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| Labour mayoral hopefuls tussle as Tessa Jowell plays popularity card | Labour mayoral hopefuls tussle as Tessa Jowell plays popularity card |
| (30 days later) | |
| The first hustings for Labour mayoral candidates brought the six candidates into slightly sharper focus and clarified what the selection contest ought to be about as opposed to what too much of it might be. Hosted by think tank Centre for London and Prospect magazine, it was held at the Emmanuel Centre in Deepest Westminster. A weakness of the evening was that Westminster Village preoccupations were, at times, too prominent. I’ll bleat on about that in a short while. | The first hustings for Labour mayoral candidates brought the six candidates into slightly sharper focus and clarified what the selection contest ought to be about as opposed to what too much of it might be. Hosted by think tank Centre for London and Prospect magazine, it was held at the Emmanuel Centre in Deepest Westminster. A weakness of the evening was that Westminster Village preoccupations were, at times, too prominent. I’ll bleat on about that in a short while. |
| What useful insights emerged? There was no resounding winner of the 90 minute joust, though David Lammy was the most abrasive, making front runners Tessa Jowell and Sadiq Khan look a bit quiet by comparison. Anyone expecting transport commentator Christian Wolmar to be cowed in the company of five pro politicians will have been disabused. Diane Abbott was as assured as you’d expect and Gareth Thomas undeterred by only one hand (as he joked) being raised in his favour when the audience was asked at the start which way it leaned. | What useful insights emerged? There was no resounding winner of the 90 minute joust, though David Lammy was the most abrasive, making front runners Tessa Jowell and Sadiq Khan look a bit quiet by comparison. Anyone expecting transport commentator Christian Wolmar to be cowed in the company of five pro politicians will have been disabused. Diane Abbott was as assured as you’d expect and Gareth Thomas undeterred by only one hand (as he joked) being raised in his favour when the audience was asked at the start which way it leaned. |
| Membership Event: Guardian Live| The next London Mayor? | |
| Centre for London is the offspring of think tank Demos, home to policy wonks Tony Blair thought well of, so maybe it was no surprise that supporters of Jowell, a close Blair lieutenant, formed the largest bloc. Or maybe it just reflected a wider popularity. The candidate herself played her two big cards at every opportunity: one, I’m the most likely to beat any Tory rival you can name (and the only one now being mentioned is “Zac Goldsmith”); two, I’ve shown that I can get things done in this city, not least the 2012 Olympics. On housing, she contested Abbott’s claim that the percentage of affordable housing on the Olympic Park declined and said she would review recent decisions made by the Legacy Development Corporation. But her overarching argument was that the candidates have much in common in terms of objectives and policies, meaning the key question is: “Who will actually build the homes that London needs?” | Centre for London is the offspring of think tank Demos, home to policy wonks Tony Blair thought well of, so maybe it was no surprise that supporters of Jowell, a close Blair lieutenant, formed the largest bloc. Or maybe it just reflected a wider popularity. The candidate herself played her two big cards at every opportunity: one, I’m the most likely to beat any Tory rival you can name (and the only one now being mentioned is “Zac Goldsmith”); two, I’ve shown that I can get things done in this city, not least the 2012 Olympics. On housing, she contested Abbott’s claim that the percentage of affordable housing on the Olympic Park declined and said she would review recent decisions made by the Legacy Development Corporation. But her overarching argument was that the candidates have much in common in terms of objectives and policies, meaning the key question is: “Who will actually build the homes that London needs?” |
| She’s right that there’s a lot of shared ground on housing among the six: dedicated mayoral housing bodies, companies or departments; making quicker, better use of public land, especially the stuff Transport for London owns; the desirability of some form of private sector rent regulation; the need for councils to be free to build more homes; higher proportions of “affordable” homes extracted from mixed tenure developments; better licensing of private sector landlords and stronger policing of bad ones; refusing to tolerate empty homes. | She’s right that there’s a lot of shared ground on housing among the six: dedicated mayoral housing bodies, companies or departments; making quicker, better use of public land, especially the stuff Transport for London owns; the desirability of some form of private sector rent regulation; the need for councils to be free to build more homes; higher proportions of “affordable” homes extracted from mixed tenure developments; better licensing of private sector landlords and stronger policing of bad ones; refusing to tolerate empty homes. |
| The differences tend to be of emphasis, though some of these may be significant. Jowell, for instance, has placed more stress on home ownership than Khan, whose pitch is bigger on social rent. He also wants to start a not-for-profit mayoral lettings agency. At the hustings, Abbott majored on the distorting effect on the housing market of wealthy overseas buyers. Thomas said developers would have to be incentivised to produce more lower cost homes; Lammy is alone in advocating looking at building on scruffy parts of the greenbelt. There’s too much on housing to cover in detail here and now, but Steve Hilditch at Red Brick Blog has made a start. | The differences tend to be of emphasis, though some of these may be significant. Jowell, for instance, has placed more stress on home ownership than Khan, whose pitch is bigger on social rent. He also wants to start a not-for-profit mayoral lettings agency. At the hustings, Abbott majored on the distorting effect on the housing market of wealthy overseas buyers. Thomas said developers would have to be incentivised to produce more lower cost homes; Lammy is alone in advocating looking at building on scruffy parts of the greenbelt. There’s too much on housing to cover in detail here and now, but Steve Hilditch at Red Brick Blog has made a start. |
| A lot of these aspirations could not be fulfilled without national government say so, and too much time was spent last night on what the candidates would “call for” from David Cameron or George Osborne compared with what their existing powers and resources would make possible straight away. Everyone wants greater powers devolved to London and greater resources invested. But asking for these is one thing, getting them another and if they’re granted they might not turn up for a while. | A lot of these aspirations could not be fulfilled without national government say so, and too much time was spent last night on what the candidates would “call for” from David Cameron or George Osborne compared with what their existing powers and resources would make possible straight away. Everyone wants greater powers devolved to London and greater resources invested. But asking for these is one thing, getting them another and if they’re granted they might not turn up for a while. |
| Much time was spent discussing airports. Yes, the argument about new runways and where they should go is highly relevant to London, and mayoral contenders have rightly expressed clear views on it. These are diverse among the Labour field and will carry weight with the Labour members and signed-up supporters who will pick their candidate for next May: Abbott has always opposed expanding Heathrow; Wolmar, who believes he is best placed to attract Greens, said climate change should be “the first consideration”; Jowell said she thinks London needs more air capacity and is “open minded” about the options being looked at by the Davies commission, but that the health implications would have to be addressed; Khan has come out for expansion at Gatwick and improvements at Heathrow, which is a change in his position since he was a transport minister; Lammy supports Heathrow expansion, but wants a regulator to control noise and air pollution; Thomas, breaking the mould, wants new runways at both airports. | Much time was spent discussing airports. Yes, the argument about new runways and where they should go is highly relevant to London, and mayoral contenders have rightly expressed clear views on it. These are diverse among the Labour field and will carry weight with the Labour members and signed-up supporters who will pick their candidate for next May: Abbott has always opposed expanding Heathrow; Wolmar, who believes he is best placed to attract Greens, said climate change should be “the first consideration”; Jowell said she thinks London needs more air capacity and is “open minded” about the options being looked at by the Davies commission, but that the health implications would have to be addressed; Khan has come out for expansion at Gatwick and improvements at Heathrow, which is a change in his position since he was a transport minister; Lammy supports Heathrow expansion, but wants a regulator to control noise and air pollution; Thomas, breaking the mould, wants new runways at both airports. |
| But the decision over Heathrow or Gatwick isn’t the London mayor’s to take. By contrast, mayors have direct control through Transport for London over the forms of transport millions of Londoners and commuters depend on every day. Yet neither the bus service nor the Underground, let alone the DLR or Overground, were mentioned once all night. Wolmar got in big points about roads, saying he’d want more sophisticated congestion charging, more segregated cycle lanes and a pedestrianised Oxford Street. Khan, echoing much of this, said he’d have London’s most famous shopping avenue planted with trees “from Centrepoint to Hyde Park.” But that was about it for transport. Policing too barely made an appearance, despite the mayor setting the Met’s budget and priorities through the office for policing and crime, one of City Hall’s biggest responsibilities. | But the decision over Heathrow or Gatwick isn’t the London mayor’s to take. By contrast, mayors have direct control through Transport for London over the forms of transport millions of Londoners and commuters depend on every day. Yet neither the bus service nor the Underground, let alone the DLR or Overground, were mentioned once all night. Wolmar got in big points about roads, saying he’d want more sophisticated congestion charging, more segregated cycle lanes and a pedestrianised Oxford Street. Khan, echoing much of this, said he’d have London’s most famous shopping avenue planted with trees “from Centrepoint to Hyde Park.” But that was about it for transport. Policing too barely made an appearance, despite the mayor setting the Met’s budget and priorities through the office for policing and crime, one of City Hall’s biggest responsibilities. |
| This echoed much national media reporting of London mayoral politics, which in general has long been extremely poor. Coverage of Boris Johnson’s seven years in charge has troubled itself with little else but his designs on Cameron’s job, with any trivial deviation from the coalition government line being wildly oversold. The symbiotic, mutually self-serving relationship between “Boris” and the news industry would make a fascinating, if depressing, media studies course. Bleat ends. | This echoed much national media reporting of London mayoral politics, which in general has long been extremely poor. Coverage of Boris Johnson’s seven years in charge has troubled itself with little else but his designs on Cameron’s job, with any trivial deviation from the coalition government line being wildly oversold. The symbiotic, mutually self-serving relationship between “Boris” and the news industry would make a fascinating, if depressing, media studies course. Bleat ends. |
| Let’s turn to the state of the Labour contest. Jowell’s team is stressing the findings of two new YouGov polls of London voters, one of which was conducted for Prospect. This found that 30% of respondents thought Jowell would make a good mayor, compared with 18% who felt the same way about each of Khan, Lammy and Abbott (Wolmar and Thomas were not included). The other poll, for the Evening Standard, asked a different question: which contender “would be the best Labour candidate”? In this case, Wolmar and Thomas were included. Again, Jowell came top, this time with 15% followed by Khan with 10% and Lammy and Abbott each with 6%. Another question in the same survey sought views on theoretical mayoral showdowns with Goldsmith. If Jowell were his Labour opponent, 35% said they’d prefer her compared with 26% who’d pick the Tory. Asked to imagine Khan taking Goldsmith on, the latter’s score rose to 29% while Khan’s was exactly the same. | Let’s turn to the state of the Labour contest. Jowell’s team is stressing the findings of two new YouGov polls of London voters, one of which was conducted for Prospect. This found that 30% of respondents thought Jowell would make a good mayor, compared with 18% who felt the same way about each of Khan, Lammy and Abbott (Wolmar and Thomas were not included). The other poll, for the Evening Standard, asked a different question: which contender “would be the best Labour candidate”? In this case, Wolmar and Thomas were included. Again, Jowell came top, this time with 15% followed by Khan with 10% and Lammy and Abbott each with 6%. Another question in the same survey sought views on theoretical mayoral showdowns with Goldsmith. If Jowell were his Labour opponent, 35% said they’d prefer her compared with 26% who’d pick the Tory. Asked to imagine Khan taking Goldsmith on, the latter’s score rose to 29% while Khan’s was exactly the same. |
| All encouraging for Jowell. As YouGov’s Peter Kellner writes, she currently reaches parts of the London electorate that others haven’t yet. A Khan supporter, however, points out that their man has gained on Jowell in the part of the poll for the Standard showing support among all respondents, including “don’t knows”, who defined themselves as Labour supporters. At the end of March, Jowell led Khan by double figures on this measure. In the new poll, she heads him by just three. If that’s a reflection of how the Labour “selectorate” is feeling it could bode well for Khan in the candidate race, the argument goes, and if he won it everything else would change. Well, maybe and maybe not and maybe somewhere in between. And maybe all of the above means nothing much at all. “Don’t knows” and “none of these” figure prominently in both polls. Still all to play for, comrades. | All encouraging for Jowell. As YouGov’s Peter Kellner writes, she currently reaches parts of the London electorate that others haven’t yet. A Khan supporter, however, points out that their man has gained on Jowell in the part of the poll for the Standard showing support among all respondents, including “don’t knows”, who defined themselves as Labour supporters. At the end of March, Jowell led Khan by double figures on this measure. In the new poll, she heads him by just three. If that’s a reflection of how the Labour “selectorate” is feeling it could bode well for Khan in the candidate race, the argument goes, and if he won it everything else would change. Well, maybe and maybe not and maybe somewhere in between. And maybe all of the above means nothing much at all. “Don’t knows” and “none of these” figure prominently in both polls. Still all to play for, comrades. |