In the capital, it is widely expected that Sadiq Khan will win – though his victory, should it come, will hardly be with the enthusiastic approval of Londoners.
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Voters are electing a Scottish Parliament, legislatures in Wales and Northern Ireland as well as choosing many English local authorities, including a new London mayor to replace flamboyant Conservative Boris Johnson.
‘Sadiq Khan has shown he doesn’t have the judgment to be Mayor of London, ‘ Paul Scully, MP for Sutton and Cheap, told MailOnline.
“We should be careful about focusing too much on these second preferences since they have favoured both candidates at different points in the campaign, but Sadiq Khan has been consistently ahead on first preferences and Zac Goldsmith will have to work very hard if he is to overturn this lead in the last few days”.
“I have fought extremism all my life”, he said, accusing Goldsmith of trying to divide Londoners by using faith a big campaign issue.
But on Monday night, the mosque released a strongly-worded statement and said its members were concerned about the tone of his mayoral campaign, described in a press release as “increasingly toxic [in] nature”.
Khan says before he entered politics he was a human-rights lawyer and sometimes shared platforms with people whose views he opposed. From the pro-cannabis campaigner to the candidate who wants to launch a space cadet programme, they’re a varied bunch.
In an interview with the Observer, Khan, the son of a bus driver, said he would not be thrown off course by the controversy, but conceded there could be electoral fallout that would damage him and his party.
But who thinks air quality is a “national disgrace”?
The results are a further blow to Conservative strategists under fire for running a divisive and negative campaign. A swath of the population, popularly referred to as “generation rent”, say it is almost impossible to get a foothold on the property ladder.
Using his campaign message “a mayor for all Londoners”, Khan has pledged to freeze transport fares, increase the stock of affordable housing, support the London NHS, and tackle violent crime.
“You can pay up to 1600 pounds [$2,300] rent a month”.
London “is the greatest city in the world”.
Goldsmith said he would double the current rate of new homes to 50,000 a year and would “relentlessly pursue rogue landlords”.
At a recent rally, Khan said he would give Londoners “first dibs for homes, rather than investors from the Middle East and Asia”.
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Like the majority of Londoners, Jaman traditionally supports Labour, but he also thinks that Goldsmith could wield more influence when negotiating with a Conservative government. “If the police service looks more like London it benefits all of us”.
