There’s a gold medal waiting to be given out in London in 2012. It’ll go to the politician with the stamina and talent to pass a two year challenge – to persuade millions of people they can lead a big, bold city in an exciting new direction.
I think I can do just that, but if I have the energy for the race, it is only because I am reflecting our wonderful capital city. The nation’s metropolis is a centre of trade and commerce, it rejoices in innovation and artistic talent, it has brilliant shopping centres from Brent Cross to Bromley, and it is home to some of the finest football teams (and warmest small clubs) in the land.
We know London is a vast complex City: we like to think of London as the home of Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, the London Eye – and the inner cities from Kensington to Greenwich. But London runs from Uxbridge to Upminster – and it is these areas that a Labour candidate has to win back in 2012. After all there are 4.4 million people who live in outer London, and only 2.8 million who inhabit the inner core.
Yet, we all know London is a place of stress too. Parents see less of their kids because they need to work to pay the mortgage or the rent. Londoners worry about crime. They worry about neglected kids, and how those kids are in danger of becoming the criminals of tomorrow. And they know communities are not as strong as they should be.
I’m going to set out to make things fairer. Let’s start with housing. Give people a decent home and you give them dignity. Their children flourish. I believe that housing is as important a “public service” as schools and hospitals, yet when we used the term “public service” we often only mean the latter two.
London needs affordable housing. I want to bring back the requirement that 50 per cent of new build homes are affordable. I plan to introduce a register of private sector landlords, voluntary to begin with, requiring them to meet standards. I’ll be setting out policy for more co-operatively owned homes too.
If we want a safer London then prevention has to be better than cure. It’s to nobody’s advantage to forget about the worst off kids. If they grow up to become muggers it sure is our business then. People who struggle as parents must get support to make sure they are skilled to raise their kids better. So I want to remove the stigma on parental lessons – and be prepared to use anti-social behaviour orders from an early stage to correct bad behaviour. And I shall introduce a career mentoring scheme across London, open to all.
I’ve seen plenty of bad housing. And, boy, does bad housing bring other issues too – kids with health problems, parents with low self-esteem, an air of despondency. But on some of the worst estates people have turned their lives around. I want people to have a say. Give them some encouragement and what do you see? Some women I worked with set up their own fresh food co-op, giving their kids a healthier diet. Some brought employment advice clinics onto the doorstep. So for them it was not about benefit culture but a better life culture.
I know we need more jobs and better pay. I plan to work with the London Development Agency to bring more and better jobs to our local communities with particular and immediate emphasis on the opportunities offered by the Olympics, and I support the campaign for a living wage in London. It is ridiculous that some people work long hours and hardly have enough spare cash to get the tube home.
London needs better transport. I’ll be promising better night bus services to outer London. If you live 10 or 15 miles out you have just as much a right to an easy bus ride home late at night as those living in zones one or two. And I want to make cycling easier, with bike lane superhighways and a quadrupling of parking places for bikes.
The school run causes 20 per cent of London’s congestion. We need a school bus system across the city. This is something I will make happen. Forget about the old arguments about the bendy bus and the Routemaster. The future is school buses. And I shall be the Mayor to deliver them.
I will be travelling to every corner of this city to talk to Londoners about my ideas and their aspirations for their area and our city. My campaign is a conversation about London’s future: new ideas, new vision, not a tired, rehearsed old policy prescription. Every week from now until this selection is over, I will be launching the different policy ideas which I aim to take to City Hall.
My plan, though, is simple: with me as Mayor we will have a mayor for all of London – a London of aspiration and liberation just in time for the Olympics.l
