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| London mayor race: Khan pits optimism manifesto against Goldsmith negativity | London mayor race: Khan pits optimism manifesto against Goldsmith negativity |
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| Up on Level 39 at One Canada Square, Sadiq Khan promised to lead a London where “the sky’s the limit for optimism.” Labour’s candidate to succeed Brexit Boris as London mayor had some cause for feeling upbeat about himself. A poll conducted by Opinium during a week of hostile headlines and published on Tuesday found that he’s maintained a healthy lead over his main rival, the Conservative Zac Goldsmith, and is on course for a decisive victory. With eight weeks to go until election day he launched his manifesto against a backdrop of Square Mile towers and a long curve of the Thames. The emotional message was unmissable: the little guy from Tooting can rise to bestride the big city of his birth. | Up on Level 39 at One Canada Square, Sadiq Khan promised to lead a London where “the sky’s the limit for optimism.” Labour’s candidate to succeed Brexit Boris as London mayor had some cause for feeling upbeat about himself. A poll conducted by Opinium during a week of hostile headlines and published on Tuesday found that he’s maintained a healthy lead over his main rival, the Conservative Zac Goldsmith, and is on course for a decisive victory. With eight weeks to go until election day he launched his manifesto against a backdrop of Square Mile towers and a long curve of the Thames. The emotional message was unmissable: the little guy from Tooting can rise to bestride the big city of his birth. |
| Small confession: I have to talk myself down from the romantic high of this, Khan’s version of a London seduction story to which I’m too susceptible but also have my reasons for warming to. Khan’s policy prospectus, with its heroic house-building targets and four-year public transport fares freeze, still needs filling out with detail and the limits on mayors’ powers mean that some of his objectives will depend heavily on others to be achieved. Goldsmith has accused him of “fantasy politics,” part of a larger, nastier charge that he, his Crosbyite campaign machine and their media conduits will keep trying to make stick between now and 5 May. But, as his journey to the Labour candidacy showed, Khan knows about steely practicality as well as selling dreams. | Small confession: I have to talk myself down from the romantic high of this, Khan’s version of a London seduction story to which I’m too susceptible but also have my reasons for warming to. Khan’s policy prospectus, with its heroic house-building targets and four-year public transport fares freeze, still needs filling out with detail and the limits on mayors’ powers mean that some of his objectives will depend heavily on others to be achieved. Goldsmith has accused him of “fantasy politics,” part of a larger, nastier charge that he, his Crosbyite campaign machine and their media conduits will keep trying to make stick between now and 5 May. But, as his journey to the Labour candidacy showed, Khan knows about steely practicality as well as selling dreams. |
| Former Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, who fell victim to that know-how when Khan beat her to the Labour nomination last September, opened the proceedings with a plea for Labour’s mayoral and London Assembly campaigns to be “a love song to London.” There was a catch in her voice as she spoke. “Gutsy to introduce Sadiq,” tweeted the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar. Yes indeed. Then her nemesis stepped up, setting out his priorities with a growing platform confidence that underlined the thing about him not even Tories doubt: his hunger for the job and appetite for the graft required to do it. Few neutrals sense the same desire in Goldsmith, and that worries some on his own side. | Former Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, who fell victim to that know-how when Khan beat her to the Labour nomination last September, opened the proceedings with a plea for Labour’s mayoral and London Assembly campaigns to be “a love song to London.” There was a catch in her voice as she spoke. “Gutsy to introduce Sadiq,” tweeted the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar. Yes indeed. Then her nemesis stepped up, setting out his priorities with a growing platform confidence that underlined the thing about him not even Tories doubt: his hunger for the job and appetite for the graft required to do it. Few neutrals sense the same desire in Goldsmith, and that worries some on his own side. |
| Khan’s prescriptions are delivered in the language of opportunity. He portrays the city as a great enabler and frames his task as mayor as drawing its resources together to perform that function better. His headline pitch - A Manifesto For All Londoners - is adjacent to the One London gospel preached by Jowell, identifying common ground between workers, environmentalists, communities and Canary Wharf capitalists: “A more prosperous, safer and greener future for our city.” | Khan’s prescriptions are delivered in the language of opportunity. He portrays the city as a great enabler and frames his task as mayor as drawing its resources together to perform that function better. His headline pitch - A Manifesto For All Londoners - is adjacent to the One London gospel preached by Jowell, identifying common ground between workers, environmentalists, communities and Canary Wharf capitalists: “A more prosperous, safer and greener future for our city.” |
| He’s planting both feet squarely the London mainstream: a ploy to marginalise Goldsmith but also a position consistent with the things mayors can influence and do. To business he says: “Our manifesto will remove the barriers to competitiveness, productivity and growth.” But also: “I will call on our great companies to help make London a beacon of fairness and opportunity once again,” seeking their help with building homes and developing skills. He thinks Goldsmith’s Brexit stance has handed him another weapon and perhaps a heap of votes from the half a million people from non-UK EU countries who are registered to vote for London’s mayor: “The EU referendum will take place just six weeks after the mayoral election. It will define the future of our city.” | He’s planting both feet squarely the London mainstream: a ploy to marginalise Goldsmith but also a position consistent with the things mayors can influence and do. To business he says: “Our manifesto will remove the barriers to competitiveness, productivity and growth.” But also: “I will call on our great companies to help make London a beacon of fairness and opportunity once again,” seeking their help with building homes and developing skills. He thinks Goldsmith’s Brexit stance has handed him another weapon and perhaps a heap of votes from the half a million people from non-UK EU countries who are registered to vote for London’s mayor: “The EU referendum will take place just six weeks after the mayoral election. It will define the future of our city.” |
| To women he says he will be “a proud feminist in City Hall,” addressing the gender pay gap by publishing the mayor’s “first ever annual pay audit and requiring large contractors to do the same.” To those for whom green issues are key, he promises to protect green spaces, prioritise clean buses and establish Energy for Londoners, a non-profit company to nurture low carbon energy. To would-be first time house buyers he pledges more shared-ownership options, and to renters a new, income-linked tenure, a mayoral lettings agency and more pressure on bad landlords. | To women he says he will be “a proud feminist in City Hall,” addressing the gender pay gap by publishing the mayor’s “first ever annual pay audit and requiring large contractors to do the same.” To those for whom green issues are key, he promises to protect green spaces, prioritise clean buses and establish Energy for Londoners, a non-profit company to nurture low carbon energy. To would-be first time house buyers he pledges more shared-ownership options, and to renters a new, income-linked tenure, a mayoral lettings agency and more pressure on bad landlords. |
| Through all of this runs a broad streak of interventionist energy, a hands-on, can-do attitude that Khan seeks to personify and hopes will connect and enthuse. He contrasted his approach with Goldsmith’s, which he characterised as having “no vision for the future and no plans to fulfil Londoners’ potential - just a negative campaign to distract Londoners from my opponent’s lack of experience, substance or values.” | Through all of this runs a broad streak of interventionist energy, a hands-on, can-do attitude that Khan seeks to personify and hopes will connect and enthuse. He contrasted his approach with Goldsmith’s, which he characterised as having “no vision for the future and no plans to fulfil Londoners’ potential - just a negative campaign to distract Londoners from my opponent’s lack of experience, substance or values.” |
| The Khan narrative has its own threads of fear: “London is at a crossroads”; “the great things about London are at risk.” But they form only a small part of his weave. By contrast, they dominate the Goldsmith pattern: as the soft-voiced aristocrat plays the principled patrician, his goon squad is playing a fantasy politics far more sly and sinister than any Khan can be accused of. | The Khan narrative has its own threads of fear: “London is at a crossroads”; “the great things about London are at risk.” But they form only a small part of his weave. By contrast, they dominate the Goldsmith pattern: as the soft-voiced aristocrat plays the principled patrician, his goon squad is playing a fantasy politics far more sly and sinister than any Khan can be accused of. |
| Londoners may have spotted this: asked by Opinium if calling Khan things like “radical and divisive” is a form of “coded racism” 34% agreed compared with 25% who didn’t. Yet the results also suggesting that there remain many undecided voters. And Goldsmith will have his reasons for believing that scare tactics could mobilise the Tory suburbs, where he’s directing much of his effort. Expect more of the same sewer strategy. Goldsmith deserves to lose for that alone. On a brighter note, you can read Khan’s manifesto for yourselves via here. |