Londoners - why don't people like Sadiq Khan?

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

I think he's alright. Certainly an improvement on the previous incumbent!

Can the issues with the congestion charge and removal of free travel for under 18s be laid firmly at his door? If so, how?

Otherwise, I see all these casual references to Sadiq Khan being single handedly responsible for the increase in knife crime and all sorts of other accusations.

Please spell it out for me if you think he is a poor Mayor ... how and why?

@TheYellowOfTheEgg

He also chants the TWAW line without thinking about its impact on women.

He gets told often enough! What was it he did for IWD again...?

I’m a brown skinned Muslim and I despise the man. It’s all very well saying you can’t blame him for this & that but nobody here has actually stated anything that he has actually achieved. I don’t think there is anything apart from destroying the road network with ill thought out plans. Increasing traffic. Destroying the high street. He has 126 TFL officers earning £100,000 pa, positions that aren’t essential and didn’t exist before he landed at city hall. Broken promises on affordable homes. Defunded the police to the tune of £25m. Spent a fortune on PR for himself and TFL. The man is a complete and utter failure and whoever voted him back in cut their noses to spite their face. Brexit is bad enough for london but he will be the final nail in its coffin.

@RudeAF

I don’t mind him. I never see any suggestions as to what exactly he can or should do about knife crime etc. Just that he should do “something” and “be tough”. And I do think it was time something was done about fully free travel for under 18s tbh - travel to school should be based on means and distance like everywhere else in the country. Buses are packed out with kids going two or three stops at start and finish times because it’s free, meaning people with longer journeys struggle to get on. I lived in a fairly nice area of NW London with 3 schools close together and the police had to attend the bus stop opposite every afternoon to supervise the kids waiting and boarding which is just ridiculous and unfair on residents.

The weight of an average school backpack now is ridiculous. Add sports bags and musical instruments and if a Year 7 slips over, they are as helpless as an upended turtle. They need public transport to get up hills, travel significant distances and get home without sustaining back and shoulder problems. Sadiq Khan isn't responsible for the weight of textbooks and PE kit, nor for the Parental Choice that sends kids miles to get to schools of their choosing or not of their choosing if they were unlucky in the allocations.

With the number of children in London, it's cheaper to provide free transport than set up and operate - or pay Capita - to assess travel fees. It also means they have accurate monitoring of travel patterns and can use this not just for planning, but for police work, too - which is useful in tracking gang related activity, for example.

He's not responsible for the TfL cuts following Covid. He's not responsible for the police cuts. He's not responsible for garden bridges or the introduction of the congestion charge.