Khan's London mayoral victory should not be seen as a storming triumph
If the Tories had put more effort into the London contest, their candidate might have given Labour's Sadiq Khan more of a fright.
Sunday 9 May 2021 07:14, UK
The first results in the election for London mayor suggested a massive upset was on the cards.
Alas for Shaun Bailey - the Tory candidate who was written off, as he acknowledged in his runner-up speech, by pollsters, bookies and the high command of his own party - the threat of a shock result didn't last long.
The results from the first four of the 14 giant constituencies across the capital had put him more than 5,000 votes ahead of Labour's Sadiq Khan, odds-on favourite to win a second term, on first preferences.
Time to dream? Maybe. But not for long.
Mr Bailey had indeed trounced Mr Khan in the Tory stronghold of Bexley and Bromley, narrowly won in Brent & Harrow, Ealing & Hillingdon and West Central and won comfortably in Havering and Redbridge.
Those early results put Mr Bailey on course to out-perform Zac Goldsmith - now installed in the House of Lords by Boris Johnson - when he stood against Mr Khan in 2016.
But the Tory Champagne - if the party's activists had even bothered to buy any - will have stayed in the fridge. And by the time the final result of the mayoral election was declared, those Conservative activists will have been crying into their beer instead.
The entirely predictable Khan comeback began with a thumping victory in the Labour stronghold of Lambeth & Southwark and North East.
Day two of the results began with Mr Khan winning comfortably in Greenwich & Lewisham, narrowly in Barnet & Camden and then comfortably again in Merton & Wandsworth and Enfield & Haringey.
Mr Bailey then won Croydon & Sutton comfortably, South West and then in the final result of the evening he lost in City & East.
As a result, Mr Khan the former Labour minister and ex-MP for the south London constituency of Tooting, was crowned as the capital's mayor, as widely predicted, and was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The final voting figures - after the second round - were 55.2% to 44.8%, slightly inferior to his winning margin of 57%-43% over Mr Goldsmith five years ago, though results for the London assembly were identical to those in 2016.
Mr Khan polled 1,013,721 first preferences, which with 192,313 second preferences added up to 1,206,034. Mr Bailey won 893,051 first preferences, which with his 84,550 second preferences gave him a total of 977,601.
The Green Party's Sian Berry was third with 197,976, the Lib Dems' Luisa Porritt fourth with 111,716. There were 20 candidates in all, including actor Laurence Fox, scourge of "wokes", who polled 47,634.
In his victory speech, which was low-key and serious and concentrated on the challenges of the pandemic, Mr Khan claimed he had won an "overwhelming mandate".
Not really. A 55%-45% victory doesn't count as overwhelming.
His victory should not be seen as a storming triumph, unlike that of "King of the North" Andy Burnham, who was earlier re-elected mayor of Greater Manchester in the first round of voting in his election with nearly 70% of the vote.
And after "Starmergeddon" - the Labour meltdown in Hartlepool and town halls across the so-called "Red Wall" this week, which prompted Sir Keir Starmer to sack his deputy Angela Rayner from her other post as party chair - it's Mr Burnham who is the party's undisputed leader in waiting, potentially poised to replace the faltering Sir Keir Starmer.
Sadiq Khan was the future once. Not any more. While Mr Burnham has been rewarded in his election for standing up to Boris Johnson and being a vocal champion for his region during the pandemic, Mr Khan's reputation has been damaged rather than enhanced during his first term as mayor.
Many Londoners cannot forgive him for the traffic chaos he has inflicted on them with road closures and cycle lanes that have created gridlock and paralysed many of the city's major arterial routes.
Declaring war on cars, motorists and "white van man" may play well with left-wing Labour activists, but it infuriates many Londoners who need a car for work or to give lifts to older family members.
While Mr Burnham took on the prime minister on COVID-19, Mr Khan was out-manoeuvred by Mr Johnson over the calamitous finances of Transport for London, leading to fare rises and spending cuts.
Mr Khan and his supporters can now enjoy a brief celebration of his victory. But Tory activists may wonder what might have been.
Instead of writing off Mr Bailey as a loser, if the Conservative Party leadership had put as much effort into the London contest as they did into the Hartlepool by-election campaign and the battleground in the "Red Wall" councils, their candidate in the capital might have given Mr Khan more of a fright.
And those early successes as the London results came in, which briefly raised Tory hopes, might have continued a little longer, slowing the Khan comeback, and made further inroads into the Labour mayor's inevitable march to re-election.