Tomorrow, Sadiq Khan will comfortably beat Zac Goldsmith in
the race to become Mayor of London. Lewisham voters will back the
Labour candidate in their droves. So it is written.
In their lacklustre manifestos we can see Boris’ true
legacy. During his eight years of grandstanding to no great effect, we forgot
that the Mayor matters. Johnson’s pitiful two terms have delivered a
nice-but-expensive new bus, a cable car that may one day be a useful connection,
the bare bones of a segregated cycle network and little else. His only big
idea, the night tube, became snarled up in union disputes and he abandoned his
post months ago.
But the Mayor, whose powers are growing, does have the
ability to transform the city. From Oyster to the TfL cycle stations, our daily
lives were once reshaped. The clusters around Victoria, London Bridge and Kings
Cross, the Olympic-scale redevelopment of Stratford and the new life along the
route of the East London Line are testament to the Mayor’s power to redraw the
map. Even a modest bit of pedestrianisation helped us reimagine the role that
Trafalgar Square could play in civic life.
So what about this time?
There are three big issues that
dominate London’s future: The supply of housing, transport capacity and air
quality.
Rising housing costs are making us poorer, capacity constraints are
packing us in ever tighter and the stuff we breathe is killing us. But on these questions, there’s little to divide them
and still less to inspire.
On housing, both men are opposed to compromising the greenbelt
and building out, while Zac’s opposed to building up. Khan plans a new
organisation, Housing for London, which would co-ordinate strategy across the
capital. This idea has potential, but his target of making 50% of new homes affordable is
either fantasy stuff or would kill off a good chunk of the house building
pipeline - as could both manifestos’ commitment to offer homes to established Londoners
first.
The only real solution to London’s housing shortage is to
build more homes but there is no comprehensive plan on offer. Instead, they
focus on regulating rents, which is welcome but risks creating all kinds of other
distortions in the market without addressing the imbalance of demand and
supply.
As Zac’s manifesto makes clear, transport and housing
strategies intersect. New links are key to encouraging brownfield development. And
yet, he quickly forgets his own analysis. The Thames Gateway, he says, could
play home to an additional population the size of Glasgow. But his manifesto
omits any mention of the new transport infrastructure required to unlock that
potential.
Neither candidate has any new ideas about transport and in
terms of new capacity, their plans barely differ. Zac supports the Silvertown
Tunnel. Sadiq mentions the Rotherhithe pedestrian bridge. They both back
Crossrail 2 and the Bakerloo extension, promise modest expansion of electric vehicle
infrastructure and oppose Heathrow. Both pander to the black taxi lobby with wholly
unnecessary regulation of Uber and minicab rivals. Their manifestos amount to little
more than a rubber stamp for TfL’s existing commitments. The only real
difference is that Khan expects TfL to do it all without raising fares and has
never been able to explain how he’ll plug the yawning financial gap, especially
since he demands “efficiency savings” while simultaneously suggesting that mothballed
ticket offices could be reopened to placate the unions.
You might expect air quality to be an overriding concern for
environmentalist Zac, but his plans are pretty timid. Retro-fitting diesel
buses would be welcome, but it's an idea reliant on central government support. The loan scheme
to taxi drivers to convert to LPG is a neat idea, as is the promise to review
the Lorry Control Scheme to limit peak time deliveries – but there’s little
promised action on pollution from private vehicles. Sadiq, by contrast, promises
a consultation on accelerating and expanding the Low Emissions Zone roll-out.
If neither candidate grapples properly with these
fundamental issues, nor do they offer much of a sense of fun. Where are the
ideas to make London a more thrilling or charming place to live? Zac talks airily of pocket parks and
wetlands, Sadiq promises to deliver on the long-mooted pedestrianisation of
Oxford Street and revive the plans to remodel Parliament Square. And that’s
your lot.
With little to choose between them and few ideas to debate,
it’s no surprise the campaign has descended into identity politics, with Zac
blowing an Islamicist dog whistle and Sadiq chucking chum to social justice warriors.
How then to choose between them? I think it must come down
to their leadership qualities. Sadiq seems like a pragmatist, who’ll backtrack on his dangerous commitment to freeze fares and get stuck into the
detail of the job. Zac appears alarmingly aloof and erratic, with little love
for our city.
The likely winner is the right choice in a poor contest. Thanks Boris.
