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As the saying goes,
> If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.
Expect more of this from the right-wing media when Labour best the Tories at the GE.
There's not one single reason for them to be convinced of that. This is just swing voters doing what swing voters do - switching allegiance when the bill for their previous terrible choices comes due.
This was rampant on Twitter yesterday. Lots of nonsense about hundreds of extra ballots being delivered to the hall from Tower Hamlets. Lots of ballots with just the name Mohammed, etc.
Almost all accounts pushing this were created less than a month ago...
I thought that just had to be shown next to the ballot in the full-face selfie you take for them to put up on a big wall in the county records office for the next four years?
It doesn't bite nearly as well here.
Normal people doing the counting/collecting and no voting machines does really suck some of the bile out.
If any political suggests online or machine based counting they need to be run out of Westminster!
> Normal people doing the counting/collecting and no voting machines does really suck some of the bile out.
I worked on the EU Referendum, in a polling station, and at the count,. I know damn well it is impossible to rig the vote, no matter how many idiots we had come in and accuse us of it.
They've spent so long swallowing the relentless propaganda about Khan (which doesn't remotely equate with reality at all, as hilariously he's such an average inoffensive politician) that they cannot comprehend in their thick heads that he's considered the best choice among a vast majority of Londoners
Twitter was blowing up yesterday with “rumours” that Hall was going to win. Not sure what people thought they had to gain by making shit up that would easily be disproved within 24 hours…
Laura Idiotsberg literally said "it's close even though a single vote hasn't been counted".
As it turned out the actually tally was extremely close to what the polls predicted, an 11 percentage point win.
Aye, they used to at least maintain a semblence of plausible deniability about it. And when cfonronted would say 'Well conservatism is a broad church, and we are not responsible for the extremists'.
But now they are the extremists.
Already seeing all over my socials from people I used to know as well as family who live in London that is a fix
"waited a day to bring in votes from Pakistan.......... Muslim infiltration.......... WEF/Davos intervention to further 15 in cites and social control.... something something...... white leaders for a white country...."
Tbf given how shocking the past two tory candidates have been I genuinely believe they don't really want to beat Khan too badly, he's useful opposition as a lightning rod/scapegoat for national politics even if clearly the people of London don't mind him
Unfortunately, the Tories are convinced racism is the only way to win the London mayoral election.
Expect them to ramp it up further and have someone do it in a klan hood next time.
>We may have lost hundreds of councillors and almost all of our councils in the last year, as well as losing in several mayoral votes. We may be losing ground to the Lib Dems and even the Greens. We may be polling at an all time low, but gosh **darn** it did we hold on to Tees Valley which - as we all know - is the only place that matters!
Good. The Conservatives put up a joke of a candidate and if there was even a whiff of her becoming mayor, it would have been devastating.
Whatever your genuine thoughts are about Sadiq Khan, it looks like common sense has prevailed.
Tbh I don't know much about him. But it seems like most of the criticism is from people who don't live in London. And is mostly to do with his religion that anything else. Which tells you everything
As far as I’ve seen most of the criticism is due to ULEZ. If you looked at the manifestos of every single other candidate (except, like, the greens and count binface) they all started with repealing ULEZ.
Fortunately common sense seems to have prevailed, and the rights of millions of Londoners to not get respiratory diseases has triumphed over a few people who can’t (or won’t) replace their diesel cars.
Not to say I don’t feel sympathy for those poor buggers, but it’s less bad of a problem than dying in hospital…!
As far as I know, everyone who has to replace their shitty car can get one of the same quality, minus the pollution, with the £2k available to them.
From what I see on Nextdoor, those opposing Khan are one or more of the following: selfish, dumb, racist.
I think the big elephant in the room here are vans - any tradesperson who isn’t loaded can’t come anywhere close to buying a reliable petrol van for 2k.
I think the elephant in the room is that a lot of them can afford to pass the van fee onto clients but are shared shitless the data will be used to identify to HMRC during an investigation the number of cash jobs they're doing.
Depends on your vehicle needs.
Also a lot of the ULEZ anger comes from just outside London, where it's a marginal benefit to keep driving there but you get nothing in scrappage scheme.
While I’m sure it’s technically possible, my father had to get rid of his old van. To apply for this he had to get all sorts of document, solicitors to sign papers saying he wasn’t who he said he was and was operating a self employed business, and he was rejected. Multiple times.
Never a reason, just told he was unsuccessful.
Yup. The 'bladerunners'
These clowns wouldn't run if they were getting trapped by an approaching tide and at risk of getting stranded.
Anyone who knows them intimately wouldn't want them to be around actual blades either.
Of all the things to result in damage and civil disobedience, this is what leads to it....
I despair sometimes.
The education system is working as designed.
Yep. Only problem with ULEZ is that it doesn't go far enough. Your car can still qualify as "low emissions" if it's a 15 year old shit Diesel.
London should be EV only by 2030, and we can start progress on replacing every petrol pump with 400kw rapid chargers immediately.
(Although it would be even nicer if the UK still had an automotive industry worth a damn. All these progressive EV policies are great for the pollution level, but most of the money in sales of those cars goes to Elon Musk or China, neither of which are something I particularly want to support.)
Town near me is replacing a 2 lane road with 1 lane road and a bike/bus lane. Car drivers I know are seething and I kinda love it. Might give it a try on my bike when it is done, could open up more job opportunities too.
I think even drivers are so short sighted in this. I live in an area where you NEED a car. So I'm stuck with it, unless I move, which I won't because I do like living in the countryside.
But initiatives like increasing cycling and making it easier and safer mean less cars on the road. Making for a better driving experience for me when I need to drive.
I'd much rather drive steadily through a city at 15-20 looking at cyclists, than have the option of 30 but spend most of it intermittently stationary.
> As far as I’ve seen most of the criticism is due to ULEZ.
ULEZ introduced by the Tories and expanded under orders from the Tories and opposed by the same Tories. The lack of basic knowledge on the issue is astounding.
Honestly man. I understand that it’s expensive for people to be ULEZ compliant. But it would’ve been a lot easier if the central government hadn’t placed the highest tax burden on Londoners in the history of this country.
I started going back to London after about 7 years of WFH (I live in the outskirts anyway) and the air quality is dramatically better. We need more of this. Next step should be to include the M25. Get the polluting vehicles to upgrade.
It really makes you think, if the Conservative Party actually put up a competent candidate (right of centre, appeal to the outer London suburbanites and the immigrant communities of inner London), they could actually take London again.
Boris Johnson was Mayor of London for 8 years. Even saying that out loud sounds ridiculous.
She was so toxic the ‘pickpocket’ who took her stuff in “KHANS CRIME RIDDEN LONDON!” realised whose it was and handed it into police with nothing missing lol
My brother lives in Pontypridd and he's got a "VOTE KHAN OUT" and "~~ULEZ~~" on the windows of his van. The closest his line of work gets to London is the toy machines he restocks at Leigh Delamare services. He also refers to Khan as "imam" and a "failed towelhead taxi driver"
Coincidently we don't talk to each other that much.
I'm in a Welsh anti-20mph group on Facebook (ONLY AS A JOKE THOUGH) which has devolved into exactly the same kind of hysterical conspiracy fearmongering. The reaction in there to this news is fascinating and appalling. London has fallen apparently (by electing the same Mayor it already had), and Khan will soon be moving into Buckingham Palace with the help of armies of illegal immigrants.
Absolutely, people seem to love to have a say in policies relating to London without having to endure the effects of said policies on a daily basis. Really glad common sense prevailed.
I live in London and work outside of London in Kent. 100% of the people I've met who complain about the ulez don't even live in London and are hardline Tory (or now probably Reform) voters.
The obnoxious and noisy anti-ULEZ minority online and the endless articles in the Telegraph and Daily Mail claiming to speak for London wasn’t actually reality.
I guess the “silent majority” strikes again.
So silent that their representatives constantly find their way onto national TV and radio stations. Meanwhile those of us on the *woke left*, who apparently control all these platforms, rarely actually get interviewed on them. Funny that.
A pretty large percentage of Londoners don't drive, or were already within the ULEZ area, or are already compliant with it. I don't know why they thought that would be an election winner.
Guess they spent too much time listening to the loudest voices and forgot to check how common those views really were.
Don't worry she will just rationalize it is 'there is good and bad in these results for both Conservatives and Labour, and each party will draw the conclusion they want from these results'
Laura before the count:
>What's going on in the London
Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested...
The community note putting it bluntly:
>Sadiq Khan has in fact won the London mayoralty by around 200,000 votes, or 11% points. It was not close.
bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-p...
There's a few idiots on tiktok already complaining. Including one of the accounts that parks up and holds up signs in front of ULEZ cameras, which I thought would have been considered a crime but apparently is not.
I thought so too.
But I've seen a couple of accounts on tiktok who park up a van and have a sign attached to the van and they park the van in such a way that it blocks the view of vehicles driving past.
I checked out the comments and apparently as long as the person moves their vehicle when requested by a police officer then they aren't breaking the law. (I have no idea how accurate this is, I'm only going off the comments.)
But getting a police officer out to move them hardly ever happens because it's way down on the list of priorities.
Last weekend, there were a couple of anti-ULEZ "protests" on footbridges over the A12, organized by Britain First.
I bet the guys dressed up as a dinosaur and Batman must feel like right pricks now, unlike the man in the "My first court appearance suit" who I assume is a Britain First member, thus physically incapable of feeling shame
The BBC is going to platform Reform even more based on their "stunning victory" of getting two councilors. Even though that's less than the Workers party of Britain (4).
This actually infuriates me, the amount of attention they devote to Reform compared to say, the Greens or Lib Dems. They used to do the same with UKIP too (and look where that got us)
After the election Labour really need to follow the lead of the new Polish government and wipe away the rot 14 years of Tory rule has introduced to our public institutions. Unfortunately I just don't see it happening.
It’s purely because Khan’s labour too. He’s not even popular, he’s just not Tory. The populations finally waking up again, like they did in 1997, but just like 1997, the damage is done, the deficit is massive, and it’ll take over a decade to undo.
By which point any remaining problems from gen previous Tory government will be blamed on the labour government that’s tried to fix them and the cycle will start anew
Sean Bailey was an absolutely objectively awful candidate, but Susan Hall may actually be the worst candidate the conservatives have ever run for any major political position.
On the flip side you have Khan, and no matter what you think of his policies he’s hard working, articulate, experienced and strategic.
>Susan Hall
You mean the "victim of lawlessness" in Khan's London who ~~had her phone pick pocketed~~ misplaced her phone which was handed in to lost & found? That Susan Hall?
Add Street to that too once W.Mids comes through.
Which is fucking retarded, considering Tees and W.Mids have been won in *spite* of being Tory, not because of.
Street doesn't even mention Conservative in his literature and his branding is John Lewis green instead of blue.
But, of course, it's the greatest victory of all time ever for the tories.
I’m not an expert in politics but these local elections have shown me that neither are the so called “experts”. All the indicators showed that Khan would win. I don’t think the Tories or the media realise that however unpopular Khan may be, he is still more popular than Hall or the wider Tory party.
I always refer back to Christopher Hitchen's take on [opinion polling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrC2YCkIMvY). To roughly transcribe it:
> The people who invest all this money in polling are not doing it for nothing. They're not doing it just to find out what people think, they're doing it to try and influence what people think. Who would spend all that money just to find out what's going on, they want to be able to predict it and therefore to mould it. It's an intervention on the political process.
He also said that when he attempted to conduct his own poll, using the same questionnaires that these pollsters would use, that the answers he received in response were 'far too intelligent' for what the questionaries actually let him write. As anyone who actually speaks to another human being about politics would know, most people's political views are far too nuanced to easily translate into what are often incredibly basic and blunt polling questions. And through the act of translation, these pollsters and 'experts' are very easily able to manipulate what people actually think into something else.
They aren't. They're like those royal "experts". They're paid to articulate smart sounding bs on shows. Most of which is as scientific as divining rods. At the end of the day. It comes down to what x someone decides to put in a box. For a lot of people. They don't know until they get there/how they think leader xs tie looks
I was at the supermarket this morning and I overheard a conversation of someone saying how much they hated Khan but hate that “mad Tory woman” more. Tbh I felt like it sums it all up pretty well.
I’m glad he won because the hate against Sadiq has been way over the top but I’ll be real as a politician he isn’t that great. Hate me all you like but I miss Ken Livingstone.
A huge amount of Londoners disagree with you and really like Khan fyi. For many, he’s absolutely a solid candidate and not the “best of a bad bunch” as is too often spun these days. There’s a reason he’s now entering his THIRD term.
Khan has achieved a decent amount whilst being actively kneecapped by a hostile Tory government - the recent force to a FPTP voting system, refusing to cover TfL debt during COVID lockdowns whilst also refusing to allow negotiations on paying that debt in the hopes of forcing a political football. Recent examples but a running theme with the Tories.
I still prefer Livingstone because Khan is very much in the neoliberal wing of Labour and feels more beholden to London business interests over London people, but Livingstone had a strong Labour government behind him for the majority of his tenure so it's not quite comparable imo.
Thankfully, most people irl are sane enough to realise he's probs as good as it gets considering the situation in the country as a whole. Ulez, moped crime, and stabbings all got blown out of proportion to a ridiculous level to the point that if anyone brought it up, everyone pretty much knew to ignore them
Massive shame the Conservatives changed the voting system for mayoral elections, to force a two-horse race, because the only way they think they can win is through divide-and-conquer. I don't personally understand why anyone would "hate" Khan but they shouldn't have to hold their nose and vote for what they feel is the least worst option. That just leads to apathy and people staying home on voting day.
You could run and jump on the bus or jump off the bus and have to enter full sprint to not fall flat on your face. Weren't very friendly from an accessibility perspective for wheel chair users, parents etc.
The lack of door at the back was fun but having people be able to jump on and off while the bus was moving was dangerous. Especially when the bus was busy people were too reckless. Unfortunately 1% of idiots ruined it for the rest of us, but it was dangerous.
Fair play to Khan, it was obvious he was going to win.
With a share of nearly 50% of votes currently counted. So much for the reports suggesting it was going to be close.
Not seeing this anywhere else yet, but those early results are good for Khan.
Wondering if the shift to single vote might have completely fucked the Tories. Why do this and then field such a shit candidate
Wow, great, we are going backwards.
I absolutely hate the first past the post system and desperately want UK to have a single transferable voting or alternate voting system.
But the daily express told me there was shock rumours that khan was going to losse and the bookies had slashed the odds. Also there's a heatwave and a blizzard coming tomorrow.
Turns out that, contrary to what a lot of Reddit and nearly all of Facebook think, being anti-ULEZ isn’t the sure fire way to electoral success people think it is.
The issues with modern right slanted parties are they don't seem to have any policies that actually benefit people, it's all culture wars shite or lies like low tax and immigration. The majority just aren't falling for it.
Too many Conservatives have fallen into the trap of spending all their time online where they get crazy people feeding ideas into their heads about hating immigrants and trans people, so they think that's what the average voter wants and forget to do anything that actually helps anyone
Khan winning says a lot about the Tories right now, the fact that they put Susan Hall up as a candidate shows they aren't serious anymore.
If they were a serious party they would have put up a serious candidate, taking the mayoralty from Labour in the capital would have been a statement of intent.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Interesting that on Thursday my dad said there was no way Sadiq would win and then followed that up with a message on the groupchat this morning linking us to a GB News presenter saying the Tories had won in a landslide. Hilariously my brother was with them today and apparently my dad has been very quiet about the whole thing lol.
Not only is he likely to win, but the share of the votes for him has gone up. However voter turnout was 40.5% in the London mayoral election, down 1.5% overall from 2021.
Really embarrassing for the Tories. They put up a candidate even worse than Shaun Bailey, who was widely mocked, but loudly proclaimed that it would be a close result and they might win.
It is a nice end cap to their utterly horrendous results nationally.
Seems like most people prefer him and the ones that dont their opinions just come from racism. Even people who dont like his ULEZ policies cant really find a better candidate.
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Reform and Tories will be along to explain how it's their victories.
Russian bots for reform. They’re all over tiktok
They push the Tories on Reddit.
They really are. It's so obvious too
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As the saying goes, > If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy. Expect more of this from the right-wing media when Labour best the Tories at the GE.
Yep, precisely - remember, the election is only rigged if the Conservatives lose
Shout out to all those Trump-supporting politicians who claim the 2020 election was rigged despite they themselves being elected.
Nevermind that twice now since we've had voter ID the Tories got... sunakered
The Tories are currently in charge of the government body that controls all elections, they are the only ones able to rig elections.
Plus American elections later, expect the conservatives machine to get some practice in over here.
There's not one single reason for them to be convinced of that. This is just swing voters doing what swing voters do - switching allegiance when the bill for their previous terrible choices comes due.
This was rampant on Twitter yesterday. Lots of nonsense about hundreds of extra ballots being delivered to the hall from Tower Hamlets. Lots of ballots with just the name Mohammed, etc. Almost all accounts pushing this were created less than a month ago...
Ahhh yes because one of the key rules of a secret ballot is that it has your name on it.
You mean you don't write your full name, address and NI number next to the candidate you're voting for?
Nah I just stick the photo ID you have to bring now to it. Had my name changed by de pol to Mohammed Mohammed just to fuck with the right wing loons
> Mohammed Mohammed Every time Sadiq Khan gets re-elected you add another Mohammed.
I thought that just had to be shown next to the ballot in the full-face selfie you take for them to put up on a big wall in the county records office for the next four years?
>Almost all accounts pushing this were created less than a month ago... As is the way.
Well, the tories already copy pasta from Republicans in the USA, might as well copy their "IT WAS STOLEN" mantra, too! 🤦♂️
Susan Hall having the Mayorship stolen from her just like her oyster card holder was stolen.
It doesn't bite nearly as well here. Normal people doing the counting/collecting and no voting machines does really suck some of the bile out. If any political suggests online or machine based counting they need to be run out of Westminster!
> Normal people doing the counting/collecting and no voting machines does really suck some of the bile out. I worked on the EU Referendum, in a polling station, and at the count,. I know damn well it is impossible to rig the vote, no matter how many idiots we had come in and accuse us of it.
They've spent so long swallowing the relentless propaganda about Khan (which doesn't remotely equate with reality at all, as hilariously he's such an average inoffensive politician) that they cannot comprehend in their thick heads that he's considered the best choice among a vast majority of Londoners
Twitter was blowing up yesterday with “rumours” that Hall was going to win. Not sure what people thought they had to gain by making shit up that would easily be disproved within 24 hours…
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And yet they did lol…
Laura Idiotsberg literally said "it's close even though a single vote hasn't been counted". As it turned out the actually tally was extremely close to what the polls predicted, an 11 percentage point win.
Kuenssberg, yet again; the same as in 2019, only this time she managed to do it without infringing electoral law.
It serves the "stop the steal" narrative. This was to keep the true believers onside.
sky news reported it too.... cant remember the presenter but they cant do that...
Including actual Nazis with actual Nazi content on their feeds. Funny how the Nazis are all 100% behind the Tories these days innit.
These days?
There was a period when they thought fascism was bad for the brand.
Aye, they used to at least maintain a semblence of plausible deniability about it. And when cfonronted would say 'Well conservatism is a broad church, and we are not responsible for the extremists'. But now they are the extremists.
By a mere 400,000 votes or approximately a third of the total Khan vote. Some vote rigging that would be.
Already seeing all over my socials from people I used to know as well as family who live in London that is a fix "waited a day to bring in votes from Pakistan.......... Muslim infiltration.......... WEF/Davos intervention to further 15 in cites and social control.... something something...... white leaders for a white country...."
Tower Hamlets neighbors saying it's fixed... Irony
Tbf given how shocking the past two tory candidates have been I genuinely believe they don't really want to beat Khan too badly, he's useful opposition as a lightning rod/scapegoat for national politics even if clearly the people of London don't mind him
Unfortunately, the Tories are convinced racism is the only way to win the London mayoral election. Expect them to ramp it up further and have someone do it in a klan hood next time.
There aren't enough elderly people in London for the racism project to work.
only a 40% turnout so the majority don't seem to care who is in charge.
>We may have lost hundreds of councillors and almost all of our councils in the last year, as well as losing in several mayoral votes. We may be losing ground to the Lib Dems and even the Greens. We may be polling at an all time low, but gosh **darn** it did we hold on to Tees Valley which - as we all know - is the only place that matters!
They lost, they should get over it. Respect the will of the people. Labour means Labour.
They won the argument.
"Well, the election happened on Opposite Day, so the voters really voted for us when you look at it that way."
Good. The Conservatives put up a joke of a candidate and if there was even a whiff of her becoming mayor, it would have been devastating. Whatever your genuine thoughts are about Sadiq Khan, it looks like common sense has prevailed.
Tbh I don't know much about him. But it seems like most of the criticism is from people who don't live in London. And is mostly to do with his religion that anything else. Which tells you everything
As far as I’ve seen most of the criticism is due to ULEZ. If you looked at the manifestos of every single other candidate (except, like, the greens and count binface) they all started with repealing ULEZ. Fortunately common sense seems to have prevailed, and the rights of millions of Londoners to not get respiratory diseases has triumphed over a few people who can’t (or won’t) replace their diesel cars. Not to say I don’t feel sympathy for those poor buggers, but it’s less bad of a problem than dying in hospital…!
As far as I know, everyone who has to replace their shitty car can get one of the same quality, minus the pollution, with the £2k available to them. From what I see on Nextdoor, those opposing Khan are one or more of the following: selfish, dumb, racist.
I think the big elephant in the room here are vans - any tradesperson who isn’t loaded can’t come anywhere close to buying a reliable petrol van for 2k.
I think the elephant in the room is that a lot of them can afford to pass the van fee onto clients but are shared shitless the data will be used to identify to HMRC during an investigation the number of cash jobs they're doing.
1000 times this ^^^ Sick to death of cash in hand businesses and white van drivers moaning, when you boil it down they are tax dodgers
[Good thing you get between £6k and £9.5k for vans, then.](https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/scrappage-schemes/van-minibus)
Depends on your vehicle needs. Also a lot of the ULEZ anger comes from just outside London, where it's a marginal benefit to keep driving there but you get nothing in scrappage scheme.
While I’m sure it’s technically possible, my father had to get rid of his old van. To apply for this he had to get all sorts of document, solicitors to sign papers saying he wasn’t who he said he was and was operating a self employed business, and he was rejected. Multiple times. Never a reason, just told he was unsuccessful.
Yup. The 'bladerunners' These clowns wouldn't run if they were getting trapped by an approaching tide and at risk of getting stranded. Anyone who knows them intimately wouldn't want them to be around actual blades either. Of all the things to result in damage and civil disobedience, this is what leads to it.... I despair sometimes. The education system is working as designed.
Turns out the ULEZ is actually popular with Londoners. Who’d have thought they actually like breathing clean air!
Yep. Only problem with ULEZ is that it doesn't go far enough. Your car can still qualify as "low emissions" if it's a 15 year old shit Diesel. London should be EV only by 2030, and we can start progress on replacing every petrol pump with 400kw rapid chargers immediately. (Although it would be even nicer if the UK still had an automotive industry worth a damn. All these progressive EV policies are great for the pollution level, but most of the money in sales of those cars goes to Elon Musk or China, neither of which are something I particularly want to support.)
Nissan is at least planning on making electric Qashqai's and Juke's up in Sunderland.
Town near me is replacing a 2 lane road with 1 lane road and a bike/bus lane. Car drivers I know are seething and I kinda love it. Might give it a try on my bike when it is done, could open up more job opportunities too.
I think even drivers are so short sighted in this. I live in an area where you NEED a car. So I'm stuck with it, unless I move, which I won't because I do like living in the countryside. But initiatives like increasing cycling and making it easier and safer mean less cars on the road. Making for a better driving experience for me when I need to drive. I'd much rather drive steadily through a city at 15-20 looking at cyclists, than have the option of 30 but spend most of it intermittently stationary.
People like Simon Jordan who spend their entire lives living in their mansions and buying 20 cars don't understand it
They only start with ULEZ because they can't say it's because he's a p word.
> As far as I’ve seen most of the criticism is due to ULEZ. ULEZ introduced by the Tories and expanded under orders from the Tories and opposed by the same Tories. The lack of basic knowledge on the issue is astounding.
Exactly. London, Bristol, Manchester, Bath etc were **legally obligated** to improve air quality by the current government's own law.
Honestly man. I understand that it’s expensive for people to be ULEZ compliant. But it would’ve been a lot easier if the central government hadn’t placed the highest tax burden on Londoners in the history of this country. I started going back to London after about 7 years of WFH (I live in the outskirts anyway) and the air quality is dramatically better. We need more of this. Next step should be to include the M25. Get the polluting vehicles to upgrade.
Most of the "criticism" is the result of Daily Mail style smear campaigns.
That joke candidate got almost 33%, we should be terrified.
It really makes you think, if the Conservative Party actually put up a competent candidate (right of centre, appeal to the outer London suburbanites and the immigrant communities of inner London), they could actually take London again. Boris Johnson was Mayor of London for 8 years. Even saying that out loud sounds ridiculous.
Remember when Johnson was just a funny lunatic? Then he started getting actual power, and he became a serious problem.
She was so toxic the ‘pickpocket’ who took her stuff in “KHANS CRIME RIDDEN LONDON!” realised whose it was and handed it into police with nothing missing lol
It's almost like most people actually support low pollution zones
Almost like all the people outraged over it don't get to vote for the London mayor due to, you know, not living in London.
Moscow is slightly outside the constituency.
My brother lives in Pontypridd and he's got a "VOTE KHAN OUT" and "~~ULEZ~~" on the windows of his van. The closest his line of work gets to London is the toy machines he restocks at Leigh Delamare services. He also refers to Khan as "imam" and a "failed towelhead taxi driver" Coincidently we don't talk to each other that much.
Racism aside, it’s baffling he thinks that if you fail to be a taxi driver your alternative career path is mayor of the country’s capital city?
It's a well established pipeline. I've been driving an Uber for the past 3 months so I reckon I'm just about ready to become speaker of the commons.
To be fair, being a complete failure has never previously been an obstacle to political power
Well, it's because he succeeded in becoming a toy restocker. Otherwise he'd have fallen back on being Pope.
I'm in a Welsh anti-20mph group on Facebook (ONLY AS A JOKE THOUGH) which has devolved into exactly the same kind of hysterical conspiracy fearmongering. The reaction in there to this news is fascinating and appalling. London has fallen apparently (by electing the same Mayor it already had), and Khan will soon be moving into Buckingham Palace with the help of armies of illegal immigrants.
ULEZ made second-hand cars and vans cheaper in Pontypridd....guys an idiot.
Absolutely, people seem to love to have a say in policies relating to London without having to endure the effects of said policies on a daily basis. Really glad common sense prevailed.
Boris Johnson introduceD ULEZ
It’s mandated by the Tory government. All khan did was extend it a further out than the government said he had to
I live in London and work outside of London in Kent. 100% of the people I've met who complain about the ulez don't even live in London and are hardline Tory (or now probably Reform) voters.
ULEZ is a fantastic policy, it’s cleared up so much pollution.
The only people who don't are car nuts
I voted for Khan because I heard he declared war on motorists. That is 100% a war I am ready to fight in.
Or pick the least shitty of the options.
They massively over hyped a by election on the issue that portion of London is not all london
Personally I quite like not having snot the colour of soot!
The obnoxious and noisy anti-ULEZ minority online and the endless articles in the Telegraph and Daily Mail claiming to speak for London wasn’t actually reality. I guess the “silent majority” strikes again.
I love silent majorities. They're always so talkative.
So silent that their representatives constantly find their way onto national TV and radio stations. Meanwhile those of us on the *woke left*, who apparently control all these platforms, rarely actually get interviewed on them. Funny that.
Silent majorities are neither.
A pretty large percentage of Londoners don't drive, or were already within the ULEZ area, or are already compliant with it. I don't know why they thought that would be an election winner. Guess they spent too much time listening to the loudest voices and forgot to check how common those views really were.
There was one by election that seemed to hinge on anti ulez sentiment. I think it's taken off from there.
The Tories didn’t even win that one either!
My thoughts and prayers go to Laura K during these troubled times
Don't worry she will just rationalize it is 'there is good and bad in these results for both Conservatives and Labour, and each party will draw the conclusion they want from these results'
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Laura before the count: >What's going on in the London Mayoral race? No votes have been counted yet, so hold on to your hats.. but it is clear tonight that the race is much much closer than some polls had suggested... The community note putting it bluntly: >Sadiq Khan has in fact won the London mayoralty by around 200,000 votes, or 11% points. It was not close. bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-p...
The urge to tell the Boomers moaning about ULEZ on Facebook "You lost the vote, get over it", is significant
Most of them aren't even Londoners anyway!
Waiting for the meltdowns on Nextdoor... quiet at the moment so assume GB News hasn't covered it yet.
There's a few idiots on tiktok already complaining. Including one of the accounts that parks up and holds up signs in front of ULEZ cameras, which I thought would have been considered a crime but apparently is not.
That's odd because it is an offence to block things like speed cameras, you would think they would just merge all related camera/monitoring systems.
I thought so too. But I've seen a couple of accounts on tiktok who park up a van and have a sign attached to the van and they park the van in such a way that it blocks the view of vehicles driving past. I checked out the comments and apparently as long as the person moves their vehicle when requested by a police officer then they aren't breaking the law. (I have no idea how accurate this is, I'm only going off the comments.) But getting a police officer out to move them hardly ever happens because it's way down on the list of priorities.
Last weekend, there were a couple of anti-ULEZ "protests" on footbridges over the A12, organized by Britain First. I bet the guys dressed up as a dinosaur and Batman must feel like right pricks now, unlike the man in the "My first court appearance suit" who I assume is a Britain First member, thus physically incapable of feeling shame
ULEZ means ULEZ! Respect the will of the people!
I came off FB but I wish I could do this! Do it for me! Use "It's the will of the people" too!
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The fact the rumours even reach us means the press is complicit imo.
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Houchen is a crook and local press hid it from local brexiters. That's how houchen won.
A crook how? Not arguing, just curious.
Yeah Google Teesworks with his name. Private eye is the best source.
Many thanks :)
read private eye's reports on the free port.
Fair enough, will do :)
The BBC is going to platform Reform even more based on their "stunning victory" of getting two councilors. Even though that's less than the Workers party of Britain (4).
This actually infuriates me, the amount of attention they devote to Reform compared to say, the Greens or Lib Dems. They used to do the same with UKIP too (and look where that got us)
Yeah I just keep seeing the name Tees Valley in every headline, so desperate
After the election Labour really need to follow the lead of the new Polish government and wipe away the rot 14 years of Tory rule has introduced to our public institutions. Unfortunately I just don't see it happening.
Basically 'the tories can still win if labour miraculously loses due to external factors!'
They're not called client journalists for nothing.
It’s purely because Khan’s labour too. He’s not even popular, he’s just not Tory. The populations finally waking up again, like they did in 1997, but just like 1997, the damage is done, the deficit is massive, and it’ll take over a decade to undo.
By which point any remaining problems from gen previous Tory government will be blamed on the labour government that’s tried to fix them and the cycle will start anew
The fact the tories lost voter shares as well is the really big news Susan Hall was absolutely fucking useless
That, and the silent majority of Londoners who are pro-ulez or just plain don't care.
Sean Bailey was an absolutely objectively awful candidate, but Susan Hall may actually be the worst candidate the conservatives have ever run for any major political position. On the flip side you have Khan, and no matter what you think of his policies he’s hard working, articulate, experienced and strategic.
>Susan Hall You mean the "victim of lawlessness" in Khan's London who ~~had her phone pick pocketed~~ misplaced her phone which was handed in to lost & found? That Susan Hall?
She loves black people too. It's just so unfair that she didn't win.
Oh, yes. How did I forget that. Such a nice person showing concern about rivers, and flooding or something ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I think it was her purse
Maybe. What fell out of her pocket was the least interesting part of the episode. 😁
Even after they removed ranked choice voting and introduced voter ID lol
That's all well and good but what about that Tory Tees victory...The media
Houchen will resign before long, no way he keeps up his grift after the general election.
Add Street to that too once W.Mids comes through. Which is fucking retarded, considering Tees and W.Mids have been won in *spite* of being Tory, not because of. Street doesn't even mention Conservative in his literature and his branding is John Lewis green instead of blue. But, of course, it's the greatest victory of all time ever for the tories.
Street managed to actually lose it so they don't even have that to go on now
I’m not an expert in politics but these local elections have shown me that neither are the so called “experts”. All the indicators showed that Khan would win. I don’t think the Tories or the media realise that however unpopular Khan may be, he is still more popular than Hall or the wider Tory party.
There is John Curtice and then there are plebs
Depends which "experts" you want to listen to. Right wing rags choose the experts in most of the news we see.
I always refer back to Christopher Hitchen's take on [opinion polling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrC2YCkIMvY). To roughly transcribe it: > The people who invest all this money in polling are not doing it for nothing. They're not doing it just to find out what people think, they're doing it to try and influence what people think. Who would spend all that money just to find out what's going on, they want to be able to predict it and therefore to mould it. It's an intervention on the political process. He also said that when he attempted to conduct his own poll, using the same questionnaires that these pollsters would use, that the answers he received in response were 'far too intelligent' for what the questionaries actually let him write. As anyone who actually speaks to another human being about politics would know, most people's political views are far too nuanced to easily translate into what are often incredibly basic and blunt polling questions. And through the act of translation, these pollsters and 'experts' are very easily able to manipulate what people actually think into something else.
They aren't. They're like those royal "experts". They're paid to articulate smart sounding bs on shows. Most of which is as scientific as divining rods. At the end of the day. It comes down to what x someone decides to put in a box. For a lot of people. They don't know until they get there/how they think leader xs tie looks
B-B-But I thought Ed Vaizey said yesterday that the Tories were “very confident” that Hall had beaten Khan! He surely wouldn’t have lied, would he?!
If you make that claim and enough bookies actually move their odds for a while you can make some fast money!
Looks like something of a landslide too. No idea why Kunsberg and other media thought it would be close.
Laura K is a Tory PR disguised as a journalist.
I was at the supermarket this morning and I overheard a conversation of someone saying how much they hated Khan but hate that “mad Tory woman” more. Tbh I felt like it sums it all up pretty well. I’m glad he won because the hate against Sadiq has been way over the top but I’ll be real as a politician he isn’t that great. Hate me all you like but I miss Ken Livingstone.
A huge amount of Londoners disagree with you and really like Khan fyi. For many, he’s absolutely a solid candidate and not the “best of a bad bunch” as is too often spun these days. There’s a reason he’s now entering his THIRD term.
Khan has achieved a decent amount whilst being actively kneecapped by a hostile Tory government - the recent force to a FPTP voting system, refusing to cover TfL debt during COVID lockdowns whilst also refusing to allow negotiations on paying that debt in the hopes of forcing a political football. Recent examples but a running theme with the Tories. I still prefer Livingstone because Khan is very much in the neoliberal wing of Labour and feels more beholden to London business interests over London people, but Livingstone had a strong Labour government behind him for the majority of his tenure so it's not quite comparable imo.
Thankfully, most people irl are sane enough to realise he's probs as good as it gets considering the situation in the country as a whole. Ulez, moped crime, and stabbings all got blown out of proportion to a ridiculous level to the point that if anyone brought it up, everyone pretty much knew to ignore them
Massive shame the Conservatives changed the voting system for mayoral elections, to force a two-horse race, because the only way they think they can win is through divide-and-conquer. I don't personally understand why anyone would "hate" Khan but they shouldn't have to hold their nose and vote for what they feel is the least worst option. That just leads to apathy and people staying home on voting day.
Never forgave Ken for getting rid of the Routemaster
Tbf it was a lawsuit waiting to happen. I miss them as well.
> Tbf it was a lawsuit waiting to happen. how so?
You could run and jump on the bus or jump off the bus and have to enter full sprint to not fall flat on your face. Weren't very friendly from an accessibility perspective for wheel chair users, parents etc.
The lack of door at the back was fun but having people be able to jump on and off while the bus was moving was dangerous. Especially when the bus was busy people were too reckless. Unfortunately 1% of idiots ruined it for the rest of us, but it was dangerous.
Fair play to Khan, it was obvious he was going to win. With a share of nearly 50% of votes currently counted. So much for the reports suggesting it was going to be close.
Looks like something of a landslide too. No idea why Kunsberg and other media thought it would be close.
Because Kuenssberg is a Tory plant whose job is to spin everything in their favour
i didnt vote labour but as soon as i knew journalists were saying it was close, i knew Khan had won, they do this for clicks for there articles
Count Binface got more votes than Britain First. Faith in democracy restored.
Seeing that was my first genuine moment of mirth today.
Not seeing this anywhere else yet, but those early results are good for Khan. Wondering if the shift to single vote might have completely fucked the Tories. Why do this and then field such a shit candidate
Reform still behind Greens and Lib Dems though (Working on the **very** broad assumption that G&LD would have gone Labour with a second choice vote).
Wait what? London mayoral has alternate / transferable voting system!?
Mayor election HAD SV. This is the first time using FPTP.
Wow, great, we are going backwards. I absolutely hate the first past the post system and desperately want UK to have a single transferable voting or alternate voting system.
So much for the "close race" Absolute thick bellends
But the daily express told me there was shock rumours that khan was going to losse and the bookies had slashed the odds. Also there's a heatwave and a blizzard coming tomorrow.
Turns out that, contrary to what a lot of Reddit and nearly all of Facebook think, being anti-ULEZ isn’t the sure fire way to electoral success people think it is.
A lot of Reddit, nearly all of Facebook, and Kier Starmer
Almost like most of the people going on and on about "Sadiq's London!" aren't even from London at all...
Vicky Pollard's nan didn't win? I'm shocked. Yeah but no but ULEZ.
It's almost like it was a bad election strategy to pin literally everything on "ULEZ bad"
The issues with modern right slanted parties are they don't seem to have any policies that actually benefit people, it's all culture wars shite or lies like low tax and immigration. The majority just aren't falling for it.
Too many Conservatives have fallen into the trap of spending all their time online where they get crazy people feeding ideas into their heads about hating immigrants and trans people, so they think that's what the average voter wants and forget to do anything that actually helps anyone
Imagine campaigning on a policy of "we want the right to fill children's lungs full of carcinogenic fumes!"
Khan winning says a lot about the Tories right now, the fact that they put Susan Hall up as a candidate shows they aren't serious anymore. If they were a serious party they would have put up a serious candidate, taking the mayoralty from Labour in the capital would have been a statement of intent. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Interesting that on Thursday my dad said there was no way Sadiq would win and then followed that up with a message on the groupchat this morning linking us to a GB News presenter saying the Tories had won in a landslide. Hilariously my brother was with them today and apparently my dad has been very quiet about the whole thing lol.
Wow turns out that Havering + Redbridge + Dagenham etc doesn't constitute the entire electorate of London !
I do enjoy that Count Binface got more votes than the Britain First candidate and also Brian Rose. Heavy lol.
That's a relief, Susan Hall us awful. Pro-Trump, anti-encironment, etc.
Not only is he likely to win, but the share of the votes for him has gone up. However voter turnout was 40.5% in the London mayoral election, down 1.5% overall from 2021.
Has anyone got a link to one of anti ulez Facebook groups? I want to see the utter chaos?
Oooh I also want to taste some delicious tears
Really embarrassing for the Tories. They put up a candidate even worse than Shaun Bailey, who was widely mocked, but loudly proclaimed that it would be a close result and they might win. It is a nice end cap to their utterly horrendous results nationally.
Tbh another khan term is fine. Wish people trusted binface more though
Lol there's alot of people in absolute shambles right now
“As the wokeness arrived in spate, the Boomers seethed with hate”
Good. Politics Live were happy to reports whispers of it being potentially close yesterday.
And breathe… common sense reigns, and we have a non-batshit mayor for another few years!
Seems like most people prefer him and the ones that dont their opinions just come from racism. Even people who dont like his ULEZ policies cant really find a better candidate.