Sadiq Khan's night of cringe
Everything you need to know about the unhinged grilling of the mayor
Morning — here’s what we’ve spied in the capital on Sunday, March 5, 2023:
😬 A public grilling of Sadiq Khan descended into farce on Thursday, with the crowd riled by the mayor’s claims anyone against his expansion of the ultra low emission zone is in cahoots with the far-right. Shouts of “The bloody cheek!“ and “Liar!” met Khan’s insistence that even those with legitimate concerns about his plans to toughen air quality rules in outer London were “in coalition” with a rogue’s gallery of deplorables — from Covid and vaccine deniers to neo-Nazis.
In Khan’s defence, it seems it was the provocative protest outside the meeting in Ealing that drew his ire. Banners depicted the mayor alongside swastika and hammer and sickle symbols, while Piers Corbyn — lockdown-sceptic and brother to the former Labour leader — was also outside.
It’s a shame the meeting ended up such an excruciating watch — important issues like London’s policing, housing and economic recovery were also subject to public questioning. Luckily for you the Spy has sat through the shitshow and salvaged five key takeaways for Londoners. You’ll find that after your regular Sunday briefing below.
📉 London’s slowdown is the root cause of the UK’s weak productivity, according to research published this week. The Centre for Cities think tank said that the value of output per hour worked in London since 2007 had trailed that of similar global cities like Paris, New York and Brussels.
🦊 Police are hunting a gang of men who have been trapping and torturing foxes in east London. The Met is appealing for information about the gang, who are believed to be operating in the Newham area.
💰 Croydon councillors have voted against a 15% council tax rise. The borough, which has gone bankrupt multiple times over the past few years, was given special permission for the huge hike to help shore up its finances.
👮 Serial rapist and former Met Officer David Carrick will not have his sentence reviewed for being too lenient. The government’s law officers have upheld the prison sentence of at least 30 years handed to Carrick for sexually assaulting 12 women while working for the Met.
🏢 The architect that designed the Walkie Talkie has died aged 78. Rafael Viñoly’s sometimes controversial work included more than 600 structures around the world, including office and residential buildings, hotels, concert halls, stadiums and airports.
Five things we learnt from an unhinged night with Sadiq
Well, that was intense. If you fancy it, here’s the link to Thursday’s edition of People’s Question Time – a regular fixture in the capital’s political calendar that sees the mayor take questions from an audience.
The Spy can’t exactly recommend watching it though, given all the cringey moments. Khan struggling to make his point above constant interruptions; the chair of the Q&A trying and failing to keep control; security eventually ejecting someone.
So instead of all that, here’s five things you should know from the night:
1. People are really angry about expanding ULEZ. To say the night had a sour atmosphere would be an understatement. Boos, groans and heckles met pretty much everything Khan had to say about bringing ULEZ to entirety of London, even when he wasn’t lumping opposition in with the far-right.
But there were at least plenty of “legitimate concerns” voiced, to use Khan’s own words. Many highlighted the timing of a new £12.50 daily charge for drivers of non-compliant vehicles amid a cost-of-living crisis. Some said the scrappage scheme did not offer enough support to help people switch cars. There were warnings that businesses, charities and young people on the edge of the Greater London boundary would be forced out. Some described ULEZ as a “stealth tax” purely designed to shore up shoddy management of TfL’s finances. When Khan highlighted the success of ULEZ in inner London, others pointed out that outer London doesn’t have the same level of transport services to replace car travel.
The most emotive point of the night came towards the end, when an audience member described how he’d bought a specific, non-ULEZ compliant car to help transport his sick wife, who’d had cancer three times. He asked the mayor: “Do I turn the heating on in my house to keep her warm and to keep her alive, or do I take out an enormous loan to buy a new car because you are expanding ULEZ?”
But there were clearly supporters of the ULEZ expansion in the audience too. Time and time again, Khan came back to the same point: poor air quality is costing lives in London. He had plenty of statistics on hand to back up his case: 4,000 people a year dying due to the city’s poor air quality; 200 in Ealing alone, where the event was held; nitrogen dioxide levels cut by half in inner London by the existing ULEZ. His arguments garnered cheers from at least some quarters of the crowd.
2. Khan wants to freeze private rents in London. In both his opening address and throughout the questioning, the mayor reiterated his call for the government to give him rent control powers. He basically argued that, though he’d helped to increase the number of social and affordable housing being built in the capital since 2016, the reality for most Londoners is that they still face a dire rental market. And to sort it out, he said he needed the power to freeze rents, and a ban on no-fault convictions. Others disagreed, arguing that rent freezes would just throttle supply, and inadvertently cause rents to spike.
Rent controls weren’t the only bit of housing policy discussed — some time was spent on concerns about new flat blocks being built in London, with one audience member said the mayor was more interested in just boosting housing numbers than building proper, family-sized homes in London. Another expressed their concern about the need to retrofit London’s ageing properties to cope with the impact of climate change.
3. Confidence is high in the new Metropolitan police commissioner. After a member of the public asked what the Met was doing about racism in the force, Khan and others were keen to stress their faith in Sir Mark Rowley’s ability to root out bad cops. Khan said Rowley and his new deputy commissioner fully understand the lack of trust from some of London’s communities, and so they should be given the time to prove they can get the job done.
4. London Labour are very chuffed about free school meals. One of the few policies to land uncontroversially with the audience was the mayor’s £130m in funding for free school meals for all primary school children in London for the next academic year. There were big claps when Khan called on the government to roll out the policy nationwide.
5. The campaign for the next mayoral election is well and truly underway. When Khan wasn’t being heckled by audience members, he was being berated by other politicians. Flanking the mayor on stage were members of the London Assembly, who were given the opportunity to respond to his answers. The frequent political point-scoring made clear many had their eyes on 2024. Conservative assembly member Tony Devenish made the point explicitly: “Next May you will get the chance to vote on who you want to be the next Mayor of London. As we’ve seen in the last seven years, Mr Khan has spent 25% talking about Boris [Johnson], 50% of his time blaming the government, and about the rest of his time putting up stealth taxes. So all I’ll say is: please think who you vote for next time, because we can’t have another four years of this man.”