New YouGov data shows that 56% of Londoners don’t want Sir Sadiq / Lord Khan to stand for a fourth mayoral term. Including almost a third who voted for him in 2024…
Most Londoners also think the capital is a worse place to live than it was a decade ago, even if Khan himself thinks saying so is some kind of right wing conspiracy. He still hasn’t confirmed whether he’ll stand again. David Lammy watches from the shadows, waiting…
New figures obtained by Guido’s FoI unit show that the majority of fines issued by Transport for London for fare dodging are never even paid.
In 2025/26 TfL issued 62,849 fines, of which 34,277 went unpaid. A non-payment rate of 54.54%…
In fact, the share going unpaid has been above 50% for the last three years:
- 2023/24: 50.49%
- 2024/25: 55.39%
- 2025/26: 54.54%
Sadiq Khan increased the penalty from £80 to £100 in March 2024, which he described at the time as an “effective deterrent“. Anyone who commutes across London will see that disproved before their very eyes almost every day…
And as Guido revealed last August, the 3.4% evasion rate TfL spat out after Jenrick’s viral video conveniently glossed over the Tube, where fare dodging actually averaged 4.8% across the year and peaked at 5.1%, well above the 4.1% target. Bus evasion, meanwhile, climbed from 1.9% in 2023 to 2.6% last year. Now even the fines meant to claw the money back are going unpaid.
Dawn Butler is set to announce her London mayoral campaign this Wednesday, according to PoliticsJOE’s Ava Evans. Sadiq Khan is still mulling whether to go for a fourth term…
Guido members will have seen this coming. From Guido Whispers on 10th April:
A New Dawn: Speaking of the London mayoralty, Dawn Butler was spotted hanging around near the Green Party HQ earlier this year. There is speculation she was trying to organise some sort of non-aggression pact amongst the left to run for Mayor of London. She denied that she was defecting to the Greens herself. Although a pact that clears the way on her left flank might be a different story…
Become a member today to get all the gossip first – often months before anyone else. Click here to join…
A side note to the emerging story today that Starmer is set to make failing Mayor of London Sadiq Khan a peer to buy his silence after the expected Labour implosion at this summer’s local elections. Starmer has form when it comes to peerage appointments…
For all the hand-wringing about Tory proposals over the years, Starmer has already appointed more peers than any of the previous four prime ministers – and he’s barely two years into his premiership. That means Starmer has already made more new peers than Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May put together. The stats are eyebrow-raising…
Starmer is ramming the Chamber with dozens of key allies and former advisers – despite his previous complaints about Tory moves. He just appointed 25 Labour Peers in December. Along with reforms such as the removal of hereditary peers, the net effect is a political attempt by Labour to take control of the upper chamber…
Starmer needs the votes because his legislative agenda is getting shredded in the Lords, with big time failures on Chagos, workers rights, education and other issues. Labour claims it wants Lords reform but is pouring its own people into the House quicker than any recent government…
A whopping 57% of Brits say increased graffiti has a negative impact on their local area, according to a fresh poll by Merlin Strategy. Graffiti-ridden TfL tube carriages have forced campaigners to clean up the mess themselves, despite cleaning contracts costing the taxpayer £155 million every year…
The poll also reveals:
Founder of Looking For Growth Lawrence Newport said:
“The symptoms of decline are all around us – and politicians refuse to act or even take notice. Our trains, stations, buses, bus stops, and streets are covered in graffiti. LFG volunteers have been out across the country cleaning streets and wiping away graffiti – we’ve been doing this because local governments are failing to do so.”
Meanwhile, Sadiq Khan’s TfL Commissioner Andy Lord instead tried to claim that activists are actually scrawling graffiti so they can film themselves cleaning it up. Dirty politics…
Transport for London has forked out a cool £239,843 on refurbishments to just one floor of one of its offices this year. Given staff are only expected to spend 50% of their time in the office, how often will this be used?
An FoI has revealed that the 7th floor of the TfL’s Palestra office has been redeveloped to provide staff with “a quiet space to focus, a dynamic place to problem solve or plan, a room or pod to host meetings, or simply somewhere to take a break.” This figure includes £20,807 spent on cutting 40cm off 176 desks. That’s £2.96 per cm…
For £239,843, you could:
TfL also admitted that much of the furniture was bought 2 years ago in anticipation for this refurbishment – adding another £280,000 to the bill.The taxpayer may have a view on which should be prioritised. UK DOGE recommends costs are cut here…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.