This week I attended a hustings in Wandsworth (all 2 hours of it...) featuring the four candidates vying for the opportunity to be the Conservative mayoral candidate, and ultimately Boris Johnson’s successor.
Now we know one of the four is going to be facing Sadiq Khan, and given the collapse of the Lib Dems and the lack of any UKIP presence it really will be a two horse race, it was a fascinating insight into how the four Tories plan to run London.
I might be being unfair and overly simplistic, but I felt the four’s offering could be summarised like so: Syed Kammall = Ambition, Zac Goldsmith = Confidence, Stephen Greenhalgh = Pragmatism, and Andrew Boff = Humour.
Given it was 2 hours’ worth of Q&A they obviously said a lot more than that, but those felt like the themes they kept coming back to. Zac the affluent parliamentarian exuded a relaxed confidence of someone who is used to performing on a national platform. Greenhalgh stuck to his record under Boris and in Hammersmith, and constantly seemed to be offering the in-between answers versus the other candidates. Syed Kamall hammered home his London, working class, immigrant roots. Boff was as ever the endearing pantomime.
There is no doubt that Andrew Boff and Stephen Greenhalgh’s record at City Hall are solid; and both would be worthy candidates against Sadiq Khan. But what Greenhalgh made up in realpolitik, he lost in inspiration; and what Boff gained in engaging style, he lost in credibility.
Zac and Syed were, and are, the clear contenders. And I must confess I went into the proceedings being unsure who I’d back. Zac’s public profile would serve him well against Khan, and the fact that even the Green Party’s Baroness Jones would support him goes to show his ability to reach across party lines. He repeatedly cited the fact that opposition commentators have referenced him as the biggest threat to Khan. Yet there is no doubt that his privileged background will serve as easy points for the newly energised Labour Party activists on the ground.
Not an accusation that can be levelled against Syed “son of a bus driver” Kamall (Sadiq’s father was also a bus driver). Mr Kamall certainly made significant hay of the prospect of two immigrants’ sons going head-to-head to be Mayor of the most diverse city in the world – and I have to say his enthusiasm was infectious.
Where Goldsmith talked environment, Syed would talk business, where Zac emphasised social justice, Syed talked about the streets. Both offer significant visions for London and both, though Conservatives, would be ‘independent’ voices for the city. Sadiq Khan has a fight on his hands with either of them.