'Sadiq Khan's manifesto offers no answers to the mess he's made of the last 8 years'

It’s worth noting Khan’s trail of broken promises and complete deviations from previous manifestos before reflecting on this one. For example, promises commuters would not pay a penny more on train fares, that there wouldn’t be a single day of strike action and the small omission of plans to extend ULEZ to the whole of London. Given Khan’s less than transparent history, it may be worth taking this iteration with less of a pinch, and more a large tablespoon of salt.

Arguably, the biggest priority for Londoners at this election is facing up to the crime epidemic in the capital. Violent crime is up 33%, knife crime is up 54% and many of us now fear taking out our phone in public with one stolen every six minutes.

Addressing this remains an afterthought for London’s current Mayor in this manifesto. The most concrete of Khan’s vague pledges is to recruit a maximum of 1,300 if a future government funds it. A strange promise given he was already given this funding from the current government to recruit officers and had to hand the money back because he didn’t bother to use it.

The housing market is perhaps next on people’s priority lists, with those in London’s private rented sector especially struggling. Khan’s failure to build and constant sounding off on rent control (a policy which only ever increases prices and reduces supply) has exacerbated these problems. His misguided rent-control obsession has now taken form in the promise of GLA-sponsored rent controls for 6,000 homes – less than 0.5% of London’s private rental sector. The funds and resource to focus on this tiny proportion of homes coming at the cost of a wider support scheme helping the millions in private rented accommodation.

One thing that Khan is clear on is that ULEZ expansion will stay under him. Even without any evidence it has made a difference to air quality. If any existed, one would assume it would have magically appeared in his manifesto. Khan also surprisingly pledges no pay-per-mile (much like he once pledged no ULEZ expansion). It is hard to believe though when he has so far spent £21million of TfL money on it. At the very least, if he is spending millions of pounds on a scheme he has no interest in there are questions to answer around his financial acumen.

A reminder to keep that salt close when reading any of Khan’s media releases over the next two weeks. He has form for suggesting promises made in the media are not manifesto commitments he should be held accountable for, such as the time he promised to plant 2 million trees across the city. Just two weeks ago Khan promised to deliver a ‘Bakerloop Express’ bus. Now his manifesto suggests simply ‘exploring the potential’ to do this.

A manifesto should be a contract between the electorate and candidate, not a list of aspirations and superlatives. With the public dismayed at Khan it would have been easy for his closest rival for the job, Susan Hall to secure victory by promising the world. Not doing that shows we could not only see the end of Khan’s reign at this election, but a better way of doing honest politics in London.

Emma Best was elected as a London-wide Assembly Member in May 2021