On Sadiq Khan’s watch, violent crime has spiralled out of control, and instead of using his considerable budget to keep London safe, he has pleaded poverty.
As Mayor, Khan is responsible for the Metropolitan Police and has an £18.5 billion budget at his disposal. If the Mayor chose to, he could have funded thousands more police officers to tackle London’s crime epidemic, but instead, he’s wasted millions on spin, perks and bureaucrats.
We’ve unveiled a fully-costed plan to slash Sadiq Khan’s waste, cut your council tax, and create a new £104 million Violent Crime Emergency Fund – that’s enough to fund 1,596 police officers. But instead of backing our plan, Sadiq Khan has chosen to continue to waste millions.
As Mayor, Sadiq Khan has chosen to:
1) Nearly doubled the cost of City Hall
Sadiq Khan has splashed nearly £30 million on extra City Hall bureaucrats despite having few extra powers. The whopping 82% increase in City Hall’s staffing budget could have paid for nearly 500 police officers alone.
Londoners are now paying £65.5 million for Sadiq Khan’s bloated bureaucracy compared to Boris Johnson’s City Hall which only cost taxpayers £36 million.
2) Splash an extra million on his mayoral office
The Mayor’s staff hiring spree didn’t stop at City Hall bureaucrats. He also chose to spend an extra £1,349,000 on his own team.
3) Increase press office spending by 26%
To ensure the Mayor never misses a PR opportunity, Khan wisely chose to spend an extra £200k on his press team.
4) Subsidise striking transport trade unions
After breaking his promise that there would be zero strikes if he was elected Mayor, Sadiq Khan decided to keep the transport trade unions happy by sending millions more their way.
The cost of so-called facility time – Transport for London staff working for trade unions on the taxpayers’ purse – has soared to a huge £7.9 million. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the strikes…
5) Waste a record amount on TfL perks
Sadiq Khan has chosen to waste a record £44 million on a Transport for London staff perk that lets housemates travel free. The perk “nominee passes” allows current and retired TfL staff to nominate a member of their household – even a lodger – for free travel on the Tube, bus, London Overground, and DLR network.
The cost of this wasteful perk has nearly doubled on Sadiq Khan’s watch. If scrapped, it could pay for more than 700 extra police officers.
6) Nearly doubled the culture budget
The Mayor has chosen to spend millions more on cultural festivals. It reached a peak in 2018 when Khan nearly doubled the budget to an enormous £21.7 million. His allies claim that culture spending cuts crime, but it’s hard to see how bicycle ballets, bat lectures, and drag acts get knives off the streets.
Khan should reduce the culture budget back to 2016 levels and use the savings to pay for an extra 121 police officers.
7) Millions more on external affairs
Sadiq Khan found an extra £3.3 million to splash on City Hall PR to promote his work as Mayor of London. For the cost of 56 police officers, Londoners now receive more tweets than ever from the Mayor. #WIN
8) Lost millions on junk food ban
The Mayor has lost Londoners an estimated £13 million after banning junk food adverts from the London Underground. The ban has failed to remove junk food adverts from McDonald’s, Just Eat, and Deliveroo, but has successfully removed an image of strawberries and cream from a TfL poster.
This is just the tip of Sadiq Khan’s waste iceberg. Read the 10 ridiculous ways Sadiq Khan has wasted your money.
The weasel is a crook and should be tried for robbing the good people of LONDON now