On May 2, Londoners will have the chance to vote for a new London Mayor and London Assembly.
The choice presented to us by the Labour and Conservative Parties is not an inspiring one.
On the one hand, we have Sadiq Khan, who has run London’s transport and police into the ground, and on the other, the Conservatives’ Donald Trump supporting candidate, a woman who has endorsed tweets supporting Enoch Powell and branded our capital as ‘Londonistan’.
As per usual in Haringey, I have neither received nor heard anything from the Conservative candidate in the run-up to the election, and it is up to the Lib Dems to oppose Labour.
I will of course be backing the excellent Lib Dem candidate, Rob Blackie, who has made sorting out the failing Met his number one issue.
Coming home from work one night, Rob was violently mugged. NHS surgeons gave him a new titanium neck, but the muggers were never caught. Rob has said that fixing the Met is the main reason he is standing for Mayor.
Last year a police officer told the Casey Review that rape “may as well be legal in London”, and the proportion of crimes being solved in our city is now just 8%. That is an unacceptable state of affairs, which has happened on the watch of the Tories nationally and Labour in London.
The Lib Dems have pledged that any surplus mayoral funds will be diverted to the Met rather than spent on election gimmicks like Khan’s fare freeze.
This would help strengthen local policing teams and get hundreds more officers back on duty by tackling the huge numbers who are currently stuck in back-office roles, due to a lack of administrative staff.
Rob has also said he wants to use extra funding to recruit an additional 500 Special Constables and would also appoint a real expert to the role of deputy mayor for Policing and Crime, ending the Labour practice of appointing only party loyalists to the position.
Rob’s focus on fixing the Met, as well as his other priorities for London such as getting more homes built, ending the scandalous leasehold system, tackling sewage dumping in the capital's waterways, and greater rights for our EU Londoners are what sets him apart from the other candidates.
It is clear to me that London if it is to thrive, needs a new way forward, and to me, that begins with tackling the issues that really matter to Londoners.
Only one of the candidates for London Mayor is really serious about meeting this challenge head-on, and he will wholeheartedly have my support.
- Luke Cawley-Harrison is councillor of Crouch End ward, Haringey Council and leader of the Liberal Democrat Group.
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