The stage is set for
Sadiq Khan to make history on 2 May as the first person to win three terms as mayor of
London . But, with eight years of power already under his belt, his lead over his Conservative rival for the
Job, Susan Hall , might not be as strong as it first appears . Mr Khan isn’t shy about stating the risk he faces when London goes to the polls and has repeatedly downplayed his chances in recent interviews. A source close to the mayor reinforced that impression this week when he told i that he was “under no illusion that this is a contest he could lose”. This might seem a strange position for Mr Khan to take, with recent polling by Savanta showing that he was leading Ms Hall by 51 per cent to her 27 per cent – a gap which Savanta’s political research director, Chris Hopkins, said suggested the contest should be a “cakewalk” for him. “I would be absolutely amazed if Sadiq Khan doesn’t win the mayoral election,” he said. “It would be a polling disaster across the board if he doesn’t win.” But experts and pollsters, however, do acknowledge that Mr Khan faces his toughest
election yet thanks to a double whammy of electoral changes and new voter ID rules . The first thorn in Mr Khan’s side is that, following the 2021 mayoral elections, the government announced that all future direct mayoral
elections would be held under the first-past-the-post system – the same used in parliamentary elections – due to “voter confusion” over the previous supplementary vote method. Read Next Tory attack ad claiming London is crime capital of the world, fact-checked Previously, voters would tick their first and second preference for London mayor on the ballot paper. If no candidate got over 50 per cent in the first preference votes, the second preferences were counted and whoever had the biggest share was the winner. First-past-the-post is far simpler – voters pick one candidate and whoever gets the most votes wins. The 2021 results make it clear why this new system is a worry for Mr Khan. In the first round of votes, his lead over Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey was just 4.7 percentage points. It only rose to 10.4 points once second preferences were taken into account. Then come the new voter ID requirements brought in by the government in 2022. Internal
Labour Party calculations, seen by i , show that over 900,000 Londoners don’t have the necessary photo ID to vote, a large proportion of which are key Labour cohorts. The party predicts that their voter share would have been five percentage points lower if these rules had been in place in 2021. So it would have wiped out Mr Khan’s lead over Mr Bailey and if there were no second preferences counting then that would have been that – Labour would have lost. Multiple sources also point out that, in the run-up to the 2021 mayoral elections, polls showed that Mr Khan has a similar lead over Mr Bailey to the one he currently has over Ms Hall – of around 20 points. But there is no certainty over how much these changes will hinder or help Mr Khan win his third term, according to Mr Hopkins. While first-past-the-post could make it tighter for the mayor, it also removes the possibility of Ms Hall winning the election on second preference votes if things go to the wire. It also increases the likelihood that people might decide to vote tactically now that the voters can only pick one option on the ballot sheet. “I think there are two schools of thought,” said Mr Hopkins. “One that it will hurt him, one that it will benefit him – and they may end up cancelling each other out.” Being the incumbent for the second time also poses a challenge for the mayor. Polling by Savanta for Centre for London, published last week, suggested that London voters were split down the middle when asked about his performance, with 38 per cent satisfied and 37 per cent dissatisfied. It’s this low popularity that the Conservatives hope to capitalise on when London goes to the polls in May. “It’s not really about Labour or Conservative, it’s about Sadiq Khan,” one Tory activist, who has campaigned at every mayoral election since 2008, told i . “You can knock on the door of someone who’s marked previously as a Green or Labour or Lib Dem and when you mention Sadiq Khan, their faces change. Nine times out of 10 people’s faces turn to anger.” Read Next Why Labour is panicking that Sadiq Khan will lose London He continued: “I think people are going to put party politics aside when they go to vote. I think they’re going to think about what’s at stake. In many ways, the result is going to be a verdict exclusively on Sadiq.” The activist added that the main issues raised on the doorstep were “crime, not being listened to and, in the outer boroughs, Ulez ”, while the Savanta polling also showed dissatisfaction over the availability of housing in London. But, according to Tony Travers, visiting professor at LSE’s department of government, these issues might not be enough to turn the dial in favour of the Conservatives. “It would be a spectacular shock for Labour and a spectacular shock to the Conservatives if Susan Hall won,” the expert in London politics told i . “There’ll be people who vote Susan hold because they just don’t want Labour to win. But, everything points to Sadiq Khan winning, though by nothing like the gap the polls currently show.” One of the biggest things Mr Khan has in his favour, Professor Travers added, was that Susan Hall is “not the most competitive candidate that the Conservatives could have come up with if they really wanted to win”. A backbench Tory MP was even less complimentary about her candidacy. “She’s absolutely abysmal. We’ve got no hope which means another four years of Sadiq Khan,” they told i . “And where is she? We hardly hear from her and the election is only a few months away. It’s like CCHQ has given up already.” He suggested that the Conservative Party had “stitched up” the original mayoral election because they wanted former adviser Dan Korski, who later had to drop out of the race following a
Sexual Assault allegation . But, despite the poor polling, the Tory activist told i that he “believes she can do it” as there was a “really strong desire for change” in London. “As an activist, I’m more motivated than I’ve ever been to go out and fight for Susan because I think she’d be a very good mayor, and I think London is in a very bad place because of Sadiq. I’ve never felt more motivated and every activist I speak to in London is exactly the same,” he said. A source close to Ms Hall said: “Londoners are tired of being ignored by Sadiq Khan. Susan’s campaign is about getting the basics right – more
police on the beat, sorting out crime, ensuring
Women feel safe in our city, scrapping the Ulez expansion and building more affordable family homes. “She’s listening to Londoners, and it’ll be Londoners that make their voices heard at the ballot box.”