London Assembly and Mayoral elections 5th May 2016

From LOB:

Our final recommendation for Thursday’s Mayoral vote is:

1. Siân Berry (Green Party)

2. Sadiq Khan (Labour)

We have delayed releasing our recommendation for the best candidates to vote for in the London elections until after we had received a report from two of our members who attended the Cycling Hustings held last Friday.

We also recommend that you vote Green on your orange ballot for the London Assembly

Our reasons for these recommendations are relatively straightforward. Siân Berry has the best policies for cycling of any of the candidates for Mayor and it is important to support these with our votes. However, because Siân Berry has very little chance of winning the election for Mayor, we recommend Labour's Sadiq Khan as our preferred choice over the only other likely winner on May 5th: Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith.

The reason for this order has got to do with the specifics of the voting system for the mayor: the second vote is the one that’s going to influence the outcome, so needs to be between Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith.

Caroline Pidgeon has been a very close contender for the best cycling choice overall. We have been very impressed by her policies and commitment to making London bike-friendly. But the voting system here makes the tactical choice clear - we cannot recommend her for a place on the ballot because the first place is the “vote from the heart”, which Sian wins, and the second place, the "vote to avoid what you fear", is between Sadiq and Zac.

We have been disappointed by Zac’s public statements on transport and air pollution, with a lot of talk about electric cars (he even suggested that buses could be replaced by electric cars), but no commitment to ban diesels from London. He has failed to convince us that he is committed to building a city fit for people to live in.

It has been a disappointment to see a politician who was once editor of The Ecologist offer no coherent vision for a London designed around people. Goldsmith has made statements in favour of free car parking and publicly promised to review and revise Transport for London's consultation on a new cycle route through Regent's Park, even though the results was overwhelmingly in favour. He also suggested that newly built bicycle infrastructure schemes could be ripped out if not used. In short, he doesn't appear to care about the bike vote, apart from complaining that he was being “hounded” and “torn apart” by bicycle advocates.

Sadiq Khan is not our ideal candidate for Mayor. We were alarmed to hear him talking about “narrowing” cycle lanes during the campaign. However, we do not believe that Goldsmith will continue the cycling revolution which is only starting to roll out onto our city’s streets; a failure to select Sadiq Khan as a second preference might allow Zac Goldsmith in, which we fear would apply the brakes, and, worse, reverse the direction London is beginning to travel in.

This is not a partisan choice - we are very grateful to the outgoing Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson, for starting London’s cycling revolution, in the face of co-ordinated & very hostile opposition. We suspect, however, that Boris has done much more for cycling than many in his party are happy with. Goldsmith's refusal to endorse the majority of the outgoing Mayor’s ‘Vision For Human Streets’ seems to support our suspicions.

This is why votes for the Green Party on the London List Assembly ballot (the orange paper) is important - we need strong voices for good transport policy in the Assembly; we need to make the next Mayor, whoever it is, understand how much better our city could be if anyone aged eight to eighty was able to cycle safely and in comfort. The Green Party clearly has policies that will make London a city designed around people.

There’s also a ballot for your constituency member for the London Assembly. We haven’t had the resources to do any research on individual Assembly candidates and their policies. So this one is up to you. You could, naturally, write to your constituency candidates directly and ask them about their bike (and other) policies.

The Mayoral campaign has shown Londoners On Bikes that we must not take anything for granted. Great steps forward have been made, but there is a very real risk of backsliding unless the Mayor genuinely understands what needs to be done to make bicycles a real, not marginal, part of London’s transport infrastructure - our work will not end on May 5th.

After the election, a key decision for whoever is Mayor will be whether to retain Andrew Gilligan as Cycling Commissioner (or Cycling & Walking Commissioner as some of the candidates, and Gilligan himself, have suggested), and, if not, who should replace him. We believe that Andrew Gilligan should be retained.

However, given Gilligan’s history with senior figures in the Labour Party (the ‘dodgy dossier’ affair, and his later work for the Standard during the 2008 Mayoral election campaign), we think it is highly unlikely that Sadiq Khan will retain him, if elected. Therefore, we think it is important that Londoners On Bikes lobby hard for a suitable candidate after the election.

The obvious choice is Christian Wolmar, given his expertise and public statements in recent weeks for the Mayor to be brave and push through major cycling infrastructure projects. Another option is Chris Boardman, who has become a powerful advocate for cycling, and has experience of managing teams and projects.

Looking to the future, at all the work still to be done, once again, our final May 5th recommendation is a vote for 1. Siân Berry (Green) and 2. Sadiq Khan (Labour) & vote for the Green Party on the orange Assembly ballot.

Happy voting from all the LOB team. We'll be back in touch with you after the election to decide what LOB does next.

How depressing.