Guido revealed a recording earlier today of Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Business, Howard Dawber, hosting a meeting at City Hall urging the room to come out and help people vote for Labour. Now, Neil Garratt – group leader of the City Hall Conservatives – has written to the GLA to call for an investigation into the incident. Bad timing for Khan…
The potential breach of GLA’s Guidance on Political Restriction wasn’t the only thing on the Tories’ mind. They also point out that Dawber may have breached the GLA Use of Resource guidance, as the meeting appeared to be political, having been chaired on behalf of SME4Labour. The guidance clearly states that GLA facilities and funds should not be used for “party political activity and electoral campaigning”. Double trouble for Dawber…
Read the letter in full below:
With London Mayoral election day next week, Khan’s team are eyeing a third term. Feeling certain of victory, they are getting careless…
Guido can reveal a video recording of a meeting from the second week of March addressed by Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Business, Howard Dawber, hosted at City Hall to discuss the role played by British Bangladeshi SMEs. After stating “unfortunately I’m not Bangladeshi but I’d like to be“, Dawber appears to urge the room to come out and help people vote for Labour:
“Obviously we have an election coming up, I need to mention that, on 2nd May. Those of you who are in London, I can’t, I don’t think I am allowed to say which way you should vote, but I do want you to vote, please. And if you were going to support us, take the day off, now arrange to take the day off, come out and help us to get other people, as it is going to be on turnout. If our voters come out we are fine. If they don’t come out we are not fine.”
According to GLA’s Guidance on Political Restriction, Deputy Mayors must not “speak to the public at large or to a section of the public with the apparent intention of affecting public support for a UK political party“. Dawber is politically restricted. Neil Garratt, group leader of City Hall Conservatives group, tells Guido:
“Mayor Khan’s Deputy appears to be hosting Labour Party election rallies at City Hall disguised as official events, misusing taxpayer funded facilities for party political use. Did they also fundraise for Labour at these dodgy events?”
Dawber, Khan’s most recent hire, on a salary of £141,406, may be in trouble. Guido has contacted Khan’s office for a comment. What will Khan say?
UPDATE: A London Labour spokesman said:
“As the recording shows, the Deputy Mayor is clear that he is not telling anybody how to vote. However, the choice on May 2 is clear: a pro-business Labour mayor building a better London for everyone, or the Tories’ Susan Hall who will take London backwards and doesn’t even mention business or jobs in her manifesto.”
The London mayoral race is into its final week and Khan has stepped up his personal attacks on Susan Hall. Speaking during LBC’s debate last night, he said:
“The Tory candidate is the most dangerous candidate I’ve fought against.”
Hall hit back:
“I think that’s an outrageous comment!”
Khan’s remark related to Hall’s social media history, which has dogged her for the campaign. If Khan thinks her tweets are dangerous, wait until he finds out about soaring knife crime…
Eagle-eyed observers will have noticed that not only did Angela Rayner brave the cameras and get a standing ovation from Labour activists at the official launch of Sadiq Khan’s mayoral campaign, her supposedly ex-boyfriend Sam Tarry was there too. Tarry tweeted that he was “Incredibly proud to join Sadiq Khan and London Labour MPs, London Assembly Members, and Councillors to launch Sadiq’s brilliant pledges that will help millions of Londoners, from children just born to the oldest Londoners.”
Sam Tarry, who is rumoured to be back with Angela Rayner, is well connected to Sadiq Khan. Now deselected as an MP, socialist Tarry is said to have his eye on being the next Deputy Mayor for Transport under Sadiq in City Hall. This might make sense given Sam’s close links to the left-wing transport union TSSA. Tarry would be expected to liaise with the unions based on his close relationship with them. Given the left-wing London Labour Party’s fondness for selecting candidates at odds with the national Labour Party’s leadership, some say Sam fancies his chances running for Mayor after Khan. Got to admire the chutzpah.
UPDATE: A London Labour source gets in touch to say ”Sadiq has an excellent Deputy Mayor for Transport and this is simply not true.” Not true yet.
Sadiq Khan’s team have launched an acidic “Cost of the Tories Report,” claiming Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has a yearly black hole of £515 million in her pledges to scrap the wallet-hitting ULEZ expansion, pay-per-mile and push to accommodate the revellers with a Night Tube extension. Team Hall were quick to hit back…
Hall’s spokesman tells Guido:
“This is desperate stuff from Sadiq Khan’s campaign. Susan’s commitments are fully costed and accounted for, much of which will be covered by cutting the ridiculous amount of waste in City Hall and TfL. By contrast, Sadiq Khan’s manifesto has around a billion pounds worth of pledges, with no explanation at all as to how he is going to pay for them, and which could only be paid for by cutting police funding and bringing in pay-per-mile.”
They also note how Khan managed to find £600 million down the back of the sofa for his pre-election giveaways. Lots of promises from either side to win over the electorate. Just ten days to go until polling day…
The row between the Tories and Labour over Sadiq Khan’s plans to implement a pay-per mile policy in London continues. Labour have today referred the Tories to the CPS for the below tweet, which they call a “lie“. Some good photoshopping work from the team Susan on display…
Labour are trying very hard to convince voters that Khan won’t implement the policy. The rebuttal to that claim comes from… Khan’s own book:
“We need to go further. And we intend to. We have plans to make public transport better and more appealing, plans for a further £3 million mass-tree-planting initiative, and plans to introduce a new, more comprehensive road-user charging system, to be implemented by the end of the decade at the latest.“
On top of his fervent support for the idea, Khan has committed TfL to “investigate proposals for the next generation of road user charging” in a legally binding transport strategy document. The Tories say of Labour’s CPS referral: “Londoners will see through this; Sadiq Khan’s record of dishonesty speaks for itself.” It would be hardly the first broken promise – Khan said he had no plans to expand ULEZ in 2021 and then did it anyway…
Hat-tip: James Heale
