Sadiq Khan: Has he lost London?
The polls say he's going to win re-election handily, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise listening to voters in Enfield on Friday.
BY MICHAEL HAVIS
A few weeks ago, I recorded a vox-pop at Leadenhall Market, asking Londoners how they felt about the London mayoral race. Specifically, I was asking how they felt about Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, who’s seeking a historic third term as London mayor when the polls open in a few days time.
The views of the people I spoke to were decidedly mixed. For some, Khan’s time in office had been entirely negative: people complained about crime, about housing, and about Khan himself, who was said to be out for himself, and quick to blame others for his failings. Others were positive about him: he’d stood up to Trump, he’d been good on the environment, he’d extended bike lanes, and he wasn’t Boris Johnson.
The YouTube comments on the video (both the long and short edit) were decidedly less mixed. Admittedly, I’m not a Londoner and I don’t really have a horse in this race, but I do struggle to understand the intensity with which he’s hated by some. He’s a run-of-the-mill social democrat, and even if he’s an ineffective one, that doesn’t seem to explain the venom he inspires.
Anyway, among the comments were several remarking that “real” Londoners had long since abandoned the capital. One gentleman told me to go to Herts and Essex “where the actual Londoners moved to”. It’s an interesting suggestion, but how would that work? Getting enough people to appear on camera is challenging enough as it is, without having to limit myself to passers-by who’ve moved out of the capital in the past eight years.
But I did like the idea of asking voters about Mr Khan in a different location. So, with a nod to the aforementioned commenter, I decided to venture down to Enfield, a part of London that borders both Hertfordshire and Essex. It’s also the place that gave us the Portillo moment. Michael Portillo was the MP for Enfield Southgate, and was considered a potential future leader for the Conservative party; perhaps even a future Prime Minister. But it all came crashing down on election night in 1997 when he was unexpectedly and shockingly voted out in favour of a Labour candidate.
Now Enfield faces another election, with another incumbent candidate who looks very safe and sure to win re-election. Could they have another surprise up their sleeves like in 1997? I went to ask them.
The first thing to say is: it was a very different experience asking voters about the mayor here than in central London. I did not encounter the mix of views here that I found in Leadenhall Market. One older lady said she’d like Khan shot. Another called him Genghis Khan. Every single voter I spoke to was negative about Khan.
I wrote briefly about ULEZ (the ultra-low emission zone) when I did a vox-pop in Uxbridge, Boris Johnson’s old seat. The policy, introduced by Mr Khan, compels the drivers of more polluting vehicles to pay £12.50 every day they drive within the zone. At the time, I reflected that it must be a very rare sort of car that has to pay the charge, after discovering that my 22-year-old rust bucket was exempt. Yet the impact of the policy was very real in Enfield.
One voter I spoke to, a musician, said he’d been compelled to spend £14,000 on a new van so that he could move his equipment without paying the charge. Another lady said she’d worked with local charities who’d been stung by the charge. Almost everybody brought it up.
I noted last time how I hadn’t found a single voter in Leadenhall who intended to support Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate. This time I found these elusive voters. I met two older ladies who said they intended to back her, though one of them noted that she’d have preferred to vote for Reform if she thought they had a chance. There was also the aforementioned musician.
Even voters who might’ve seemed like natural supporters for Khan were critical. One chap I spoke to who was primarily concerned with public transport was disappointed enough by the mayor’s performance in this area that he planned to vote for the Animal Welfare Party. And he wasn’t the only voter opting for an outsider candidate. One gentleman was planning to vote for the SDP, a party I wasn’t sure still existed.
One lady took issue with the number of candidates in the race, saying their should be a single unity candidate to take on the Labour mayor.
But uniting all voters was a sense of grim resignation that it would be four more years of Khan. Off camera, a few people attributed this to his rock-solid support in the Muslim community. Whether this support is real or imagined, I don’t know, but on the strength of the polls, I’m sticking with my earlier prediction: Labour HOLD.