London Assembly and Mayoral elections 5th May 2016

We don't seem to have a thread on this yet.

Plenty of skirmishes already taking place--the latest being the income and tax revelations:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/sadiq-khan-reveals-earnings-as-he-publishes-tax-return-a3187896.html
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/zac-goldsmith-reveals-10m-earningsand-4m-tax-bill-a3186086.html

Don't forget that there are also elections to the London Assembly taking place at the same time. While the Assembly has very little power, it does have the power to pass or reject the Mayor's budget and performs scrutiny functions (the latter rather anaemic).

This is the official election web-site:

http://www.londonelects.org.uk/

(There is an annoying non-functional parked URL at londonelects.org.)

Elections to the offices of Mayor of London and members of the London Assembly will be held on the 5th May, 2016.

Make sure that you register to vote before the 18th April 2016 if you live in Greater London:

http://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/how-register-vote

This thread is surprisingly quiet. Caroline Pidgeon's (Lib Dem) latest flyer says she'll introduce a peak-hour HGV ban. Any cycling-related pledges for the other candidates that anyone knows of?

Zac Goldsmith has been less than convincing re: cycling. He seems to be of the view that electric cars are the solution to London's transport problems with a hire car scheme and allowing them in bus lanes, which will soon be pointless.

"I can't see any reason in the short term as a perk, an incentive to get people to buy electric cars, this [allowing electric cars into bus lanes] shouldn't happen."

"I think that if I am right and I am absolutely convinced I am, that we are going to see a massive shift in the type of cars people own, then within two or three years there will be no point having bus lanes because everybody is going to be driving these things around."

Regardless of the cycling issues, the idea that everyone will be able to afford an electric car in the next few years seems incredibly out of touch.

Add to that of course how bad the congestion will be if everyone drives their electric car rather than take the bus

Anyone who thinks self driving cars is the solution to solving congestion in cities is living in cloud cuckoo land.

But that is where Zac Goldsmith is from isn't it?

Well, he's never had to drive a car for himself, he probably thinks everyone else should have chauffeurs too.

Anyone who thinks self driving cars is the solution to solving congestion in cities is living in cloud cuckoo land.

But that is where Zac Goldsmith is from isn't it?

I was hoping that he wasn't a stereotypical Tory (he does seem to be quite a popular constituency MP at least), but then he got a dressing down from a charity for which he is patron because he voted for removing PIP.

i'm voting out
we, the people of newham, don't need these close ties with london, i'm sure we can negotiate trade deals with the good burgers of essex and hertfordshire in due course

Well, you were be in Essex until the GLC was formed. However , that also meant that the pubs shut at 10.30 and not 11pm .

A somewhat embarrassing moment for Zac Goldsmith:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/05/zac-goldsmith-fails-quiz-london-football-teams-tube-stations

Anyone who thinks self driving cars is the solution to solving congestion in cities is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Correct. In fact, they would make it worse.

To be fair half the plastics in the football thread would get that question wrong.

Sadiq Khan talking about cycle lanes

"You don't have to have lanes as wide as we do"
"You don't need to have permanent obstructions in the road"
"We have to learn the lessons to make sure cars flow smoother"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZT8ebFVtUo&feature=youtu.be
49 minutes in

It doesn't look like whoever gets in will be particularly good for cycling.

As always the question "What should we do with regard to cycle lanes?" acts as a handy one-item IQ test.

I happen to agree that some of the new cycle lanes are unnecessarily wide. The one from elephant to Waterloo is daft. No way it needs to be that big. It's totally snarled up the traffic back to Elephant and beyond out onto the Old Kent rd since it was put in, hardly anyone uses it and those who do have to dice with death getting from outside the right hand lane to the left (crossing three lanes of fast traffic) in order to go straight on at the junction with Lambeth Rd. https://goo.gl/maps/ZNm7RgKjEys

Anyway. Vote Copley. Tom's a fucking dude on pretty much every issue and regularly holds Boris to account.

Plus he's a mate and crazy fun to get pissed with.

Is he standing again, though? He's not on this list:

https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/who-vote/constituency-london-assembly-member-candidates

He's the London-wide Labour candidate.

https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/who-vote/london-wide-assembly-member-candidates

D'oh--completely forgot about that one. :)

Urgh. Have just been reminded Britain First and UKIP exist.

Do QPR have 'plastic' fans? Hardly a glory hunter's team.

http://lcc.org.uk/pages/2016-mayoral-election
http://lcc.org.uk/pages/2016-mayoral-candidates

Errrr, u wot?

I think even most QPR fans would be able to identify their own ground. Don't see many of them in the football thread though.

Zac? More like Sack (of shite)!!! Isn;t it!

One of our clients employs a T**y councillor as a consultant, he's also on Z*c's team and true to form he's an absolute raging bell