After a term as Mayor of London entirely characterised by party political point-scoring, Sadiq has now written to Tory candidate Shaun Bailey with an “urgent request” to join him in “standing up for London by putting pressure on the Government not to force another era of austerity on our police and preventative services.” The same Sadiq who in June began threatening to cut 3,600 police officers from the streets…
The letter goes onto presume that as a former Crime Adviser in No. 10 when the Government first implemented austerity, “you must be all too aware of the terrible consequences of the last decade of cuts”. Those terrible consequences consisting of a significant overall reduction in the crime rate…
Responding to Sadiq’s begging letter, Shaun Bailey tells Guido:
Khan wants to take the politics out of policing. And he’s right.
The only problem is his track record. Sadiq Khan has played politics with the police from day one. And now he wants to defund the police, something I refuse to even discuss.
Instead of taking a symbolic and meaningless pay cut, the Mayor should cut waste from City Hall. Like the £760k he spent on beach parties. Or the 26% increase in his PR budget.
Sadiq knows Bailey will never sign up to this absurd pact – watch him now accuse the Tory candidate of being the one playing party politics…
Read Sadiq’s letter in full below:
With City Hall in financial chaos and the mayor threatening to cut 3,600 police amid riots, Shaun Bailey has less than a year to sort out his public image to pose a proper challenge to Sadiq. Guido understands amidst staff turnover, the Tories’ mayoral campaign has brought in new comms outfit 5654 and company partner James Starkie to refocus the campaign. Starkie recently left government after working as chief of staff to Priti Patel, previously of Dominic Raab’s leadership campaign…
5654 – who proclaim specialisation in helping clients “to earn a reputation” – have been brought in by campaign director Ben Mallet, himself only poached in February as part of a Team Shaun top team overhaul. The campaign will have to scoop up almost all of Rory’s abandoned supporters to have a hope of catching up with Sadiq…
Tory London Mayoral Candidate Shaun Bailey has called for the 2020 Olympics to be held in London again if the Tokyo games have to move due to Coronavirus. This comes after the epidemic forced Japan to cancel its mass participation Tokyo marathon. Perhaps not as far fetched as it sounds…
Bailey told CityAM “I urge the Olympic Committee to seriously consider how London could stand ready to host the Olympics should the need arise. We have the infrastructure and the experience, and if I am elected I will make sure London is ready to host the biggest sporting celebration again, if we are called on in an hour of need.”
A spokesman for Sadiq Khan responded by saying “In the unlikely event that it be required, London, as it has done throughout history, will do its best to step up to the plate.”
If it happened, London 2020 would be the fourth time the city has hosted the games, following 1908, 1948, and most recently 2012. In 2012 London became the first city to have hosted three Games – could it smash through another record with a fourth?…
Sadiq Khan’s £75,000-a-year ‘Night Czar’ Amy Lame has been found out pocketing £1,000 from a drag event she helped to host in Walthamstow. The event, called ‘Duckie Loves Fanny‘, cost attendees £15 a head, despite receiving a £70,000 council grant – largely from Sadiq’s £1.3 million bung to the Labour council last year. With a massive grant and paid-for tickets, readers may well wonder where all the money went…
Lame failed to declare the £1,000 ‘Duckie Loves Fanny‘ bonus she’d received in her register of interests at City Hall. When asked by LBC’s Theo Usherwood, a GLA spokesman offered no apology.
Guido readers will remember Lame as the foul mouthed, internet trolling, tax avoiding, dodgy property dealing, highly-paid aide to Sadiq Khan. She was so prolific that after Guido’s reports the Treasury implemented an ‘Amy Lame Tax‘ which cracked down on her affairs.
GLA Tories are furious, with their Mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey saying the “stinks of the worst kind of cronyism at a time when every available penny in city hall should be spent on hiring more police.” He’s calling on Lame to resign, and Sadiq to explain how this was allowed…
Responding to a request from the Evening Standard’s Ross Lydall, Rory Stewart has followed Sadiq Khan in publishing his tax return. It reveals he earns £21,659 from rental income, and suspiciously for someone so posh he had no investment income. Sadiq meanwhile did not supplement his £150,000 mayoral income…
Lib Dem Siobhan Benita and Tory Shaun Bailey are yet to publish their returns, though they apparently will in due course. Guido looks forward to seeing them…
