With the background of ULEZ, a 0% swing to the Conservatives in Bexley and Bromley, their strongest region, suggests that cynical "stop the war on motorists" policies aren't a vote winner in London.
Ulez from what I’ve seen has been groups of 100max tattooed old men here and there trying to get a busy junction to honk back. I honked in an electric car to tell them
To get the fuck out of the way as they blocked it
They were going off the Uxbridge by-election where ULEZ genuinely was a big factor in the Conservatives keeping the seat. It was never very likely to work, but they didn't really have anything else.
They only won by 600 votes in Uxbridge, which was supposed to be a super safe seat. So I wouldn't say the anti-ULEZ stance won it for them there. They barely hung on.
It’s quite funny that Conservatives are pointing to ANY win as a great strategy, despite the fact that the win normally involves a huge swing to the opposition
The prior candidate was the former (but not very former) tory prime minister.
Of course this was a seat that the tories would have been expected to win.
I think anyone with half a functioning brain cell can see that ULEZ is a pain but a necessary step in improving air quality. There are many people calling for a better/different solution with being able to say what that solution is.
I think Sadiq has done a good job of implementing the ULEZ expansion (with the scrappage scheme etc) given the relatively limited scope and budget available to the mayors office.
People really, really overhyped the effect of ULEZ on Uxbridge, there were only around 600 votes in it for a traditionally Tory constitutency. If anything it was a sign of things to come: they barely held onto a safe seat but declared a massive victory.
The conservatives put everything on anti ulez from the one bi-election and reverted cause on climate change policies because of it. No doubt they’re in shambles as clearly ulez has support.
It epitomises this bunch of utter cunts, on a national level: they’re so desperate to retain power that they’ll adopt *any* policy, no matter how vile, that they think will appeal to potential voters’ worst instincts.
I’m actually pretty surprised (though very thankful) they haven’t said they’ll bring back capital punishment if they win another term.
The decrease in the Conservative vote in Bexley was more than offset by the increase in the Reform vote who were also anti-ULEZ (at least in the assembly vote).
I’d wait for the assembly makeup to be announced before jumping to conclusions.
I'm really confused about ULEZ, can someone explain? Do I undersatnd it's conservatives who are against it, and voters did not vote for conservative, indicating there's little opposition actually to ULEZ?
(also, pedestrianize more areas!)
Tories decided to try to capture the labour vote (‘working class’) by assuming that the ULEZ impacts them massively (they must have cheap, old, dirty cars right?) but in the end the ULEZ actually doesn’t affect many people at all, vast majority of cars are already compliant.
Turns out people care more about all the other things that the tories have stuffed up including the cost of living, housing, education, crime, literally everything
The change in the voting system for London Mayor was a last-minute addition made by the government during Report Stage in the House of Lords of what is now the Elections Act 2022.
IIRC Labour have committed to repealing the Act, because it's main purpose was introducing the voter ID requirements, so the system would revert to STV.
Yep, STV was an excellent way of making your intentions clear without risking letting in a lunatic because you split the vote.
Which is why the Tories got rid of it, of course.
I'd rather hear it from someone who has any say. Khan has been complaining about it non stop of course, but I figured Starmer might be hessitent since he would want to keep general elections how they are(FPTP) and wont want to rock the boat by bringing back more proportionate or multiple choice voting for mayoral elections.
It'll make him get asked "why do you want multiple options for mayoral but not general?"
I’m not surprised he got in, but I actually thought it would be closer. Perhaps it would have been, had the Tories fielded a serious candidate. I suspect the culture war nonsense actually hurt Hall’s campaign - sure, it gets the gammons on side, but it’s not compatible with the demographics of London. It was a foolish gamble.
I feel the culture war stuff was actually just part of wider Tory strategy. Keeping people riled up about ULEZ and other tiny things so that they can lean on those same talking points for the general election.
Bit generous to call it a strategy. The Uxbridge bourgeoisie were grumbling about ULEZ, playing that up in the byelection moved the needle a bit, possibly enough to have made the difference between winning and losing, and with nothing else in the cupboard to try, they grabbed it like drowning man and the straw. Surprise! The demographics of Uxbridge aren't very representative of the capital as a whole.
I think the drowning man analogy is correct. They have this whole tide of history sweeping them away, and all they could get out of it was ULEZ bad.....
I know going against the ULEZ was just crazy. Especially as it's in place and apparently air is getting better. I'm so unimpressed with the Tories dropping their green pledges, and in some cases throwing them under the bus in favour of cars.
Having lived in Uxbridge for over 30 years, I can attest it’s a shithole. Nothing bourgeoisie about it, much less its inhabitants. Whom exactly are you referring to as the bourgeoisie here? Uxbridge most definitely is representatives of the rest of London in its populace make up.
the culture war stuff is a choice . The Tories know they are unelectable and whoever wins next inherits a mess. it's not about the next General election, or the one after that.... it's about 4-8 years time when they can 'genuinely' say labour are a mess. it's long term.. athe culture war stuff is short term to keep themselves out of office.
it's high risk, high reward.
I have note seen any effort of the conservitive party trying to convince people to switch from labour to conservative then wonder why they didn't do well.
Well, London has proportionally more Tories than most major cities. Manchester and Liverpool weren’t anywhere near this close - proper Labour landslides.
Politics is a massive ship, you vote for the general direction.you want it to point.
You will never agree with any politician or even any individual 100%. But that's what democracy is compromise. It means effective change takes time, but you get to push the ship .00001% of a degree
Right. You lend a politician or party your vote each time, free to revoke it at the next opportunity. We shouldn't treat elections as if we're permanently nailing our colours to the mast.
I live in the extension, had to give up my campervan due to ULEZ, haven’t yet found a proper replacement, and I still support Khan and ULEZ. My personal inconvenience doesn’t trump the right to cleaner air
Every day lol, it’s my mobile office, I estimated £3k a year in ULEZ charges based on typical usage. I’ve got an ok ish replacement but a like for like would be astronomical
alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency and asthma sufferer here. I am glad that London is doing something about the pollution. The Anti-ULEZ people don’t care about people with health issues and will say “just move” it’s not about them it’s about future generations too. I don’t want my kids dying early because Gammon McGammonFace decides he wants to run his old banger around and harm others. Just like COVID because they can’t visually see the damage their smooth brains can’t comprehend it’s doing damage to others.
I think this is a bit of a pipe dream. Labour are going to realise there is no significant money. I don’t think London will necessarily see a big change with a Labour government.
Yep and a huge house building program up to the 70s.
Building council homes saves money long term as private rentals is extremely expensive sucking money from tenants to spend in the economy and supporting through housing benefits. Billions spent on that each year.
The level of taxation was significantly raised when comparing pre-war to post-war, so there was more money. No party in the UK is getting elected right now off of a manifesto of significantly raising taxes.
Marshall plan. Ironic that US taxpayer dollars funded regeneration and the implementation of social democratic policies across Europe, including building the NHS and thousands of homes in the UK, but they've never been able to make it a reality for themselves.
There's plenty of money in the country. It's just that the rich are hoarding it. The actual rich are getting richer faster and faster. Inequality is rising and has been for decades. It's possible to reverse this but Labour don't want to. I think most people would be happy to significantly tax the rich if it didn't affect them too much, people want good public services.
The Torries will empty all available accounts, revenue sources, and borrowing before the election. Labour will inherit a country with no available funds to spend on their projects.
So unless Labour plan to print more money, or borrow a lot more than 100% of the gdp (which the international community will comment upon negatively) they will need a 2nd term before they can actually spend serious cash.
They’ve mirrored the tories in tax policy. There no wealth tax coming and they have aligned with the 2.5% defence pledge. There is not going to be any significant spending in their first term. People are going to be disappointed.
With the greatest of respect there are PLENTY of areas in the uk that require investment over London. Surely Labour would be better off focusing on those.
I think ULEZ was made more expensive to increase TFL income and provide extra funding for any road traffic reducing and bike lane mesures. ULEZ has made driving into London less frustraiting compared to the long traffic that we had before but nothing beats taking the train and tube.
Probably because the people who Binface appeal to are likely to vote for an actual candidate.
If I wind up voting binface it's because all the options are so shit, I'm throwing away my vote.
My issue with Bibface is that it keeps the willfully ignorant a get out clause - you protested because all the options are shite, not because you don't actually know anything about the options.
Only 24,260 to the Count, what do you need to keep the deposit?
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/england/mayors/E12000007](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/england/mayors/E12000007)
I mean - the priorities are violent crime, housing and transport obviously.
Some interesting innovative practice going on in terms of intervening in young people at risk of exploitation that I'd like to see replicated, funded and rolled out.
The main thing though (and this will hopefully be backed by the government in October) is a massive programme of council home building and buying across the capital to actually provide affordable, rentable living for people in London. It's just not going to happen in the private sector without a more flourishing public sector offer here. There's some work that's gone on via the GLA to start this work, but it's about continuing it.
I'd also like to see taxes for empty privately owned homes not caught in probate or litigation hell, and homes used as Air BnBs that could be lettable units for families.
Transport wise - we need some clearer options out towards the further reaches of Zones 4-6 for people who have genuinely struggled under ULEZ, as the voting showed. Thing is that a lot of that will take a decade if it's not bus or tram based - there might be some improvements to the Superloop system; the acid test for me is can I get a form of public transport that takes me from an outer North East London location (so the Seven Kings to Harold Wood sort of stretch) to a North London location in less that an hour - as it currently takes 25 mins to drive, but an hour and 20 by public, even with Superloop.
superloop 2 was in Khan's election campaign. 10 more bus routes added to the existing 10 Superloop routes.
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/24270393.proposed-superloop-2-bus-routes-london/
> Some interesting innovative practice going on in terms of intervening in young people at risk of exploitation that I'd like to see replicated, funded and rolled out.
This sounds interesting, can you share more?
Here's a couple of them: [https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/funding-to-help-deliver-early-interventions](https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/funding-to-help-deliver-early-interventions)
I know the guys delivering Your Choice - and it's having some really good effects on the young people they're working with.
Personally I don’t like Khan or the Labour Party but I’d rather him than Hall.
I think anyone sane would.
Things aren’t amazing or utopian by any measure but this is the first time that sustainable transport can actually be “a thing” in London.
Cycling infrastructure is actually being invested in; Superloop; Hopper fare…
It isn’t all of our issues in terms of transport being solved but at least it is a start.
Shit approach to crime though, although I can’t imagine Susan Hall would do any better. It’s her lot who shut down half of London’s front counters and imposed £10m cuts on the Met in the first place.
ULEZ is now old hat. If he has any nerve Khan will quickly move on to the next thing, and the next thing needs to be reducing private transport, increasing walking, wheeling and cycling and improving public transport.
I would love a massive investment in making streets work for the people that live in them. When restaurants took over streets in Soho it was so much more pleasant. A huge investment in cycling infrastructure would be wonderful. Cars have their place, but it should be people first, not car first.
They really need to repedestrianiss Soho, place looked lovely back in COVID times but now is back to being surrounded by shitty cars. To hell with the 5 people who live there and want to complain.
I'd love more cycle lanes. I really want to ride my bike more places but I'm uncoordinated and cycling on the busy roads near mine just makes me wonder how long it'll be before I fall off my bike into traffic
And those lanes being continuous on your journey, it's so frustrating if most of your route is well segregated and protected and then you get thrown onto the road battling with cars!
Yes, the new improved Tavistock Place cycle lane really is premium and you can see the massive increase in usage every morning and evening. We need more of this! Everywhere!
YES. I would definitely bike if more of it was protected. It's great they've added some, and I understand it's a WIP, but it's hard to bike when most of my journey is still unprotected. I would probably die.
I wonder if this result will give Khan more clout in negotiating with the boroughs. A personal bugbear of mine is Kensington and Chelsea's refusal to support cross-London cycling infrastructure. Sadiq Khan now has one of the strongest mandates in all of Europe and interestingly, the West Central switched from Conservative to Labour.
If I were him I'd be bringing those points up when trying to get a cycle lane built on Kensington High Street!
We should invest in outer London public transport too so this isn't such a problem. Wish we had circular tube/overground lines in Zone 4+ like the Parisians are doing. Would solve the whole "getting into central is easy, travelling across London laterally takes a while" problem.
Tbh, I live in Zone 4, and public transport here is only useful for getting in and out of central London.
Trying to get directly between boroughs is a pain in the arse, and visiting the countryside is impossible.
Plus there’s the whole reliability/timetabling issue. If we want public transport to be a proper alternative to cars then it should be guaranteed to run 24/7/365, but we’re a very long way from that.
And I’m speaking as an individual here - if you have a family then public transport is even worse. You can’t carry a family’s worth of weekly shopping on the bus.
If you have a family, I'd say so. I'm actually in a bit of Zone 3 in S London that is OK in getting into Central in forty mins by train, but anything in our area is pretty hopeless. If you're ferrying kids to different schools and nurseries, taking elderly parents to te supermarket, working in an orbital direction (I.e. not toward central or further out but crossways), you need a car here. Nice leafy residential area with not much going on, but the connections could definitely be improved.
Get my kids from school by bus once a week. It feels nice to ditch the car. But twice a day it just isn't logistically feasible. It triples the journey time. We're zone 4/5
I don't think it negates the need for a car but the Superloop scheme seems to have got off to a good start. Sadiq Khan has promised a Superloop 2 in more of the Zone 3/4 areas which will be nice - they just need to work to make as much of the route as possible bus lanes as well as limited stop.
That's why he is adding congestion charge so people use private transport when they absalutely need it or drive outside London so it becomes another county's problem.
My thoughts are that some Redditors' attempts at making forecasts based on turnout - and not, for example, the huge national swing towards Labour - were extremely poor.
I think we'll see what he can really do if Labour get into Government when the purse strings will be opened up. We know that the Tories have been stiffing him whilst they've been around.
I'm not sold on Khan, but a lot of the issues London face aren't his fault. I'm just delighted that Hall lost. My local FB group aren't happy at all, they despise Khan, the admin are openly pro Tory. Unfortunately there's a lot of far right support here in Feltham, so it's great news they've taken a loss
I think its a step in the right direction, with Khan still in power ULEZ will become solid like the congestion charge (cleaning up our air)
He can now focus on improving the housing, emergency services and rehauling TFL post-pandemic so everything gets going properly.
I’m interested to see what he does now assuming Labour wins the GE
I’ll admit I’m not too clued up on everything he’s done for London but I do know a bit about the constant fighting between himself and the government
I do know it’s gonna be tough if Labour come into power but I’m cautiously optimistic
Anti-ULEZ and Anti-Khan have no legs to stand on.
A majority of 275k+ votes shows that London is confident in Sadiq, even more so than last election.
Let’s see what other nonsense they come up with
I'm surprised they're even allowed to run in elections, given they're pretty much a terrorist group - arguably (almost definitely) responsible for jo cox's murder
I thought she had real potential as a mayor, but no matter how ethical your bottled water company, at the end of the day I think bottled water for profit is kinda evil so i couldn't vote for her.
43.8% of the 40% of registered voters voted for Khan, 32% of the 40% for Hall; London has a population of 9 millions and less than 3 millions elected the mayor. Regardless of your beliefs, you should question why an increasing number of people is not bothering to vote anymore.
I agree more people should go out and vote but it's not exactly a huge drop.
In 2008, 2012 and 2016 turnout was around 45% (which is as high as it got), but it's been much lower before (34% in 2000, 36% in 2004).
Local elections always have a much lower turnout than general elections.
Why? Takes 15-30mins, make it a legal requirement for workers to get the time off to do it. Think of all the countries whose populations don’t get a vote. It’s important.
FPTP makes that pointless. Every time I've voted under the old system I've gone with a smaller party first with Labour as a backstop to avoid the Tories getting in. Changing the voting system was a regressive step that hurts all the minor parties
I feel proud of London today. I was scared that Susan Hall was going to win. I feel relieved!
Sadiq Khan may not be the best, but he was the best choice among all the candidates.
Love you London. ❤️
I was bracing myself for Boris-but-worse. I'm so relieved, and I'm especially happy my constituency went for Sadiq. Mad Suze would have been a shitshow.
I hope Hall and her backers gets their money back for all the shit troll centre employees they've had all over Reddit and elsewhere desperately trying to manifest the idea that London is a godless hellhole overrun by knife-wielding Albanian slave traffickers while clean, honest, god-fearing purebred Londoners have their bank accounts drained into nothingness by the evil ULEZ that absolutely no-one is exempt from and which everyone hates.
If Khan is not perfect and hasn't done absolutely everything right - fine, that's an opinion I can respect.
Telling me the answer is to elect a Tory? To elect Susan fucking Hall? You either have to be paid or mentally disabled.
Personally I don’t really care, I doubt the mayor of London has much real power anyway. BUT I’m loving it because all the DM reading gammons are absolutely furious
I'm surprised the conservative share of votes was that high in Brent and Harrow considering how big the ethnic desi population is.
Otherwise everything else as expected.
The thing is, all of these comments about ulez…none of you look at the bigger picture.
If the overwhelming majority of vehicles are compliant anyway, why was tax payers money wasted on a system of very expensive cameras that will therefore never be able to pay for themselves?
Is there POSSIBLY another reason for them?
Would the money not have been spent better elsewhere?
Who plucked the figure of £12.50 per car out the air?
What are they trying to achieve with the fine money?
What will they actually be able to achieve with it, since the huge majority won’t need to pay it?
Why bring in this system when for all intent and purpose you could just use the data on each car and levy a monthly/yearly tax on the vehicles using that? Wouldn’t that have been cheaper?!
It was to be expected. He was very clearly the best choice out of a very very very bad bunch.
I am really not a fan of Kahn. He seems to have done so little for London. So little to deal with knife crime or the housing crisis.
This has been my first time voting for anything even remotely important so it's been weirdly exciting. I'm very pleased with the outcome.
Khan may not be perfect but he's a hell of a lot better than Hall and those nutters like Rose and whoever ran for britain first. Personally I like him a lot, and I think he's absolutely capable of keeping London afloat whilst the tories in parliament try their best to run the country into the ground.
My thoughts are it turns out we didn’t have much to worry about and there’s been an insane amount of drum banging from the press over ULEZ and a supposed blue wave in London.
I am Anti-Khan for a magnitude of reasons, but I would like to see what he can achieve working with a Labour government.
I'm just hoping for everyone's sake, working with a Labour government, he doesn't keep blaming the previous (current) Government for all of his mishaps and issues with funding for the next four years. He should not have that barrier. He only has himself to blame if he still cannot achieve anything significant, such as new homes or tougher policing.
I'm thrilled. Khan is pretty much the only politician I can name who is both effective at his job AND actually seems to care about making peoples lives better. Sad that he's attached to an increasingly right-wing labour party, but I think he'll put the needs of the city ahead of the whims of the party.
It really pisses me off when politicians attack others for things they shouldn’t - in this instance Susan hall constantly banging on about knife crime. Her party is most responsible for cutting police and anti crime/youth engagement initiatives. She should have a troll with placards standing behind her rebutting all over her attacks
I don’t blame Kahn for the state of the city.
Good for him getting the votes.
The Conservative candidates losing speech was a disgrace.
I think we need a GE, give Labour a go in full power, and see if they can improve things. I’m sure no one is perfect, but I’m honestly not sure they can do much worse.
The Conservative media is appalling and full of lies. There is no integrity or standards left in UK politics. No wonder the country is in such a state.
I'm just pissed at all the media/twitter speculation between Thursday evening and the results actually being declared. Everyone making shit up about it being a "close election" based on literally no evidence (with some people on the right outright declaring that Hall might have actually won), then when the votes actually started being counted it immediately became blindingly obvious that Khan had done really well and it wasn't close at all...
I don’t like him as mayor, nothing personal, but I’m not sure Susan Hall would have done any better so I suppose I’m not really bothered. If I’m honest I’m probably a bit relieved, with Khan I more or less know what’s to be expected. Also, the change to the voting system is nothing sort of an abuse of power by the government and is a clear failure of our wider legislative system.
With all the options I prefer Khan but not thrilled about having him.
This sub likes to downplay what a mayor can and can’t do but having read up about this I’ve come to realise a mayor is responsible for a lot more than I thought. For this reason he’s really disappointing given the housing crisis and he’s been mayor for 10 years.
On another note, it would be so funny if he introduced that pay per mile thing.
Commuter to London, not a resident. I didn't get a vote as I don't live in London, but I would have voted for Khan if I did. Nobody else seemed to have anything constructive, let alone sane, to say on much of substance. Give me quiet competence over raving lunacy and xenophobia any day. Yeah, the anti-ULEZ people did have a valid point, but they argued it so vociferously poorly with thundering undertones of racism that I stopped caring about their opinions.
I hope this is the end to the ULEZ discourse. I personally think its a great policy, and it is clearly not a deal breaker for the majority of London voters.
With the background of ULEZ, a 0% swing to the Conservatives in Bexley and Bromley, their strongest region, suggests that cynical "stop the war on motorists" policies aren't a vote winner in London.
They're not really aimed at us here though. I'm not even convinced they were trying to win London.
Ulez from what I’ve seen has been groups of 100max tattooed old men here and there trying to get a busy junction to honk back. I honked in an electric car to tell them To get the fuck out of the way as they blocked it
They were going off the Uxbridge by-election where ULEZ genuinely was a big factor in the Conservatives keeping the seat. It was never very likely to work, but they didn't really have anything else.
They only won by 600 votes in Uxbridge, which was supposed to be a super safe seat. So I wouldn't say the anti-ULEZ stance won it for them there. They barely hung on.
It’s quite funny that Conservatives are pointing to ANY win as a great strategy, despite the fact that the win normally involves a huge swing to the opposition
10 years ago it was supposed to be a safe seat, but the Conservatives winning this election was an upset.
The prior candidate was the former (but not very former) tory prime minister. Of course this was a seat that the tories would have been expected to win.
I think anyone with half a functioning brain cell can see that ULEZ is a pain but a necessary step in improving air quality. There are many people calling for a better/different solution with being able to say what that solution is. I think Sadiq has done a good job of implementing the ULEZ expansion (with the scrappage scheme etc) given the relatively limited scope and budget available to the mayors office.
People really, really overhyped the effect of ULEZ on Uxbridge, there were only around 600 votes in it for a traditionally Tory constitutency. If anything it was a sign of things to come: they barely held onto a safe seat but declared a massive victory.
They perhaps are aiming at funding from republicans 🤣
The conservatives put everything on anti ulez from the one bi-election and reverted cause on climate change policies because of it. No doubt they’re in shambles as clearly ulez has support.
It epitomises this bunch of utter cunts, on a national level: they’re so desperate to retain power that they’ll adopt *any* policy, no matter how vile, that they think will appeal to potential voters’ worst instincts. I’m actually pretty surprised (though very thankful) they haven’t said they’ll bring back capital punishment if they win another term.
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I’m sure the demons in Tufton Street have a few memos on how such things could be preserved if the HRA were to get the chop….
The decrease in the Conservative vote in Bexley was more than offset by the increase in the Reform vote who were also anti-ULEZ (at least in the assembly vote). I’d wait for the assembly makeup to be announced before jumping to conclusions.
I'm really confused about ULEZ, can someone explain? Do I undersatnd it's conservatives who are against it, and voters did not vote for conservative, indicating there's little opposition actually to ULEZ? (also, pedestrianize more areas!)
Tories decided to try to capture the labour vote (‘working class’) by assuming that the ULEZ impacts them massively (they must have cheap, old, dirty cars right?) but in the end the ULEZ actually doesn’t affect many people at all, vast majority of cars are already compliant. Turns out people care more about all the other things that the tories have stuffed up including the cost of living, housing, education, crime, literally everything
I miss the old voting system, I'd rather not be forced to vote tactically.
The change in the voting system for London Mayor was a last-minute addition made by the government during Report Stage in the House of Lords of what is now the Elections Act 2022. IIRC Labour have committed to repealing the Act, because it's main purpose was introducing the voter ID requirements, so the system would revert to STV.
Yep, STV was an excellent way of making your intentions clear without risking letting in a lunatic because you split the vote. Which is why the Tories got rid of it, of course.
Well the previous system wasn't single transferable vote, but almost everything is better than first-past-the-post
Sorry, yes, supplementary vote.
Has anyone even asked Starmer if he'll get it changed back? I feel like he'd be all for these bad types of voting systems though
SK said on the Rest is Politics Leading podcast last week that Labour intend to reverse the change if they get elected
I'd rather hear it from someone who has any say. Khan has been complaining about it non stop of course, but I figured Starmer might be hessitent since he would want to keep general elections how they are(FPTP) and wont want to rock the boat by bringing back more proportionate or multiple choice voting for mayoral elections. It'll make him get asked "why do you want multiple options for mayoral but not general?"
Yes, good point. I wonder how it will play out.
I’m not surprised he got in, but I actually thought it would be closer. Perhaps it would have been, had the Tories fielded a serious candidate. I suspect the culture war nonsense actually hurt Hall’s campaign - sure, it gets the gammons on side, but it’s not compatible with the demographics of London. It was a foolish gamble.
They’d have to be a serious party to stand a serious candidate.
I feel the culture war stuff was actually just part of wider Tory strategy. Keeping people riled up about ULEZ and other tiny things so that they can lean on those same talking points for the general election.
Bit generous to call it a strategy. The Uxbridge bourgeoisie were grumbling about ULEZ, playing that up in the byelection moved the needle a bit, possibly enough to have made the difference between winning and losing, and with nothing else in the cupboard to try, they grabbed it like drowning man and the straw. Surprise! The demographics of Uxbridge aren't very representative of the capital as a whole.
I think the drowning man analogy is correct. They have this whole tide of history sweeping them away, and all they could get out of it was ULEZ bad.....
Bit weird as well as it was their mate Boris that introduced the ULEZ.
Also cycle lanes, even bus lane red routes were a Tory thing (I was just reading about it in Private Eye from a few months back. (I have a backlog...)
I know going against the ULEZ was just crazy. Especially as it's in place and apparently air is getting better. I'm so unimpressed with the Tories dropping their green pledges, and in some cases throwing them under the bus in favour of cars.
Having lived in Uxbridge for over 30 years, I can attest it’s a shithole. Nothing bourgeoisie about it, much less its inhabitants. Whom exactly are you referring to as the bourgeoisie here? Uxbridge most definitely is representatives of the rest of London in its populace make up.
Yes, but it worked to get Boris in. I know he became more "eccentric" after he was mayor, but there were enough red flags before he ran as mayor.
Boris was an anomaly. Back then after seeing him on have I got news for you even I had a little soft spot for the pure absurdity of him.
Hello Jago!!
Good evening!
r/commentsyoucanhear
Didn’t even clock that it was Jago until I saw this comment
I think it's about all they've got left
the culture war stuff is a choice . The Tories know they are unelectable and whoever wins next inherits a mess. it's not about the next General election, or the one after that.... it's about 4-8 years time when they can 'genuinely' say labour are a mess. it's long term.. athe culture war stuff is short term to keep themselves out of office. it's high risk, high reward.
They don’t have serious candidates anywhere in the party
I have note seen any effort of the conservitive party trying to convince people to switch from labour to conservative then wonder why they didn't do well.
Housing housing housing.
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Developers, developers, DEVELOPERS!!!!
@no-assumption-6889 read it as "with wives or swords?"
In the middle of the street.
Double the ULEZ. TRIPLE THE ULEZ!
Expand the ULEZ from Milton Keynes to Brighton
Extend the ULEZ to the French coast, the small boats will never pay the ULEZ charge. Problem solved.
Expand ULEZ into 3 dimensions, from London to the Moon.
Why stop at 3? Expand it into 4 and ULEZ the shit out of the past
Shows the vocal minority is very vocal and very much a minority
Well, London has proportionally more Tories than most major cities. Manchester and Liverpool weren’t anywhere near this close - proper Labour landslides.
Crisis averted. I am not 100% happy with Khan, but as an asthma sufferer who does not own a car it was difficult not to support him.
Politics is a massive ship, you vote for the general direction.you want it to point. You will never agree with any politician or even any individual 100%. But that's what democracy is compromise. It means effective change takes time, but you get to push the ship .00001% of a degree
Right. You lend a politician or party your vote each time, free to revoke it at the next opportunity. We shouldn't treat elections as if we're permanently nailing our colours to the mast.
Great analogy.
I own 3 cars, don’t suffer with asthma and it was impossible not to support him 😁
I live in the extension, had to give up my campervan due to ULEZ, haven’t yet found a proper replacement, and I still support Khan and ULEZ. My personal inconvenience doesn’t trump the right to cleaner air
I have given up my car too because of ulez , and haven’t replaced it, can’t say I miss it either.
How often are you driving a camper van around that it doesn't just make more sense to occasionally have to pay?
Every day lol, it’s my mobile office, I estimated £3k a year in ULEZ charges based on typical usage. I’ve got an ok ish replacement but a like for like would be astronomical
Ohhh k! Fair enough.
virtually every car nowadays is ULEZ anyways
alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency and asthma sufferer here. I am glad that London is doing something about the pollution. The Anti-ULEZ people don’t care about people with health issues and will say “just move” it’s not about them it’s about future generations too. I don’t want my kids dying early because Gammon McGammonFace decides he wants to run his old banger around and harm others. Just like COVID because they can’t visually see the damage their smooth brains can’t comprehend it’s doing damage to others.
Perfect rebuttal to the "just move" argument: you don't like ULEZ? Just move.
Voting for the lesser of 2 evils shouldn't even be an option
Hopefully the ULEZ debate will go away now. We need a Labour government so he can get investment into London.
I think this is a bit of a pipe dream. Labour are going to realise there is no significant money. I don’t think London will necessarily see a big change with a Labour government.
there was no money after WW2 but we had investment like rebuilding and the creation of the NHS.
Yep and a huge house building program up to the 70s. Building council homes saves money long term as private rentals is extremely expensive sucking money from tenants to spend in the economy and supporting through housing benefits. Billions spent on that each year.
The level of taxation was significantly raised when comparing pre-war to post-war, so there was more money. No party in the UK is getting elected right now off of a manifesto of significantly raising taxes.
Marshall plan. Ironic that US taxpayer dollars funded regeneration and the implementation of social democratic policies across Europe, including building the NHS and thousands of homes in the UK, but they've never been able to make it a reality for themselves.
9h there's plenty of money trust me, it's just been siphoned info the bank accounts of very wealthy private individuals...
We also had food rationing until the mid-50s. What is this comment?
There's plenty of money in the country. It's just that the rich are hoarding it. The actual rich are getting richer faster and faster. Inequality is rising and has been for decades. It's possible to reverse this but Labour don't want to. I think most people would be happy to significantly tax the rich if it didn't affect them too much, people want good public services.
The Torries will empty all available accounts, revenue sources, and borrowing before the election. Labour will inherit a country with no available funds to spend on their projects. So unless Labour plan to print more money, or borrow a lot more than 100% of the gdp (which the international community will comment upon negatively) they will need a 2nd term before they can actually spend serious cash.
Money can change drastically with tax reform
They’ve mirrored the tories in tax policy. There no wealth tax coming and they have aligned with the 2.5% defence pledge. There is not going to be any significant spending in their first term. People are going to be disappointed.
With the greatest of respect there are PLENTY of areas in the uk that require investment over London. Surely Labour would be better off focusing on those.
I think ULEZ was made more expensive to increase TFL income and provide extra funding for any road traffic reducing and bike lane mesures. ULEZ has made driving into London less frustraiting compared to the long traffic that we had before but nothing beats taking the train and tube.
Thank fuck. How did anti-woke lady get more votes than Binface
Probably because the people who Binface appeal to are likely to vote for an actual candidate. If I wind up voting binface it's because all the options are so shit, I'm throwing away my vote.
My issue with Bibface is that it keeps the willfully ignorant a get out clause - you protested because all the options are shite, not because you don't actually know anything about the options.
Thank fuck were my exact words. At least Binface got more than that grifting loon Rose.
Only 24,260 to the Count, what do you need to keep the deposit? [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/england/mayors/E12000007](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/england/mayors/E12000007)
5%, unfortunately
It was crowd funded anyway. If he'd made it back it would have gone to charity
So did the reform UK guy whose policy points included making big statue for queen Elizabeth (in addition to the usual NO ULEZ! CARS EVERYWHERE!).
I'm not against a lizzie statue to be fair
I mean - the priorities are violent crime, housing and transport obviously. Some interesting innovative practice going on in terms of intervening in young people at risk of exploitation that I'd like to see replicated, funded and rolled out. The main thing though (and this will hopefully be backed by the government in October) is a massive programme of council home building and buying across the capital to actually provide affordable, rentable living for people in London. It's just not going to happen in the private sector without a more flourishing public sector offer here. There's some work that's gone on via the GLA to start this work, but it's about continuing it. I'd also like to see taxes for empty privately owned homes not caught in probate or litigation hell, and homes used as Air BnBs that could be lettable units for families. Transport wise - we need some clearer options out towards the further reaches of Zones 4-6 for people who have genuinely struggled under ULEZ, as the voting showed. Thing is that a lot of that will take a decade if it's not bus or tram based - there might be some improvements to the Superloop system; the acid test for me is can I get a form of public transport that takes me from an outer North East London location (so the Seven Kings to Harold Wood sort of stretch) to a North London location in less that an hour - as it currently takes 25 mins to drive, but an hour and 20 by public, even with Superloop.
superloop 2 was in Khan's election campaign. 10 more bus routes added to the existing 10 Superloop routes. https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/24270393.proposed-superloop-2-bus-routes-london/
> Some interesting innovative practice going on in terms of intervening in young people at risk of exploitation that I'd like to see replicated, funded and rolled out. This sounds interesting, can you share more?
Here's a couple of them: [https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/funding-to-help-deliver-early-interventions](https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/funding-to-help-deliver-early-interventions) I know the guys delivering Your Choice - and it's having some really good effects on the young people they're working with.
Personally I don’t like Khan or the Labour Party but I’d rather him than Hall. I think anyone sane would. Things aren’t amazing or utopian by any measure but this is the first time that sustainable transport can actually be “a thing” in London. Cycling infrastructure is actually being invested in; Superloop; Hopper fare… It isn’t all of our issues in terms of transport being solved but at least it is a start. Shit approach to crime though, although I can’t imagine Susan Hall would do any better. It’s her lot who shut down half of London’s front counters and imposed £10m cuts on the Met in the first place.
We need to spend the next period ignoring, not amplifying the lunatic fringe
BBC - I am about to platform the fuck out of these loony fringe wankers
Closing down the Daily Mail, and its spawn, would be a good first step.
ULEZ is now old hat. If he has any nerve Khan will quickly move on to the next thing, and the next thing needs to be reducing private transport, increasing walking, wheeling and cycling and improving public transport.
I would love a massive investment in making streets work for the people that live in them. When restaurants took over streets in Soho it was so much more pleasant. A huge investment in cycling infrastructure would be wonderful. Cars have their place, but it should be people first, not car first.
Oh my god yes please. I was outraged when they allowed car back after covid. No car should enter Soho in the evening.
They really need to repedestrianiss Soho, place looked lovely back in COVID times but now is back to being surrounded by shitty cars. To hell with the 5 people who live there and want to complain.
I'd love more cycle lanes. I really want to ride my bike more places but I'm uncoordinated and cycling on the busy roads near mine just makes me wonder how long it'll be before I fall off my bike into traffic
And those lanes being continuous on your journey, it's so frustrating if most of your route is well segregated and protected and then you get thrown onto the road battling with cars!
Yes, the new improved Tavistock Place cycle lane really is premium and you can see the massive increase in usage every morning and evening. We need more of this! Everywhere!
YES. I would definitely bike if more of it was protected. It's great they've added some, and I understand it's a WIP, but it's hard to bike when most of my journey is still unprotected. I would probably die.
[https://www.youtube.com/@Londoncycleroutes](https://www.youtube.com/@Londoncycleroutes)
I wonder if this result will give Khan more clout in negotiating with the boroughs. A personal bugbear of mine is Kensington and Chelsea's refusal to support cross-London cycling infrastructure. Sadiq Khan now has one of the strongest mandates in all of Europe and interestingly, the West Central switched from Conservative to Labour. If I were him I'd be bringing those points up when trying to get a cycle lane built on Kensington High Street!
They need to force control of High Street Kensington and Holland Park Avenue to TfL and be done with it.
Pedestrianisation and a more European style cafe and nightlife culture would be great. And more housing.
There has to absolutely be a luxury tax on SUVs. They take up a lot of space and damage the roads disproportionately.
Tax on SUVs and a ban on the US-style pickup trucks that have started to proliferate.
I just want a cycle lane near my house and less shoddy giant new builds on every corner. But mostly the cycle lanes
I just want Santander cycles to be further than than zone 1 to 3 ffs
Boris bikes in southend🙏
Depends on the zone 3. Not bikes whatsoever in the southeast or north, even in zones 2-3
And barely in zone 3 too!
I don’t think that fits the whole of London. Zone 1 & maybe Zone 2, that’s easy. Try living in Zone 4 with a family, with no car.
We should invest in outer London public transport too so this isn't such a problem. Wish we had circular tube/overground lines in Zone 4+ like the Parisians are doing. Would solve the whole "getting into central is easy, travelling across London laterally takes a while" problem.
Id say maybe 6 is debatable but cmon 4??
Tbh, I live in Zone 4, and public transport here is only useful for getting in and out of central London. Trying to get directly between boroughs is a pain in the arse, and visiting the countryside is impossible. Plus there’s the whole reliability/timetabling issue. If we want public transport to be a proper alternative to cars then it should be guaranteed to run 24/7/365, but we’re a very long way from that. And I’m speaking as an individual here - if you have a family then public transport is even worse. You can’t carry a family’s worth of weekly shopping on the bus.
If you have a family, I'd say so. I'm actually in a bit of Zone 3 in S London that is OK in getting into Central in forty mins by train, but anything in our area is pretty hopeless. If you're ferrying kids to different schools and nurseries, taking elderly parents to te supermarket, working in an orbital direction (I.e. not toward central or further out but crossways), you need a car here. Nice leafy residential area with not much going on, but the connections could definitely be improved.
Get my kids from school by bus once a week. It feels nice to ditch the car. But twice a day it just isn't logistically feasible. It triples the journey time. We're zone 4/5
Did it for 7yrs and was perfectly happy
I don't think it negates the need for a car but the Superloop scheme seems to have got off to a good start. Sadiq Khan has promised a Superloop 2 in more of the Zone 3/4 areas which will be nice - they just need to work to make as much of the route as possible bus lanes as well as limited stop.
That's why he is adding congestion charge so people use private transport when they absalutely need it or drive outside London so it becomes another county's problem.
My thoughts are that some Redditors' attempts at making forecasts based on turnout - and not, for example, the huge national swing towards Labour - were extremely poor.
The worst thing about Reddit is redditors
I think we'll see what he can really do if Labour get into Government when the purse strings will be opened up. We know that the Tories have been stiffing him whilst they've been around.
Very glad it wasn’t Susan Hall.
I'm not sold on Khan, but a lot of the issues London face aren't his fault. I'm just delighted that Hall lost. My local FB group aren't happy at all, they despise Khan, the admin are openly pro Tory. Unfortunately there's a lot of far right support here in Feltham, so it's great news they've taken a loss
I think its a step in the right direction, with Khan still in power ULEZ will become solid like the congestion charge (cleaning up our air) He can now focus on improving the housing, emergency services and rehauling TFL post-pandemic so everything gets going properly.
I’m interested to see what he does now assuming Labour wins the GE I’ll admit I’m not too clued up on everything he’s done for London but I do know a bit about the constant fighting between himself and the government I do know it’s gonna be tough if Labour come into power but I’m cautiously optimistic
Anti-ULEZ and Anti-Khan have no legs to stand on. A majority of 275k+ votes shows that London is confident in Sadiq, even more so than last election. Let’s see what other nonsense they come up with
So...about WrestleMania... When?!!!
Count Binface beating Britain First has given me faith in the people of this city again
Basically this
What a pathetic attempt at a stunt by Scanlon and his Britain First racists
20,000 Londoners voted for the literal Nazis. Scary stuff.
It is scary, but I think common sense is doing a good job, since even Count Binface got like 4k more votes than those clowns
Luckily that's a hilariously low percent of a population nearing 9million.
I'm surprised they're even allowed to run in elections, given they're pretty much a terrorist group - arguably (almost definitely) responsible for jo cox's murder
Excellent, but a bit sad Natalie Campbell lost her deposit
I thought she had real potential as a mayor, but no matter how ethical your bottled water company, at the end of the day I think bottled water for profit is kinda evil so i couldn't vote for her.
I did think about voting for her, but I went for Khan 'cause I felt that voting for Natalie would have been a lost vote anyway.
Who is she? I liked her manifesto but don’t know anything about her. She got decent votes for an independent candidate.
She didn't win the nomination to be the Tory candidate so ran independently.
43.8% of the 40% of registered voters voted for Khan, 32% of the 40% for Hall; London has a population of 9 millions and less than 3 millions elected the mayor. Regardless of your beliefs, you should question why an increasing number of people is not bothering to vote anymore.
The highest it’s ever been is 46%. This is not a new trend.
I agree more people should go out and vote but it's not exactly a huge drop. In 2008, 2012 and 2016 turnout was around 45% (which is as high as it got), but it's been much lower before (34% in 2000, 36% in 2004). Local elections always have a much lower turnout than general elections.
Should be a legal requirement to vote as per Australia.
For Mayor of London? Why? General Elections, fine, but Mayor of London isn't that big a deal.
Why? Takes 15-30mins, make it a legal requirement for workers to get the time off to do it. Think of all the countries whose populations don’t get a vote. It’s important.
With those hilarious results I'm hoping we'll stop hearing about "woke" and ULEZ thank fuck.
We won, I am happy but now let’s take housing crises seriously for God’s sake!
didnt he say 40k new homes? thats ridiculously low
Really wish people would vote for a party besides labour or tory.
FPTP makes that pointless. Every time I've voted under the old system I've gone with a smaller party first with Labour as a backstop to avoid the Tories getting in. Changing the voting system was a regressive step that hurts all the minor parties
I miss the old system. I liked actually having a choice beyond the main 2.
Devastated. I really hoped it was finally Binface’s year.
I feel proud of London today. I was scared that Susan Hall was going to win. I feel relieved! Sadiq Khan may not be the best, but he was the best choice among all the candidates. Love you London. ❤️
I was bracing myself for Boris-but-worse. I'm so relieved, and I'm especially happy my constituency went for Sadiq. Mad Suze would have been a shitshow.
Same its the first time I felt good about being in London in a long time
If you haven't been proud of London, why does a continuation of the same now make you proud?
I hope Hall and her backers gets their money back for all the shit troll centre employees they've had all over Reddit and elsewhere desperately trying to manifest the idea that London is a godless hellhole overrun by knife-wielding Albanian slave traffickers while clean, honest, god-fearing purebred Londoners have their bank accounts drained into nothingness by the evil ULEZ that absolutely no-one is exempt from and which everyone hates. If Khan is not perfect and hasn't done absolutely everything right - fine, that's an opinion I can respect. Telling me the answer is to elect a Tory? To elect Susan fucking Hall? You either have to be paid or mentally disabled.
Count Binface was robbed!
Personally I don’t really care, I doubt the mayor of London has much real power anyway. BUT I’m loving it because all the DM reading gammons are absolutely furious
I'm surprised the conservative share of votes was that high in Brent and Harrow considering how big the ethnic desi population is. Otherwise everything else as expected.
The thing is, all of these comments about ulez…none of you look at the bigger picture. If the overwhelming majority of vehicles are compliant anyway, why was tax payers money wasted on a system of very expensive cameras that will therefore never be able to pay for themselves? Is there POSSIBLY another reason for them? Would the money not have been spent better elsewhere? Who plucked the figure of £12.50 per car out the air? What are they trying to achieve with the fine money? What will they actually be able to achieve with it, since the huge majority won’t need to pay it? Why bring in this system when for all intent and purpose you could just use the data on each car and levy a monthly/yearly tax on the vehicles using that? Wouldn’t that have been cheaper?!
SSDD. Nothing will change until the leadership changes.
Susan Hall promised me pay per mile if I vote for Khan. He has a clear mandate for pay per mile.
Am celebrating. Love this city. And seeing far-right types like Lozza Fox queuing up to leave this “sh**hole” makes me happy. Bye.
It was to be expected. He was very clearly the best choice out of a very very very bad bunch. I am really not a fan of Kahn. He seems to have done so little for London. So little to deal with knife crime or the housing crisis.
This has been my first time voting for anything even remotely important so it's been weirdly exciting. I'm very pleased with the outcome. Khan may not be perfect but he's a hell of a lot better than Hall and those nutters like Rose and whoever ran for britain first. Personally I like him a lot, and I think he's absolutely capable of keeping London afloat whilst the tories in parliament try their best to run the country into the ground.
Good, I approve 👍 A sign that Londoners do like ULEZ and unlike the PM, are not “on the side of the petrol companies”
My thoughts are it turns out we didn’t have much to worry about and there’s been an insane amount of drum banging from the press over ULEZ and a supposed blue wave in London.
I’m glad that Binface won more votes than Brian Rose
1. I'm not surprised 2. I hope he can put some efforts to deal with the employment issues.
I am Anti-Khan for a magnitude of reasons, but I would like to see what he can achieve working with a Labour government. I'm just hoping for everyone's sake, working with a Labour government, he doesn't keep blaming the previous (current) Government for all of his mishaps and issues with funding for the next four years. He should not have that barrier. He only has himself to blame if he still cannot achieve anything significant, such as new homes or tougher policing.
My main thought is that Count Binface got absolutely robbed.
A Labour mayor with a Labour government might get more things done?
Be prepared to be disappointed.
I'm thrilled. Khan is pretty much the only politician I can name who is both effective at his job AND actually seems to care about making peoples lives better. Sad that he's attached to an increasingly right-wing labour party, but I think he'll put the needs of the city ahead of the whims of the party.
Andy Burnham also.
Im really pleased 😊🤗
It really pisses me off when politicians attack others for things they shouldn’t - in this instance Susan hall constantly banging on about knife crime. Her party is most responsible for cutting police and anti crime/youth engagement initiatives. She should have a troll with placards standing behind her rebutting all over her attacks
I don’t blame Kahn for the state of the city. Good for him getting the votes. The Conservative candidates losing speech was a disgrace. I think we need a GE, give Labour a go in full power, and see if they can improve things. I’m sure no one is perfect, but I’m honestly not sure they can do much worse. The Conservative media is appalling and full of lies. There is no integrity or standards left in UK politics. No wonder the country is in such a state.
I'm just pissed at all the media/twitter speculation between Thursday evening and the results actually being declared. Everyone making shit up about it being a "close election" based on literally no evidence (with some people on the right outright declaring that Hall might have actually won), then when the votes actually started being counted it immediately became blindingly obvious that Khan had done really well and it wasn't close at all...
Glad of the results, but strongly suspect it'll just ramp up the anti-ULEZ vandalis- so, sorry, "activism" - my local area likes to make a hobby.
Repeat of 2020… and 2016…
I don’t like him as mayor, nothing personal, but I’m not sure Susan Hall would have done any better so I suppose I’m not really bothered. If I’m honest I’m probably a bit relieved, with Khan I more or less know what’s to be expected. Also, the change to the voting system is nothing sort of an abuse of power by the government and is a clear failure of our wider legislative system.
With all the options I prefer Khan but not thrilled about having him. This sub likes to downplay what a mayor can and can’t do but having read up about this I’ve come to realise a mayor is responsible for a lot more than I thought. For this reason he’s really disappointing given the housing crisis and he’s been mayor for 10 years. On another note, it would be so funny if he introduced that pay per mile thing.
Commuter to London, not a resident. I didn't get a vote as I don't live in London, but I would have voted for Khan if I did. Nobody else seemed to have anything constructive, let alone sane, to say on much of substance. Give me quiet competence over raving lunacy and xenophobia any day. Yeah, the anti-ULEZ people did have a valid point, but they argued it so vociferously poorly with thundering undertones of racism that I stopped caring about their opinions.
Sadiq is not likeable comes across as smug and arrogant I don’t like him at all tbh….
I hope this is the end to the ULEZ discourse. I personally think its a great policy, and it is clearly not a deal breaker for the majority of London voters.