Sadiq Khan is destroying London

From his disastrous anti-car obsession to his would-be thought-policing, Londoners are sick and tired of their Mayor

Source - Daily Telegraph - 27/07/23

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Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. So said Samuel Johnson in 1777. Now - nearly 250 years later - it is London that is tired of one man. And his name is Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of our capital city.

Khan won the title in 2016 after Boris Johnson’s reign at City Hall - a triumphalist regime remembered for the 2012 Olympics and the introduction of Boris bikes. But while Boris was a popular Mayor despite his politics, his Labour successor appears to be growing ever more unpopular with every month that passes.

Not content with harassing motorists with every 20 mph speed camera, low traffic neighborhoods, Ulez zones and miles of cycle lanes, the Mayor has moved into policing our behaviour as well.

Every underground station is festooned with signs that bark out messages to worn out commuters, including the instruction to “be kind” and the warning that “staring is not tolerated”. To the uninitiated tourist, it gives the impression that our Tube network is one huge sexual harassment zone where “unwanted touching” is the norm.

And, in recent days, Khan has taken yet another step towards the closing down of free speech and social interaction with a new campaign telling men and boys to check their friends’ misogynistic behaviour by saying “maaate” in an elongated and clearly sarcastic tone.

Roping in the hopelessly woke “comedian” Romesh Ranganathan, the Mayor said his aim was to make London a better, safer place. But looking around the streets of the city, it is very clear that the capital is now neither of those things.

The Metropolitan Police are bedeviled with corruption cases, criminal officers and Just Stop Oil protests which are making it more and more difficult for them to do their jobs.

The malaise around crime is at a high, whether it’s machete-wielding robbers stealing Rolexes in broad daylight, or teenage stabbings. The Mayor and his office seem incapable of stemming the tide.

There has been a massive increase in shoplifting from corner shops and supermarkets - with one inner London Co-Op store being looted three times in one day. And drug dealers are now alleged to be delivering contraband faster than you can get a pizza.

But no wonder Sadiq can’t address these crushing societal issues when he is so focused on pointless advertising campaigns or efforts to change street names and remove statues.

Samuel Johnson’s original quote reads as follows:

 “Why sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, sir. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

Now, our capital is a city that very few can afford. Someone working in inner London has to spend 17 times their earnings to buy a home - double the national average. The Mayor may view Rishi Sunak’s £200 million project to build more homes on brownfield sites in London as “desperate”, but the Prime Minister is right to counter that Sadiq has “failed to deliver the homes that London needs. This has driven up house prices and made it harder for families to get on the housing ladder in the first place.”

Of course, there are few problems that Left-leaning politicians believe cannot be solved with price controls, which is why the Mayor is calling for a rent freeze in the city - even though such experiments in the past have led to a decline in stock and quality of housing. He has introduced free school meals for all children, even those whose parents can afford to pay for them.

Khan may find himself increasingly isolated. After the Tories were able to retain Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat, Keir Starmer has cooled on the idea of further expanding the Ulez zone. The High Court judgment on councils’ challenge to the expansion is due tomorrow, but regardless of outcome many believe this issue was to blame for Labour’s defeat. 

Khan’s time might not be up; recent polls have indicated a significant Labour lead. But the Mayor appears to be losing friends fast. Worse, there is a question to be asked about what kind of London will be left by the time he’s finished with it. Can the great city take another four years of Khan’s destructive agenda?