Alex Challoner is a prospective London Mayoral Candidate and Director of London Vision Network.
At last, the Conservative campaign to kick out Sadiq Khan is heating up. But, while the anger over Labour’s repeated failures in London grows, it is important to remind ourselves that this is only the beginning of a long, hard battle to win back City Hall.
Several hopefuls, including me, have launched their campaigns to be the Conservative candidate. However, CCHQ have also just announced 74 target seats for selection over the coming months, including ten in London.
Being an MP is a great privilege, but for me it is not a backup – I’m running to be the Mayor of London, and I’m running to win. I have the bold ideas that are needed to unleash London. Beating Sadiq Khan is my only focus; all my energy will go into this fight.
To merely play at wanting to be Mayor is insulting to Londoners, and to treat being an MP as some kind of consolation prize is patronising and disingenuous to ones future constituents.
The race for the Conservative nomination also needs to be a proper contest, so I am delighted that we opted not to just have some hollow coronation. A contest, where all hopefuls get to make their pitch, can only improve our chances of winning. Media attention raises profile, engaged members are more willing to campaign and testing the policy ideas put forward in the selection stages avoids them being picked apart and damaging the actual nominee at a later stage.
To win in London we need to re-energise our activist base across the capital. While we achieved solid results and significantly out-polled Reform in the Borough elections, we were still third behind Labour and the Greens. We need lively and robust debate, but more importantly we need new ideas, brave proposals and a new vision for our visibly declining capital.
That’s why I am launching a “Listen to London Campaign”. I’m taking the temperature of Londoners with a new poll asking residents what they think are the big, bold ideas to get London firing again. The policies put forward in the survey are not the only ideas to save London but they are representative of policies that might carry the Conservatives back to City Hall.
I firstly want to ask Conservative members to complete this online survey. As it is the members who are the ones who need to carry this vision for London to the rest of the capital’s residents. However, I want to make sure we win all the communities of London, so please share it with those outside the Tory family so we can find out what they want us to do for them.
I launched my campaign last week with a video on issues I think we are all motivated by. In that video I am asking Londoners how it is that young families keep getting stuck in one-bedroom flats and young professionals find themselves in unsuitable HMOs. Sadiq Khan has epically failed to build the houses that London needs. We need brave answers, big ideas and bold action.
And it is not just about housing. Yes, we need to get London building again, but we also need to make our streets and our transport system safer, and we need to create more work experience opportunities for the capital’s young people.
In my launch I talked about the urgent need to restore the rule of law on the city’s transport network. This starts with tackling fare evasion on the Underground. TfL is losing £211m a year to fare evaders because of ineffective enforcement. I’ll deploy police officers at gate lines to catch offenders and restore public confidence.
London is an amazing, beautiful city. But it is being held back by a lazy and incompetent Labour leadership that takes victory in London for granted. We need to make sure that ends in 2028.
To win again we need to rebuild and restore the Conservative brand in the capital. We also cannot lose sight of the fact that our ultimate audience is wider than just Conservatives. To win back City Hall we will need more than just the votes of Conservative members. We will need the first and second preferences of Labour, Lib-Dem and Reform voters.
We need to build a grand coalition of London voters that want to evict Sadiq Khan from a role he seems to think is his by rights. I want to wipe that smug grin off his face. We know that Reform can’t win in London. We know that the Liberal Democrats have no hope. We know that the Greens would be more divisive and damaging than four more years of Sadiq. So, we must make a big, bold offer to all voters. To do that, we need to listen to all of the capital’s micro-communities; to all of those different ‘villages’ that make up London.
We need to reach beyond the famous ‘Boris doughnut’ to corners of London where we have not traditionally campaigned, which have turned their back on us, and where we struggle even to get a hearing. But, before we demand a hearing, we must start by listening to Londoners. As a party we need to seize the moment, come together, and build a new offer for London’s voters.
Alex Challoner is a prospective London Mayoral Candidate and Director of London Vision Network.
At last, the Conservative campaign to kick out Sadiq Khan is heating up. But, while the anger over Labour’s repeated failures in London grows, it is important to remind ourselves that this is only the beginning of a long, hard battle to win back City Hall.
Several hopefuls, including me, have launched their campaigns to be the Conservative candidate. However, CCHQ have also just announced 74 target seats for selection over the coming months, including ten in London.
Being an MP is a great privilege, but for me it is not a backup – I’m running to be the Mayor of London, and I’m running to win. I have the bold ideas that are needed to unleash London. Beating Sadiq Khan is my only focus; all my energy will go into this fight.
To merely play at wanting to be Mayor is insulting to Londoners, and to treat being an MP as some kind of consolation prize is patronising and disingenuous to ones future constituents.
The race for the Conservative nomination also needs to be a proper contest, so I am delighted that we opted not to just have some hollow coronation. A contest, where all hopefuls get to make their pitch, can only improve our chances of winning. Media attention raises profile, engaged members are more willing to campaign and testing the policy ideas put forward in the selection stages avoids them being picked apart and damaging the actual nominee at a later stage.
To win in London we need to re-energise our activist base across the capital. While we achieved solid results and significantly out-polled Reform in the Borough elections, we were still third behind Labour and the Greens. We need lively and robust debate, but more importantly we need new ideas, brave proposals and a new vision for our visibly declining capital.
That’s why I am launching a “Listen to London Campaign”. I’m taking the temperature of Londoners with a new poll asking residents what they think are the big, bold ideas to get London firing again. The policies put forward in the survey are not the only ideas to save London but they are representative of policies that might carry the Conservatives back to City Hall.
I firstly want to ask Conservative members to complete this online survey. As it is the members who are the ones who need to carry this vision for London to the rest of the capital’s residents. However, I want to make sure we win all the communities of London, so please share it with those outside the Tory family so we can find out what they want us to do for them.
I launched my campaign last week with a video on issues I think we are all motivated by. In that video I am asking Londoners how it is that young families keep getting stuck in one-bedroom flats and young professionals find themselves in unsuitable HMOs. Sadiq Khan has epically failed to build the houses that London needs. We need brave answers, big ideas and bold action.
And it is not just about housing. Yes, we need to get London building again, but we also need to make our streets and our transport system safer, and we need to create more work experience opportunities for the capital’s young people.
In my launch I talked about the urgent need to restore the rule of law on the city’s transport network. This starts with tackling fare evasion on the Underground. TfL is losing £211m a year to fare evaders because of ineffective enforcement. I’ll deploy police officers at gate lines to catch offenders and restore public confidence.
London is an amazing, beautiful city. But it is being held back by a lazy and incompetent Labour leadership that takes victory in London for granted. We need to make sure that ends in 2028.
To win again we need to rebuild and restore the Conservative brand in the capital. We also cannot lose sight of the fact that our ultimate audience is wider than just Conservatives. To win back City Hall we will need more than just the votes of Conservative members. We will need the first and second preferences of Labour, Lib-Dem and Reform voters.
We need to build a grand coalition of London voters that want to evict Sadiq Khan from a role he seems to think is his by rights. I want to wipe that smug grin off his face. We know that Reform can’t win in London. We know that the Liberal Democrats have no hope. We know that the Greens would be more divisive and damaging than four more years of Sadiq. So, we must make a big, bold offer to all voters. To do that, we need to listen to all of the capital’s micro-communities; to all of those different ‘villages’ that make up London.
We need to reach beyond the famous ‘Boris doughnut’ to corners of London where we have not traditionally campaigned, which have turned their back on us, and where we struggle even to get a hearing. But, before we demand a hearing, we must start by listening to Londoners. As a party we need to seize the moment, come together, and build a new offer for London’s voters.