Do you think Sadiq Khan is a good mayor?

well he's better than Boris

*no explanation required*

Isn't the Mayor's budget basically all taken up by TFL?

No, he's a cock and was a proper strutting little tit over the coronavirus. However he is still 20 million times better than Boris, and that's been verified by scientists.

what Abbey said, the bile he gets is really unfair.

I like him and think he's a good mayor for London. But then I liked Ken too.

tbf if he annoys LA he pretty much must be a good mayor

Murder city

What sort of power does he actually have?

Boris had a few obvious cock-ups (a la garden bridge), but if you dont hear about a mayor of london then presumably it means the boring crap is working as it should be.

Crime is a problem in london, but not sure the mayor of london has the toolkit to deal?

Yes that's it, anyone who doesn't think he's great is obviously a islamaphobic racist.

Boris Johnson successfully halved the murder rate and reduced crime by 20 per cent, with £2 billion less than Sadiq Khan now has as Mayor. Instead of keeping Londoners safe, the Mayor chose to increase City Hall's staffing costs by 82 per cent, waste a record £44 million on free travel for TfL staff's flatmates, and has nearly doubled his culture budget. In his last budget, he rejected a Conservative plan which would have funded an additional 1,598 police officers.

But yeh, he's doing a great job #LondonisOpen

LA - not doubting you explicitly, but how did Boris do that RE the murder rate? Or did that just happen on his watch irrespective of his policy decisions?

The other bits I can see as criticisms someone from a small state focused political position might adopt, but I dont know if the crime rate per se is outside the control of a mayor of london either way?

" Yes that's it, anyone who doesn't think he's great is obviously a islamaphobic racist."

PROBZ TRU

He's in my view the least bad Mayor London has had so far

LA police funding as you know is mainly, though not entirely accepted, a matter for Central govt not the Mayor.

https://fullfact.org/crime/boris-johnson-mayor-crime/

#Factsdon'tcareaboutyourfeelings

As I say, that fact is interesting - the question then would be why?

What policies did Boris have in place that resulting in such a drop and what changed?

I’ve no idea whether he’s a good mayor (or really, in the London context, what a good mayor actually is) but when looking at or listening to him I have a nagging feeling that a Zone 4 estate agent is missing its lettings salesperson of the month.

No.

Sadiqs ok. He cares, but isn't massively effective.

Confusing thread this. Seems like LA confessed as an islamophobic racist at 15:53. It seemed to be in response to Merkz 15:46 which mentioned nothing of the sort.

Is this a thing with you LA?

I'm not sure the London mayor really does very much but Khan seems, on a personal level, to not be a complete khunt which at least is a step up from every previous occupant of the role and the current national government.

Oh he brought in the hopper fare and he hasn't spent a fortune building an ugly, utterly useless new bus so those are wins.

though tbh we might actually be better off with a Tory right now because screwing over the city in order to make the mayor look bad seems to be active central government policy.

I don’t think he’s good or bad but simply low profile and rather ineffectual. I’d struggle to make a list of positive five things he’s done as mayor.

I'm with SummerSails. When I hear him talking about things I generally agree with them, but other than the hopper bus fare I can't think of much he's actually done. Maybe it's a consequence of the position and it's powers or maybe it's him.

Overall a C+ not really much that I actively object to, but equally not particularly impressive.

what happened to the pedestrianisation of oxford circus and oxford street? I think it's the way forward in many places in big cities

they will pedestrianise a big street in Berlin which is sort of dead because of traffic, some streets' businesses get killed by traffic and this is a good example

I think in many city centres they should ban cars, in the very core, it's better for everyone including commuters

I think it was blocked by Westminster Council. The GLA has surprisingly limited authority in some areas.

Similar to the west bound extension of the proper cycle lane from Embankment. It stops dead at Lancaster Gate because Kensington and Chelsea don't like cycling infrastructure and there's nothing the GLA/TFL can do about it even though they want to. That's my understanding anyway.

Re the op, think about what he’s previously said, this gives you your answer: https://mol.im/a/8623413

London is a much more dangerous place to live since he became mayor than it as before in terms of hgomicides and acts og gbh. It has been a matter of priorites and properly addressing the culture of knife crime and gang violence has not been one of the highest issues on his spending list.

Realist that is utterly mad - knife crime in london is increasing (tho not out of control) because of the savage savage cuts to local youth clubs, youth courts and actual rehabilitation measures to keep young people away from crime - thank you eleven years of Tory austerity

what do you think the mayor does anyway?

its essentially a puff role to increase tourism for London (to that extent Boris was actually not bad - it is probably the limit of his competence - but even then he managed to waste basically all the money on procurement gifts to his mates and mistresses)

Being poor makes you a criminal, eh chill? And there are more than enough dodgy procurement issues in khan’s time in office....

um no I clearly didn’t say that gsm but please continue arguing with yourself and your strawman

So just to be clear chill, given that Boris was mayor for half of those ‘eleven years of Tory austerity’, and yet crime kept falling.....

actual crime levels has little if nothing to do with the mayor

i think i said that in my post above

again, keep arguing with yourself it’s quite fun

You said crime increased because of cuts, specifically Tory austerity....

The London Plan was a pretty sweet document.

On that basis, I'm in favour of Sadiq.

yes gsm you are having a different argument - that has nothing to do with Boris as mayor

things Boris did well as mayor:

- rolled out ken livingstones cycle plan (and called them ‘Boris Bikes’, which was smart branding)

- rolled out ken livingstones Olympics plan in 2012 without any major fuckups

- got stuck on a zipwire (it was funny)

- encouraged Russian and Chinese plutocrats to buy lots of property in central London

.....

thats it

but again, that’s pretty much all you can expect

So why did crime fall during Tory cuts when Boris was mayor but rise while Sadiq has been mayor? Muuhh other reasons!

Also lol @ the idea that the bikes scheme was anywhere near practically advanced under Livingstone, when neither the black cab drivers nor the tube drivers wanted it to happen...

ok fine well as I say - you are having a totally different argument about crime levels in London which I would be happy to engage in but maybe another time

it has nothing to do with what ken/boris/khan do as mayor

There's his somewhat Maoist commission for purging statues and street names.

Sadiq Khan is "COMMON PURPOSE" / Common Purpose is an evil group with an agenda that takes from the publics purse. Blair, Major, Brown and Cameron were all "CP" crooks. Should be behind bars