London Mayor Sadiq Khan never misses a chance to moan about the Greater London Authority budget, asking the government for more cash to tackle knife crime or hit his housing target. UK DOGE has been digging into potential savings including £32,835 on “brand insights” for social media and £16 million shipping TfL staff around in taxis during strikes. UK DOGE can reveal that Khan’s central team of woke warriors also carries a hefty price tag…
The GLA is annually shelling out a staggering £447,200 on six full-time Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion roles – an eye-watering average of £74,533 per person – all to ensure City Hall is sufficiently “inclusive.” For that you could:
The taxpayer may have a view on which should be prioritised. UK DOGE recommends costs are cut here…
UPDATE: Neil Garratt AM, City Hall Conservatives Leader tells UK DOGE:
“When we proposed a budget amendment last month to cut the number of city hall bureaucrats, other parties got extremely defensive about how vital these staff were. Why are we wasting this much money on pointless roles when there’s 101 better things that Londoners want funded?”
Spending rather a lot of time there, Guido is already thinking ahead to 7 May 2026, when Labour’s control of Westminster City Council could come to an end. The Tories lost control of their flagship London council for the first time since 1965 in 2022…
If the Tories do eventually regain control, Sadiq Khan’s plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street will be met with major opposition by the blue bigwigs that are the Westminster Tories. The Tory group on the council has already put forward a motion to hive off £250,000 to fund a legal challenge to Khan’s plans – but it was voted down this week. Better have a whip-round instead…
Conservative group leader Paul Swaddle said:
“The mayor believes this [scheme] is going to be paid for by private investment, with no supporting details, which leaves businesses fearing it’s going to be a raid through business taxes or Crossrail-style levy. The mayor also intends to raid the neighbourhood community infrastructure levy – money that should be spent on local priorities.”
Looks like Khan’s dream of no cars on Oxford Street may yet be scuppered if the Tories can grab the council back again…
As BBC Verify’s 63-strong team is busy producing its vital public service fact-checking (Are top honours winners too posh and too southern?), Guido has decided to step up to the plate and provide verification services when required. Guido Verify is hereby launched.
James O’Brien’s show continues to cement its reputation as the least-well-informed radio show in the country. Last week O’Brien confused the Munich Crisis with the invasion of Poland in one of his diatribes…
This time Sadiq Khan took a break from campaigning against Brexit to talk about how awful Reeves’ plan to expand Heathrow Airport is:
“I forgot people affected by this not just those affected by the noise and the air and carbon emissions but also villages destroyed, homes destroyed, I mean the surface links he will have to increase by 50%. I mean at the moment to give you an idea there’s a cap of 480,000 flights a day – they want to increase that according to their plans to 720,000 and that means villages being destroyed, and homes being demolished.”
Clearly Khan foresees total armageddon if a third runway is built. His maths is interesting, though. Guido Verify has examined the claims.
If 720,000 flights left Heathrow every day there would be 30,000 planes shooting off every hour which is of course 500 per minute. 8.3 per second. O’Brien did not challenge Khan on his sums and nodded along…
Khan may have intended to refer to the annual flight cap – useful to get these details right if you’re going to take matters before a judge. What is it about LBC and maths…
Sadiq Khan has pledged to use “any tool in the toolkit” to fight Reeves on her plan to expand Heathrow and get a third runway operational by 2035. One man has stepped forward as his legal champion…
None other than Jolyon Maugham has reassured his supporters that the Good Law Project is “already dusting off our plans, formulated with a leading environmental Silk, to challenge Heathrow expansion.” Back in 2021 the Good Law Project began soliciting donations for its legal battle against any possible expansion to the airport – all it managed to do was repeatedly complain about the Airports National Policy Statement and sending Jolyon’s favourite pre-action protocol letter to the government. Now the grift can take off again…
Reeves insists that her new growth projects and Net Zero go “hand in hand” – something that Ed Miliband has expressed his doubts about when it comes to Heathrow. Any legal campaign against Reeves’ plans will no doubt have public and private support from more than one senior Labour figure. Guido isn’t sure Jolyon’s reverse midas touch will be welcomed with open arms…
Four Liberal Democrats and two Tory MPs have written to Heidi Alexander to pre-emptively complain about Reeves’ plans to expand Gatwick, Heathrow, and Luton aeroports. It’s the usual NIMBY guff:
“Life is blighted every single day by the noise of take-offs and landings at Gatwick Airport… We urge you to delay your decision on the Northern Runway Project until proper monitoring infrastructure is in place and the true impact of noise on the lives of our constituents is properly understood.”
The two Tories are local MPs Tom Tugendhat and Andrew Griffith – the latter being the Shadow Business and Trade Sectretary. The first sign of Tory opposition to Reeves’ plans, with the party’s overall position unclear…
Reeves is supported by a collection of Labour MPs known as the Labour Growth Group and opposed by three major Labour figures – Miliband, Khan, and Burnham. That said – Miliband has insisted he would not resign over the issue this time while Khan rolled back on his “legal challenge” rhetoric when it comes to Heathrow, so the picture is confused…
The net zero-obsessed Climate Change Committee says there can be no more added capacity while Downing Street’s line remains that any expansion has to “contribute to economic growth” while upholding “existing environmental obligations.” That one won’t hold…
The Chancellor has an event penned in for next Wednesday in Oxford where she is due to make an announcement relating to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. These rifts will deepen Guido hears the aeroport expansions are also firmly on the docket…
UPDATE: Andrew Griffith tells Guido he is “‘all in’ on airport expansion” but “no global competitor divvys up capacity between three sub-scale aerodromes. That’s the old growth sapping politics of compromise. As I have long said, if we seriously want a global-growth hub, the answer is a massive and long overdue expansion of Heathrow.” Do it, just not in my etc etc…
Read the full NIMBY letter below:
Continue reading “Shadow Business & Trade Secretary Opposes Airport Expansion as Labour Row Deepens”
In an exchange at the London Assembly with Green AM Zack Polanski this morning Sadiq Khan provided some more detail on his promised “legal challenge” against the government’s rumoured London airport expansion plans:
“There is no money set aside in the budget based on speculation I’ve seen speculation, in the media about a speech the chancellor may give in a few weeks time. I’ve seen no proposals from Heathrow airport, I’ve seen no plans for a new runway, I’ve seen no announcement from the government. What Londoners know and the government knows is the aviation sector is important for growth, jobs, and prosperity – but we face a climate crisis and a climate emergency…. I’m quite clear – my views on the expansion of Heathrow by a new runway haven’t changed.”
Polanksi accused the mayor of rowing back on his more robust statements to the press this week. Wouldn’t be the first time…
If Khan does end up wanting to oppose the government’s plans on aviation expansion it looks like Londoners would have to pay for it. Unlikely the Treasury would cough up for that one…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”