londoners and many of its Tory voters live. Khan acknowledged that in his speech, promising to enthuse Londoners from Camden to Kenton. But both parts of this argument should be qualified. | Conventional wisdom has it that you cannot win a London mayoral race without attracting many voters who normally vote for politicians from different parties and by mobilising support in the suburbs, where most Londoners and many of its Tory voters live. Khan acknowledged that in his speech, promising to enthuse Londoners from Camden to Kenton. But both parts of this argument should be qualified. |
| It is not essential for candidates to have heavy cross-over appeal if they can enthuse their own party supporters in large enough numbers. General and mayoral elections are very different, but if Khan can replicate the 44% vote share Labour won in the capital in May in the form of first preference votes under the supplementary vote system, he will be close to home and dry - it’s the very same figure Johnson secured when winning in 2012, despite his Labour rival Ken Livingstone winning more second preferences. As for the Outer London “doughnut effect”, seen as key to Johnson’s successive victories, that might be in decline. The suburbs vary greatly but, overall, they’ve become both poorer and more ethnically diverse - factors that tend to help Labour. | It is not essential for candidates to have heavy cross-over appeal if they can enthuse their own party supporters in large enough numbers. General and mayoral elections are very different, but if Khan can replicate the 44% vote share Labour won in the capital in May in the form of first preference votes under the supplementary vote system, he will be close to home and dry - it’s the very same figure Johnson secured when winning in 2012, despite his Labour rival Ken Livingstone winning more second preferences. As for the Outer London “doughnut effect”, seen as key to Johnson’s successive victories, that might be in decline. The suburbs vary greatly but, overall, they’ve become both poorer and more ethnically diverse - factors that tend to help Labour. |
| This cannot, as some assume, be straightforwardly ascribed to the so-called “social cleansing” of the poor from the more expensive inner London boroughs. Although “pricing out”, including of the middle-class, is certainly taking place, Outer London demographic change is also resulting from ethnic minority households choosing to follow the long London tradition of outward migration in search of larger homes with gardens, and with Inner London areas becoming too expensive for incomers to settle in. Each of these factors probably helps account for Labour taking control of leafy Redbridge Council for the first time ever in 2014, and for four of the seven parliamentary seats Labour gained in the capital in the spring being in Outer London. | This cannot, as some assume, be straightforwardly ascribed to the so-called “social cleansing” of the poor from the more expensive inner London boroughs. Although “pricing out”, including of the middle-class, is certainly taking place, Outer London demographic change is also resulting from ethnic minority households choosing to follow the long London tradition of outward migration in search of larger homes with gardens, and with Inner London areas becoming too expensive for incomers to settle in. Each of these factors probably helps account for Labour taking control of leafy Redbridge Council for the first time ever in 2014, and for four of the seven parliamentary seats Labour gained in the capital in the spring being in Outer London. |
| This shifting electoral landscape, the unknown repercussions of Corbyn’s leadership triumph and the absence from the race of personality politicians like “Boris” and “Ken” will make the 2016 mayoral battle very different from the previous four. Full hostilities will break out before the weekend. | This shifting electoral landscape, the unknown repercussions of Corbyn’s leadership triumph and the absence from the race of personality politicians like “Boris” and “Ken” will make the 2016 mayoral battle very different from the previous four. Full hostilities will break out before the weekend. |