70. Sadiq Khan: Faith, power, and the truth about Boris Johnson

24:26A Martian in that room would not be able to tell who's the prime minister, Cummings or Johnson. And I find that remarkable. Can you imagine, you know, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, even David Cameron, that happening? And if it's a peripheral issue, you can sort of understand. Not all of us are policy experts on everything, but COVID was, you know, a live issue then, the most important issue facing our country. the guy didn't know what was going on. Okay, Rory, Sadiq, quick break, and we'll be back in a second.

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26:18Can I come to your role as Mayor of London? When I was running against you as an independent, one of the things that struck me is that people didn't really have a sense of what exactly the powers of the mayor were. I remember doing an event out in the East End, Marlon Road, and I said to people, what do you think is going wrong? And they said, well, this is going wrong with crime, this is going wrong with transport, it's going wrong with housing. And then I said, do you think it's Sadiq Khan's fault? And they said, no, honestly, we don't really think he's got much power over those things. And it was a real kind of revelation to me because I thought, this is quite difficult.

26:58I mean, it's quite difficult because you're sort of in charge of some things, not in charge of others. It's quite difficult to locate power, difficult to know whether you're meant to be blaming the central government, whether you're meant to be blaming you, whether you're meant to be blamed. How are voters meant to work out who's really in charge in this confusing system? I'm afraid it's still the case now. Londoners aren't really aware of the powers the mayor has and doesn't have. We are the most centralized democracy in the Western world. To give you an idea of the scale of the challenge we have, I get to spend in London 7 % of taxes raised in London, New York 50%, Tokyo 70%.

27:30Or the mayors. The mayors. It's a big problem we have. We're centralized. It's centralized democracy in the Western world. And, you know, in my view, if take back control is to be meaningful, there should be devolving powers to cities and regions, whether it's Andy Burnham, Tracy Braby, and Steve Rotherham, or indeed the mayor of London. And it's a big problem because we get the blame for things as mayors, whether it's Andy, you know, Steve, me, Tracy, without having the budget and the responsibility constitutionally for those issues, basically speaking, we're responsible for most of transport, most of the fire service, some of policing, some planning, and that's essentially it.

28:06Now, we've got some convening powers. We've got now powers around adult education. The other things we do are over and above what we're required to do by statute. The pompous phrase used in legislation is we are the voice of London. But you're right, Rory, a lot of people don't realise the limitations of the mayor's powers. But how did you come along then? So like, you've come along and said, right, we're going to have free school meals. So where's your power for that coming? Yeah, so I've got no powers in relation to this, but it's an important thing to do because one of the things I've got to do - How can you do it if you don't have the power to do it?

28:37Yeah, so we've got two or three tax raising powers. One is there's a slice of council tax we can use for services like the police, the fire service, and Tribes of London. We also get some of the top-up of business rates. So if business rates grows, we get the growth. The business rates mainly goes to the treasury. We get some of the growth in business rates, but because some of our policies have led to - growth in London's businesses, we can use the top-up we raise from business rates, the growth, there's a discretion that we've got to use that business rate. So I can use it on a garden bridge, I can use it to buy water pennants, I can use it to do some work in relation to a Tencent Street airport.

29:14I told you you weren't allowed to get into campaign mode. Or I can use it on free school mills. And by the way, you know, what I've announced, you know, over the last few days is if I'm re-elected mayor, free school mills and primary risk will also be permanent. Rory, when you were running for mayor, okay, imagine you had one, imagine you had become London mayor. What would you have done that Sadiq hasn't done? Well, this is a very difficult issue because he's in the seat and he will say this is all complete bullshit. My basic view is that I felt you needed to really assert the mayor was in charge and you needed never to say, I can't do this because the central government's not letting me.

29:58That you needed to say, the buck stops with me. If the signaling's not working on the Piccadilly line, am I going to fix the signaling on the Piccadilly line? If the policing isn't working, I'm going to get out there and fix the policing. And that you would take power and do the job more as a chief executive. Now, I can completely anticipate what Sadiq is about to say in response to that. So over to you, Sadiq. Firstly, before I say what I'm going to say, What do you think I'm going to say, Rory?

30:24That I'm naive. I don't know. The job doesn't quite work like that. Let me say two things. So one is, if I was being a cynic, I could say, if I was a prisons minister and I failed to improve the prisons, rather than blaming the treasury, I'd accept responsibility. Right? And so one of the things I've sought to do as mayor, which is my second point, is to follow something I once heard Tony Benn say, which is the best politicians are teachers. and Alistair spends a lot of time going to schools and colleges and I think political education, public education is really important. And that means educating the public about some of the causes of the problems and challenges we face.

30:58But you're right, Rory, when I reflect back, one of the things I think I could have done better was to try and force the Tory government to devolve more powers to cities and regions. And that's why when I speak to the other metro of mayors, particularly during the pandemic, we were telling the government about what's happening in our communities, in care homes, in public transport, in hospitals. We were telling them about issues with PPE and our frustration was we didn't have the powers to think about it. Unless you're suggesting me either unilaterally declaring independence or a coup, there's not a lot we can do, right?

31:33Because my budget is on a good day, 20 billion pounds. And so we're limited. I mean, the MIJ budget, I think it's like 5 billion pounds. But if you're going to transform prisons, have a rehabilitation revolution, you need much more than that five billion pounds. That's why you need the treasury support. I felt, and maybe this is really unfair, that you were a very thoughtful, liberal, progressive mayor, and you were a good teacher. But I sometimes wondered whether you were really a kind of chief executive, whether you were really a kind of manager who crashed into the details of things, put yourself on the line, push people around, really force the stuff through.

32:17Let me give you some examples where hopefully I can respond to your observation. I think the previous man was a chairman. He let the chief of staff do all the work. I am a details person, which is why not only can I claim some sense of pride in relation to, for the first time in the history of our city, every child having a free school mill, freezing TFL fares in five of the last eight years. The first time in the 24-year history of TFL we've got to operate in surplus in TFL. I'm the guy that said to the commissioner, you're not doing a good enough job in relation to the systemic cultural issues in the police service.

32:52I've lost confidence in you. Whereas the government threw in the towel at high speed too. I persevered with the Elizabeth line, the most successful rail line in Europe. The same goes in relation to investing in youth clubs. More than 130 closed down over the last 14 years. We're invested in youth clubs now. Over 700 youth workers lost their jobs. We're invested now, but I'll give you the biggest issue facing our city, housing. When I became mayor, the pipeline of council homes was three, not 300, not 3 ,000, three. Last year, we completed more than 14 ,000. In the last four years, more than 27 ,000.

33:27More council homes being built any time since the 1970s. More homes completed any time since the 1930s. We are responsible for adult education, a budget of 300 million pounds. I've made sure every young person is either unemployed or in a minimum wage work, gets free training to get better skills, to get jobs that are being created. But also, we've worked with the private sector to help create in our great city more than 330 ,000 jobs by getting on top of the detail. Hospitality, culture, finance, legal, green tech, fintech, really, really important. but also making sure we can you know have our status as a global city still there which is why i'm really pleased to say once again we'll have the champions league taking place in london later on this month without a british club um can i ask you about mental health you and i've talked about it before and i think it's you know you do get depressed and i just wondered if you a little bit about that?

34:25When you say you're depressed, what does that mean? And how does that affect you when you're in this kind of high profile position? I just want to speak with blushes, Alistair. But you talking about it gave me the confidence to talk about it. I felt it, you know, without in any way wishing to be abusive towards you. If an alpha male like you can talk about it, that gives confidence to people like me. You know, I'm of the generation who thought it was a weakness. Could I really be a politician where people respect me if I'm talking about my mental ill health. And the fact that Alistair Campbell is talking about it gave me the confidence, you know, it just did.

35:03And also, to be brutally honest, Prince William as well, I think he did something and I thought, hold on a sec, you've got the future King, Alistair Campbell, talking about this. It must be safe shortly for me to talk about it. And I'm also going to confess, some of my staff weren't keen for me to do so. And I think when I spoke to you, I think you gave me the confidence to do so. We talked about it. And then when I talked about it, the response was remarkable. People said, oh my God, and then them telling their stories and so forth. So the way I describe feeling a bit low or depressed, you know, is not to medicalize it, but just to explain and articulate what it means.

35:41It means me not wanting to shave, me wearing jogging bottoms, me not wanting to socialize with my mates that want to do so. But what's great about thinking about it and talking about it is you then work out what things can stop you getting there. Because you know what? We do stuff that keeps us well without realizing that's what's keeping us well. So exercise, get out with your mates, get into a gig, spending time with people you love. Those things lead to mental fitness. So we could talk about the stuff that leads to physical fitness. I just think most of us aren't aware of the things that help us have mental fitness.

36:19And, you know, it's really important that I, because I mean, I've got a platform. I now talk about it because I think, well, if you had an impact on me, even if I have an impact on one person, that's surely a good thing. And by the way, when I talked about it in the city hall chamber, one of the Tories sort of implied during the questions we had that maybe I should have stepped down if I wasn't feeling mentally fit in my job. And you sort of think, this is why people don't talk about it, right? Because that's the sort of blowback you can get. What have you learned over time about your job? What do you think you're going to be better at in your third term than you were in your second term?

36:56And what were you better at in your second term than you were in your first term? So Rory, when I was in parliament, I think a combination of me previously being a litigator, but also being a parliamentarian, I was very adversarial, very tribal. I blame Campbell by the way, for tribalism, there is Rory. And I realized being a mayor, you've almost got to have altitude. You've got to try and be above party politics, which sounds weird, bearing in mind I'm running for re-election. And I think the voting system helps. Why does it help? Because in London historically, you had a first preference vote and a second preference vote.

37:29And that meant that I, for self-interest, I've got to be frank, Rory, I used to court, and I still do, people who may be green voters and Lib Dems or other smaller parties giving me their second preference. What happens is the first round of voting, you know, the top two go through, then everyone else's vote is transferred. So for selfish reasons, Rory - Just come in on that for a second, because that's obviously changed. And one of the effects of that, so when I was running against you, my hope was I'd beat the conservative candidate into second place, so I'd come in behind you. and I'd then be able to scoop up those Tory votes in the second round.

38:01And it might give a chance to an independent. This is basically how Macron did it in France. They've now changed it to a first-past-the-post system. So it's now very, it's almost impossible to imagine an independent now being able to win in London, where it was narrowly just about conceivable when I was running in 2019. It's worse than that, Marie. Listen, for selfish reasons, I became less adversarial. And now I think I've changed for the better, and I'm going to carry on reaching out to Greens and Lib Dems and so forth, but you're spot on. If this system carries on, if Labour doesn't change it, I worry that someone like me comes from parliament, will continue to be out of the serial rather than trying to be somebody who reaches out, we don't have an aisle, but reaches out to other voters and stuff.

38:45I think that's really important. It needs to be better politics, small p, and less party politics, capital P. I think it's a mistake that the Tories made. And Labour didn't block it, did they? They let it go straight through the House of Lords. I mean, it was weird. I was really sad about that. Because obviously, I thought the London electoral system was a really good thing. I think our first-pass-place system is broken. And I really like the fact that there was a small chance for an independent to become Mayor of London, which is now gone. Why do you think Labour weren't more active in blocking it?

39:12Well, if Labour wins the general election, they're going to reverse that in London. They're going to go back to the old system, which is really important. They've promised to do that. What else do you want a Labour government to do in relation to devolution, in relation to the powers of mayors? So the good news is, I mean, I was at a Shadow Cabinet meeting a couple of weeks ago with Keir and the team. And, you know, already the amount of meetings, you know, Keir Starmer's had with all the Labour metro mayors is, you know, I think we've met four times in the last year. And he's taken on board the report that Gordon Brown did about, you know, regions and nations and how they're hot-wired into Westminster far more.

39:45And so what we went from a Labour government is more powers devolved to mayors, more resources devolved to mayors. That should include tax raising powers as well. Sorry, I'm interrupting you very naughtily, but just a little bit more on that, because you had this astonishing fact that in New York they get 50 % of the city revenue. Presumably, Labour's not being that clear and bold yet. I mean, what would you really like to see in your dreams? What sort of percentage of the revenue? What do you say it was at the moment and what would you like it to be? It's 7%. New York is 50. Tokyo has 70 % of taxes raised in their city.

40:20What would you love? Well, the powers and what we say is, give us the powers and we'll raise more money for you, the treasury. And so it's not a question of us taking money away from the treasury. So what happens at the moment is we go to the treasury with a begging bowl in relation to give us a bet of business rates, give us a bet of money for this and money for that. Give us the powers in relation to skills, in relation to apprenticeship levy, in relation to multi-year deals in relation to the ability to keep the revenues raised in relation to development. I'll give you an example. So the Elizabeth line, you know, is paid a third by the businesses in London, a third by taxpayers in London, a third by central government.

40:55Allows to have more infrastructure projects funded in that sort of innovative way. What about tourists? You know, when you go on holiday to any city across Europe, you pay a percentage of your hotel bill that goes to the city. Which you do in Manchester. Quite. To improve the local community, to improve the public realm. What about giving us more of the business rates? What about the council taxes that are raised, giving them to councils and to mayors as well? And so there are things we can do around infrastructure, around planning, around housing that will benefit the country. And, you know, other countries do it really well.

41:27We have the mother of all parliament, supposedly, in London. It ain't working very well. Can I challenge you to be even more radical, even clearer? I mean, you're at the moment still phrasing it as, what about this? What about this? But can you give us a clear manifesto? In your dreams, Keir Starmer comes in, what would he really make the mayor of London's office be? What would be the great settlement which would make a great mayoral position in the city? Well, I think what I want the Labour Party manifesto to have is taking on board all of Gordon Brown's report. It's not simply about the powers and resources, Rory.

41:58It's about us being hotwired into the treasury. I've been hotwired into the civil servants in London. So rather than civil servants in Whitehall deciding what's best for Redbridge or Redcar or Reading, those communities being able to say, this is what we want. So it's not simply tax-raising powers, Rory. It's also about making sure that the decision makers are us who are nearer to where the impact is fell, rather than civil servants in Whitehall. Do you think you've done enough on the dirty money? London is a kind of magnet for dirty money. Margaret Hodge had a very interesting report about that this week.

42:31So in 2015, it was first talked about London being the money laundering capital of the world. And when I became mayor in May 2016, I lobbied George and David, George Osborne and David Cameron about this issue in relation to London being seen as the easy place to launder money. And both George and David agreed to have transparency in relation to trusts in relation to offshore, because one of the issues during the campaign that arose was the housing crisis and the number of homes bought by foreigners, I think it's foreigners by the way, so my best friends and family are foreigners, bought by foreigners to use a gold brick, often trusts held offshore.

43:06What justification can there be to have a blind trust held offshore? And so, you know, both David Cameron and George Osborne promised transparency. We've still not had that. With this ridiculous situation when Putin invaded Ukraine, where we worked out there was more than two billion pounds worth of property owned by Putin's chums, we said to the government, why don't you appropriate that property sell it off and give the money towards u weapons for ukraine still no movement made there and that's why we need the next labor government to take action where the current government's failed no we did some polling recently sadiq and i don't know if you listened to that episode we talked about polling but you didn't poll very well your favorability rating was i think only sunak and johnson were worse so there was a point where you were like the golden boy and everybody saying this is the man of the future.

43:55I think you're looking at the wrong polls, Alistair. So first, you need to change your pollster. One of the things that we've got to do, and we've sought to do, you know, we'll do this over the next few weeks is, you know, the elections aren't a referendum on how perfect or imperfect the incumbent is. It's a contest. So what I say to Labour supporters is the choice isn't between Keir Starmer or your perfect Labour leader. The choice is Starmer versus Sunak. That's the choice in the general election. And similarly, the choice in the mayor election, I'm afraid it's a two horse race. But do you feel - that you that you've just being in in the job for so long and taking quite a lot of heat and having the president of america when he was there sort of taking pot shots and the islamophobia stuff and do you feel that you've kind of lost altitude in terms as a as a politician oh listen you learn every day man every there's not a day i've gone to bed thinking that was a perfect day every day you learn you got the humility to realize that you know there's things you got to do to you know improve but actually i'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved despite a Tory government over the last eight years.

44:55We've been rowing against the tide of a Tory government. Imagine sailing with the winds of a Labour government in our backs. Interesting. When we had Andy Burnham and Andy Street in here, I don't even remember, Roy, but Andy Burnham said that there was a part of him that felt that it could become harder to have a Labour government when you're a Labour mayor. No, not at all. Listen, so there's only been one time in London's history where there's been a Labour mayor and a Labour government. We won the Olympics. We secured funding for the Elizabeth Line. We built a record number of homes. Look, Kira and Rachel and Andrew and Yvette and Ed aren't going to write me a blank check.

45:26Of course they won't. But rather than them being an obstacle, there'll be open channels of communication. And it's in all of our interests for us together. We're the capital city. And I think it's anti-patriotic to always be slagging off London and to be deprived of our resources because, you know, we've got a Labour mayor. When you look at the big global picture, look at what's happening in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, how does this play into the way that politics is changing in Britain. What do you see as the connection between what's happening abroad and the way that politics works at home?

45:56Yeah, so 2024 is, I think, the most important year in recent history. Why? Half the world's population will be voting in some form of election or not, whether it's the USA, India, Indonesia. We've had Pakistan, Bangladesh, our country, of course. And so it's a really important year. I worry about the rise of nativist populist movements across the globe. I worry some of the lessons Democrats learn is the to win elections is fear, is division. I worry about the algorithms that exist that can amplify messages of hate so speedily. But also, Rory, if you're a young person now, you often get your news from TikTok.

46:32There's no impartial fact checking, and there's no verification of the version of events you're being given, but you only receive messages that are one version. There's no other point of view, there's no argument, no debate. One of the ways I think about this is I'm I'm speaking to you from the States, and I've seen recently a lot of young Indians who are completely horrified by the way Narendra Modi is behaving, and particularly discrimination against Muslims in India. And yet nobody's talking about that. I don't hear you talk about that. Is that because people are worried about Indian voters?

47:00I mean, why are people not being more explicit about the damage and the harm that Modi's doing to Indian democracy? I think people are, to give them credit. One of the things that I've sought to do is, despite what people may think, not always give a running commentary on foreign affairs across the globe, but you've asked the question, so I'll respond. I think one of the things that for decades people in Pakistan regretted was partition. And you saw in Pakistan, particularly in the 80s and 90s, a rise of the religious view in Pakistan. And the counter from the secularist was actually, look at India is doing so well as a democracy.

47:33Minorities have protection and so forth. What Modi has done is, the way he's behaved, is playing to the hands of the religious views in Pakistan say, aha, that's why we needed a country with a Muslim majority because Muslim minorities in India are being treated so appallantly. And one of the joys of India has always been is the biggest democracy in the world is a secular democracy that protects minorities. And I'm afraid you're seeing too frequently examples of minorities being treated appallantly in India. And I'm really hoping the Congress party sorts itself out and there's a proper campaign taking place before the general election.

48:11And you can see a contest that's fair and even, and you can see the sort of voices that in the past have mobilized and been really active in India come to the surface. What did you learn from the Uxbridge by-election, both the way it went, the way that your policy, which originally had been Boris Johnson's policy on ULES, became so fundamental, and how that seemed to have this kind of big impact upon environmental policy more general and then the kind of consequence of that was that you know the the ules debate is still out there i don't know whether it's playing a big part in this campaign but i just interested in your reflections because it felt quite weird to me the whole thing so one of the joys of a democracy is you've got mainly speaking two parties with a conflicting views you have an argument and a debate and then the public sees which side is the best debate and they vote for it you know you live through the 90s whether it's the minimum wage uh whether it's you know scottish parliament whether it's human rights, whatever it is, right?

49:04I think when you adopt your opponent's view, because you're worried about the argument and the debate, you see the results like you saw in Oxbridge and Reislip. So the Labour Party campaign in that by-election accepted the arguments from the Conservatives that ULES is a bad thing, right? Why? Because the election happened to coincide a few weeks before the ULES was expanded to include outer London. Let me tell you this. A month after the ULES was expanded, 19 out of 20 cars seen driving in outer London are compliant. Don't pay a penny more. 95 % of vehicles are compliant in central, inner and outer London.

49:44But does that make you worry about what could happen in a general election? Because what you're saying is they made a, I don't know if it's strategic, but they made a tactical or strategic error and it probably hurt them. Well, we'll have to wait and see what happens in my election in May. If I lose the election, then they may have been right and I was wrong. But I think sometimes you've got to make tough decisions. Look, I believe in, you know, leadership as well as followership when it's appropriate to do so. Of course, I want to win elections. But sometimes you've got to, you know, as I said, you be a teacher and explain to people the benefits of your policies.

50:16You know, I remember as a 27-year-old listening night after night after night to people telling me that the minimum wage would lead to 3, 4, 5 million people being unemployed. I remember as a councillor thinking, bloody hell, what's Blair and Brown doing, man? Because we can't lose these jobs to the rest of the country. But then listening to what Brown and Blair were saying and saying, you know what? Yeah, that's the argument for it. We can't have a security guard getting paid 50p and you've got to bring your own dog. How is that fair? We're on the argument. The Tories wouldn't dream now of reversing the minimum wage.

50:44In fact, they're adopting a language. Osborne, I don't put it in language, calling it a national living wage. That's the difference good politics can make. My final one, and thank you for coming, is to challenge you to reflect a little bit on what the toughest bit of being a politician is. And not in too schmaltzy campaigning mode, but something unexpected and personal which listeners might not be aware of for the reality of being a politician. So, I know the truthful answer. I'd be interested to hear what you say. One of the things I've always sought to do is to encourage others to get involved in mainstream politics.

51:18So I've not talked about, unless asked the question, the impact of having police protection, the impact of threats to me, the impact on my safety. Because what I don't want to do is discourage minorities, we see it with women, coming forward to be politicians. But Rory, imagine being married to me or being my children or being my mum or my siblings or my nephews and nieces or the people Alice talks to at school. And then hearing that, frankly speaking, for another reason, because of the colour of my skin, my origin, the faith that I belong to, I get some of the stuff that I get, Which leads to somebody who kills people in mosques in Christchurch having me named in his manifesto.

52:03Which leads to somebody who drives from Wales to London, can't find me, so drives into a mosque in Finsbury Park and kills a worshipper there. That leads to the leader of the free world, in a pathetic way, trolling me on Twitter for no other reason, because, let's be frank, the colour of my skin, the God I worship, and so forth. How upsetting it must be to my family. So I went home one evening a few weeks ago to see distressed children because the deputy chairman of the Tory party said what he said in relation to me. And it, you know, Was that amid the Lee Anderson thing? Yeah, it's really upsetting.

52:39You know, it's just, you know, and so I'm not asking for sympathy. You know, I'm not a victim, Rory, but, you know, you've asked the question. I'm giving an honest answer. It's really hard, Rory, because, you know, I lived through the Zach Goldsmith campaign where when I was selected as a candidate, it. So much excitement. I was having uncles and aunties and Asians and Muslims and minorities saying, isn't it wonderful you're the candidate? We never thought it was possible. By the end of the campaign in 2016, oh my God, if this is what happens when you're a Muslim, if someone like you's not accepted and you have this sort of hostile behavior from the Tories and Islamophobia, actually, you know what?

53:11I'm not going to encourage my kids to get involved in politics. And I thought that was behind us, Rory, but it's not. If your kids said to you, I think I'm going to go into politics, what would you say? Do it. It's the greatest privilege of my life to be able to impact people's life for the better. You know, your experiences are every day just, you know, life affirming and transformative. There aren't, you know, many jobs where you get the rewards that we get. I mean, you've both lived through it, you know, in different ways and stuff. You know, I challenge you not to say that it's, you know, you improving people's lives for the better is not the most rewarding thing you can have.

53:46Of course it's tough, you know, but, you know, the bullies want us to be a coward, right? Trump wants me to throw the towel in. And one of the things that I'm well aware of is, if I lose on May the 2nd, Trump's going to be cheering, some of the people that Rory talked about in India will be cheering, Netanyahu will be cheering, Le Pen will be cheering, Orban will be cheering, Duda will be cheering, and so forth. And so, it's not me having delusions of grandeur, it's the fact that the greatest city in the world has a mayor who is of Islamic faith, Pakistani heritage, and Asian origin. It's quite important.

54:21All right, Sidi. Thanks for coming in. It's been lovely to talk to you as ever. Good luck with everything. Lovely to talk to you. Thanks for having me, and vote Labour on May 2nd.

54:33Okay, Rory. So there's the man doing the job that you wanted to do. What did you make of it? Well, difficult, isn't it, to be objective when I ran against him. Look, I think there's so many positive things about him that people will have picked up listening to the podcast. I think he's got a lovely balance of humility and introspection. He's obviously got an extraordinary backstory. He's obviously very, very proud of doing the job, passionate about it. And I did feel, obviously, and this is the big criticism that I didn't want to get into because I don't think it would have gone anywhere, but I always have felt with him that he's had a tendency when there's been a problem not to say, I'm in charge, the buck stops with me, but to say that he can't do it because he doesn't have the money or the power from the government.

55:21And of course, there's something to be said for that. As he points out, these mayors don't have quite as much power as mayors elsewhere. Those figures with New York and other sort of global cities were pretty stark. Really stark. Really stark. I mean, but again, you know, when I was pushing him on that, I think that's another clue to his mindset. I was trying to say, okay, here's your opportunity. What do you really want in number terms? Do you want 50 %? Do you want 30 %? What's the plan here? What are you going to push Keir Starmer to do? and what i got is well you know we should sign up to the gordon brown thing and you know it's not all about the money it's about the attitude of the government this and the other and that was interesting i suppose that is presumed well why is that do you think that that's his response um probably because if he were to say we should be like new york where the mayor has 50 percent of all public spending related to new yorkers people would think that's like just sort of blatant naked power grab that will never, ever, ever happen because of the way that UK finances are run through the Treasury.

56:25Or he doesn't want to set himself what will be taken as a target, which he then doesn't meet. But I think there was something quite realistic about the way he was talking about that. In a sense, even when he was going through his powers, he was sort of saying, well, I've got a bit of this and a bit of this and a bit of this. Now, you could say, You seem to be saying, you think that's him saying, I can't do the things that I want to do because these terrible Tory government people stopped me. But I just thought it was quite a realistic assessment of the power. I think he is very realistic. And I guess that's the question, isn't it, in political leadership.

56:59Where's the balance between being realistic, which is, of course, what civil servants have to be professionally. You know, these are my powers. This is the budget. I'm not really going to be able to do that much. and where a leader comes in and says, I'm really going to sort this out and I'm going to change this. I mean, so that's, I suppose you're right. There would be risk involved and potentially also maybe, are you suggesting that could also be a political problem, which is that if he set himself up to say, I've got this different vision of what the mayor of London is going to be to what Keir Starmer has, potentially the media could create a story about fights between the Yeah, although he wasn't at all shy about suggesting that he did think that the Labour Party nationally made a mistake in the Uxbridge by-election over you, Les.

57:45Yeah, I think there is that. But also, I think that he's talking in – when you said to him, you know, what do you want in the manifesto? And he basically said he wants the Gordon Brown report, which essentially is about further devolution, which then means greater powers for the Mayor of London, whoever that might be. He obviously hopes that it's him working with the Labour government. And I thought he was interesting in that, that he was absolutely adamant in the way that Andy Burnham wasn't, that it is far better for a Labour mayor to have a Labour government in Westminster and Whitehall. Now, we'll see whether, if there is a Labour government, whether that works out.

58:20But I don't know, I felt there was a realism. And also, I was quite, you know, I pushed him several times about this thing about, you know, because when he launched his manifesto for this campaign, his third campaign, he's putting this free school meals thing right at the top of the agenda and yet as he said he doesn't have responsibility for the schools so that is an example of something i think where he said i want to do that i'm going to do that and i'm going to make the bits of the system through which i can do it work for me yeah he's well he's he's me i mean i think that's right he's making a choice there on how he wants to spend hundreds of millions of pounds of his budget yeah and he's making a choice that he's going to spend it on that he's not going to spend it on fixing the Piccadilly line.

58:59He's not going to spend it on putting another X hundreds of millions of pounds into social housing. He's not going to spend it on, I guess, changing the way policing's done or putting more resources. He's going to put it into free school meals. So that's absolutely right. It's an example of him making a clear choice of what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do. I mean, there's sort of things, again, I didn't want to get into this bit inside baseball, but another example of the sort of thing that has always frustrated me with him is, as you know, I'm obsessed with planting trees. And he had - Yeah, I was surprised you didn't mention that when I asked you about what you would have done as mayor.

59:31I was expecting a great tree loving. A lot of stuff and trees. Yeah. Well, because I didn't want to get in an unnecessary fight with him. But he'd had a target in his first term in office that he was going to plant X million trees and he just completely missed it. He didn't do it. And nobody really holds him accountable. I mean, that was the shocking thing that I was talking about at Mile End. When I was campaigning, people would be like, oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's wrong in London. And then when I said, but shouldn't Sadiq Khan be fixing it? They'd be like, oh yeah, but isn't that more of a ceremonial position?

1:00:00I'm not really sure he's got much power over that. So I think I'd like to see a mayor who's, and that's what I felt I got with Andy Burnham. That's why I'm a big Andy Burnham fan. Andy Burnham, you know, doesn't spend his whole time saying, I can't do this. He said - Oh, he does a bit. Oh, he does a bit of that, Rory. Well, less, less. I mean, you know, he did really bold. In 2019, he did some really bold stuff on homelessness. I mean, to give an example of the difference between these two mayors, Andy Burnham said, look, I'm going to fix homelessness in Manchester. And he made huge progress when London really wasn't making progress.

1:00:33And Sidi Khan is sort of picking up things, but he picks them up maybe because he's quite cautious. He picks them up behind other people. So my sense, without being unfair to him, is I was talking about building council housing. I was talking about planting trees. I was talking about air quality. I felt more vigorously and powerfully in 2019 than he was. Later, he does this again, Andy Burnham. Andy Burnham really showed what could be done on rough sleeping. And later Sadiq Khan comes in behind this. Even on COVID, we had a real standoff. I didn't want to get into this. But in February, when I was calling for lockdowns, he was still plodding along in the early days.

1:01:07I remember a big confrontation on Good Morning Britain with me and him, where he was still saying, we have to listen to the government. I haven't had my briefing yet from the government. I got to go and see. So, I think he's a wonderful person, but I don't think, contrary to the way he sees himself, that he's a big, decisive CEO. I think he's a great communicator, but I do think that he's more interested in the kind of representational elements of the job than really taking risk. Yeah, but if you think about the ULS thing, which as we said in the interview, was a sort of Johnson thing, but Sadiq, I think, has shown quite a lot of kind of courage in taking that through.

1:01:41And air quality is another thing. He decided that was a thing he was going to improve and he has yeah he's done a really good job on those two and you're right with you les because that was interesting wasn't it he said that because i remember the predictions in 2019 i remember taxi drivers saying to me you can beat him if you're prepared to come out against you les because it's going to cost people on low income 67 pounds a week and and as he pointed out that once he'd implemented it it turned out that i think what did he say 90 percent of vehicles turned out to be compliant they were fine yeah you mentioned the covid period what did you make of his analysis of Johnson and Cummings.

1:02:17Well, I think that's right. I think Boris Johnson really wasn't suited for that. I think that's the problem with populism. Populism is all about broad brushstrokes, simple solutions. It's not about looking at the detail, learning what other countries are doing, trying to get your head around the science. Oddly, Boris Johnson's problem wasn't, as people suggested, that he ignored the scientists. Strangely, his problem was that he was actually a little bit too deferential initially towards chief medical officers and deputy chief medical officers who really believed in the early days that there was no point locking down, that herd immunity was something to look at.

1:02:55I can't get out of my head that awful thing he did in the green room in Downing Street with Jenny Harris, who was the deputy medical director, where sort of, you know, throwing her softball questions to explain that there was no need to ban Cheltenham and there was no need to wear masks and it would make it worse and all that stuff. But I think that we've still got Truss out on the rampage talking about sort of unelected advisors and civil servants and others with too much power. But it was a remarkable portrayal of, and it's something Sadiq talked to me about at the time. And I remember, you know, because I used to get portrayed as this sort of, you know, eminence grease behind the throne.

1:03:32I always knew it was bollocks that Tony was the person in charge and that's how we operated. But you really got a sense that Johnson was constantly looking to Cummings for decisions. And Cummings was completely cynical and rude and brutal about that. I mean, in all these WhatsApp messages, he basically made it clear that he thought Boris Johnson was a shopping trolley and he was in charge. I mean, that's, I think, probably the strongest thing I took out of this, that you or Peter Mandelson or Jonathan Powell or Angie Hunter would never have been sending such sort of derogatory WhatsApps about your boss between each other.

1:04:08No, absolutely not. In fact, we wouldn't have wanted to work for someone if you despised them that much. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So come on then, Rory. You live in London. I presume you've got a vote. It's first past the post. There's only two horses in it. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to go? Well, there we are. I'm not getting pulled into that, but I tend to just find out something. Why not? Rory, you can't avoid that question. Well, because, okay, let me, I'd say he's a nice guy, but obviously I ran against him because I think we could do better for mayor of London. And I didn't really like his, well, yeah, it's not a question of who the ideal mayor of London is.

1:04:46It's just between me and this other Tory candidate. It's very defeatist. It is true though. But that's because your old party has changed the system. Which Labour didn't block. I mean, it's really weird. I don't think, but Sadiq made clear he is not happy about the new system and wants it changed back. Oh, come on, Rory. I think I've got to hold you. I've got to hold your feet to the fire here. Come on. We've got loads of listeners who want to know who you want to vote. Will you vote for Susan Hall? I think it's already, I'm afraid, unfair enough that we've only interviewed one of the candidates in this election.

1:05:17I know you don't want to interview all the other candidates, so I'm not going to lead the listeners on the basis of this interview on how to vote. Look, let me just come back. Final thing, Alistair, to this on you. I found running against Sadiq really interesting and very, very difficult because basically in those days, there was a lot of sympathy for him as a person. And I thought, okay, the way to do this is to really focus on performance, to really say, why has the signaling on the Piccadilly line not been fixed since the 1970s? Or why have we got knife crime going up? And I couldn't really win on that.

1:05:50And I wondered, do you have any advice or thoughts on those kinds of campaigns? what happens when you can point to things that somebody isn't delivering, but in the end, it's very difficult to convince the voters. Maybe it's just they don't believe that I'm going to be able to fix them either. You see, I think the conservatives in this campaign have slightly played to his advantage by doing these ridiculous videos of sort of, you know, London and meltdown. And then, you know, they found out that actually it was a scene from New York and what have you. So actually, I think by and large, when they sort of portray London as this, you know, you can't walk down the street safely and the Islamists on every corner and all this sort of stuff.

1:06:33I just don't think it speaks to people's real experience. So I actually think you need something more realistic. I do find when Susan Hall speaks in the way that she does, and it's also kind of relentlessly negative and all the sort of the paper mile lying and all this sort of stuff. So put it this way, I don't think that's the way to do it. I think the way you have to do it, and actually I think it's how you were trying to campaign before your advisors wrongly, in my view, told you to stop banging on about trees, is actually almost to say, listen, London is a great city and there's lots that's going well, but on this we can do so much better.

1:07:10I think that's the way to frame it. But I think if you're the party of government, I know you weren't, you were running as an independent, but for the party of government to portray the capital city as this sort of third world basket case, it's just sort of, it's crazy. I think they lose votes from doing that. Well, so the sort of thing that I was trying to do that I really wanted to lean into is, yes, trees, but also that the Thames could be absolutely amazing, that we haven't really thought about how to really bring that amazing river to life and make it work for the city. I'd swim in there every day if it wasn't so filthy oh yeah and yes it's you swimming but it's also imagine what an amazing cultural venue it was and you know what you could do with boats and festivals and forms anyway yeah tell you who I'm massively in favour of and you're going to tell me I'm an idiot is the mayor of Paris I mean I spent quite a lot of my campaign wumbling around Paris sending videos saying look how terrific this is couldn't we take a leaf out of their book on this out of the other oh lord and Hidalgo but she's so unpopular Well, I was a big 15-minute city person.

1:08:11That was central to my campaign. I know, I know. That was one of the many conspiracy theorists that you fell victim to. Anyway, listen, I think you're right. I don't think we do want to interview all of the contenders. I think Sadiq is a very, very interesting character in his own right. And actually, I thought it was good. I did say to him before the interview, please don't come on and just be in full-on sort of campaign mode. And I don't think he was. And I thought his final answer to you was actually quite moving. Yes. You know, about the whole. And, you know, I've talked to him about this lots because it is sort of, I don't think Ken Livingston had the level of protection, nothing like the level of protection, nor did Boris Johnson when he was mayor.

1:08:49You know, because there has been all this sort of Trumpian Islamophobic stuff and the campaign that Zach Goldsmith ran, he's been made a target and it's horrible for his family. And it's not over the top. He's absolutely right to get that protection. I think he is in genuine, sincere danger. And I think it's really important that taxpayers provide that protection, try to support him, because I think he is in a very dangerous position. Well, there we are. Enjoy Vancouver, and we'll speak to you soon. Thank you very much, Alice. Bye-bye.