A week’s always been a long time in politics, and last week was no different. Whilst Westminster was full of surprises, City Hall was just more of the same.
Soon after Sadiq Khan crossed the finish line, with me at his heels, he signed off on a round of pay rises for his staff, including a bump for his ‘Night Tzar’ Amy Lame.
That week, he spoke quite a lot and looked very sincere, but he didn’t seem to have done anything of note. Cynics may suggest he’s gotten his priorities all wrong.
But overseeing the destruction of London's nightlife has got to be hard work, so maybe Amy earned the raise?
Sadiq Khan was re-elected as Mayor of London earlier this month for a historic third term
PA
This week, I was asked what I would have done differently.
I can say for certain that I would have been reviewing the substantial cheque Lame gets, for starters.
My focus would have been on the issues that truly matter to Londoners, not personal gains.
I would have been getting on with the job and getting on with the basics the mayor is responsible for. Like ending Sadiq Khan's ‘War on the Motorist’.
That would have meant eliminating 20mph speed limits on TfL main roads, which, for starters, brought London to a complete gridlock.
Throughout my campaign, I heard countless stories of appointments missed and family gatherings delayed as Londoners found themselves gridlocked in traffic of the Mayor's making.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to slap a 20 mph limit on the Finchley Road, for starters, clearly shouldn’t be allowed near City Hall.
It was an exercise in orchestrated madness, a half-baked attempt to make the roads safer that backfired, causing 24/7 gridlock on one of the most important roads through London.
The Mayor could do away with it at the stroke of a pen, but instead, he chooses to do nothing.
And then there was the Ulez expansion, which would have been removed on day one. Just one way in which the Mayor was fleecing Londoners. Sadiq also backs similar cash-grabbing tactics by town hall officials by compelling them to implement Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods or LTNs.
Enforced with strict fines, these schemes act as honeypots for local councils, often placed in areas where they can generate the most income.
Those who suggest they are about safety and congestion are not being fully open with you.
They are placed in areas to hoover up fines, often redirecting traffic through less affluent areas and worsening pollution on those roads.
Sadiq Khan continues to espouse the supposed merits of these schemes. I would not have done so.
Tax traps should be avoided, and harsh schemes that foist more costs onto Londoners should be scrapped.
Finally, I would have done away with dangerous ‘floating bus stops’.
If you are fortunate enough not to have had to navigate one of these yet, a floating bus stop is a stop located at mid-point in the road. It allows passengers to get on and off a bus and also accommodates a cycle lane, meaning passengers often have to walk through a cycle lane to get to the stop.
Dodging cyclists whilst diving for your nearest bus is tough enough, and the number of dangerous collisions on these floating bus stops each year speaks for itself.
But it was through listening to the representations from the National Federation of the Blind UK (NFBUK) that I realised how urgent these dangerous and inaccessible stop designs were.
It is a travesty that the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has not ordered all of them removed.
But his inaction isn’t something that surprises me anymore.
For years, I’ve sat through Mayor's Questions (as an assembly member) and watched as Sadiq dismissed issue after issue.
And he’ll continue to do so.
Within days of securing a third term, he was prancing over a bridge in a nearly fluorescent green suit to pose for the cameras and proceed to speak a lot and say very little.
That approach has become the maxim for his regime in City Hall.
But already, a larger threat looms on the horizon.
Within days of Sadiq's win, Sir Keir Starmer lauded London as a blueprint for a possible Labour government.
And when their reckless race to decarbonisation comes with an unfunded cost of £28 billion, I fear they’ll try to plug this gap by rolling out the Ulez cash cow nationwide. It's already making Sadiq Khans City Hall hundreds of millions.
I worry that Labour, should they be handed the keys to Number 10, may see your car as an ATM, much in the way Starmer pal, Sadiq Khan, already does.
It’s something we must stand against, and whilst Sadiq Khan continues to bung our cash to his mates in the form of pay rises to the undeserving, the lowest earners in London continue to suffer the cost of Khan.
Susan Hall is a member of the London Assembly and stood for Mayor of London for the Conservative Party in May this year.
