LONDON’S economy is on the slide but its underworld is booming.
Knife crime is up. Rapes are at record peaks. Street muggings have trebled in two years. Gang warfare and drug peddling is off the dial.
If you want more of this, vote for a third helping of Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan on May 2.
Khan is a puffed-up class warrior whose reign at City Hall has seen violent crime leap by 30 per cent.
Teenage killings rose by half last year, with 21 youngsters stabbed or shot.
For a sickening real-time glimpse of this butchery, check out YouTube’s new video of a hooded thug casually knifing his victim on a Tube ride to leafy Beckenham.
It is not too late to slam the brakes on. Other options to a dystopian future are available.
May 2 is the last chance to stop this shifty ex-human rights lawyer in his tracks.
As Mayor in charge of policing, Khan could have cut crime overnight by reviving police powers to stop-and-search.
He refused on the grounds of “racism” — despite evidence that the capital’s black community is the biggest loser.
Before she was sacked by Khan two years ago, Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said: “You are four times more likely to be a victim of homicide if you are black and eight times more likely to be a perpetrator.”
The Mayor, a solicitor with delusions of grandeur, will have none of this.
He thinks the answer is to plaster buses and trains with posters deploring “bullying”.
With sex pests infesting the London Tube his hilarious solution is for passengers to step in and whisper: “Maaate.”
Infuriated motorists
Khan is Britain’s most powerful elected Labour figure yet it is impossible to identify a single achievement in two terms.
He has a record of broken promises on housing and police numbers while splurging taxpayers’ cash on City Hall with diversity tsars on six-figure salaries.
Deluded by an apparent resemblance to film legend George Clooney, he wallows in the perks of office, jetting first class around the world while lecturing Londoners on net zero.
Khan hates motorists with a vengeance, yet swans around town in his taxpayer-funded, chauffeur-driven, armour-plated £300,000 luxury Range Rover.
A peerless hypocrite, he has infuriated motorists who have no choice but to drive into London and pay rip-off charges and penalties for breaching rules in the Ultra Low Emission Zones.
The Congestion Charge, at £15 a day, plus penalty fines, raised £230million last year.
Ulez fees of £12.50 may have no impact on emissions but they too raise huge revenues, £224million in 2022, for Mayor Khan to squander.
White van tradesmen and women who struggle to put food on the table have to fork out up to £27.50 a day before they earn a penny.
Anger over these rip-offs, along with fear of being knifed or raped on the way home, have provoked a fierce backlash.
To the dismay of Labour chiefs at Westminster protesters across London have risen up and smashed or set fire to Ulez cameras and sprayed them with paint.
May 2 has since become a tighter race than national polls might suggest.
The “other option” I mentioned at the start is Tory candidate Susan Hall.
Tories are unpopular and Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer is nailed on as the next Prime Minister.
But half of London voters rate Khan as a “failure” on knife crime, gangs and homelessness.
‘Anyone but Khan’
Taxi drivers foam at the mouth at the very mention of his name.
And “Anyone but Khan” has become a slogan.
This time, a low turnout and a switch away from the incumbent would raise Susan Hall’s chances of a shock victory.
Voters might back Starmer in the general election yet still dish out a kicking for Khan.
As one voter reportedly told a Tory door-stepper: “I’m going to smash your party in the general, but I’ll back you in the mayoral to get that man out.”
We just need all those cabbies, White Van drivers and caring black families to do the same on May 2.
FOREIGN Secretary David Cameron and American President Joe Biden are effectively calling for an Israeli surrender after the “friendly fire” deaths of seven aid workers.
Both men, at various times in their careers, were at or near the helm when far worse wartime blunders took place on their watch. They did not stop the shooting.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has questions to answer. But Hamas alone holds the key to any sort of peace.
These hostage-grabbing savages simply need to answer Israel’s plea to “Let our people go”.
