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With Labour 20 points ahead in the national polls, a lot of Tories have already written off next month’s mayoral contest in the capital. London, they maintain, is a Labour city that occasionally votes Conservative. But supporters of Sadiq Khan and his Tory challenger Susan Hall agree: it’s going to be closer than many think.
The mayor’s image is as likely to be found on Conservative
leaflets as on Labour ones
Three factors are held by both camps to be at play. The first is the incumbency factor versus ‘time for a change’. Khan’s re-election team has consulted other campaigns which won three in a row; all agreed this was the hardest contest to win. A hat-trick eluded Ken Livingstone, who lost in 2008 despite nearly a decade of prosperity for the city.
Khan boasts a less impressive record. Half the capital’s residents say in polls that he has performed ‘badly’ or ‘very badly’ on knife crime, gangs and homelessness since 2016.
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