Final push in race to be next London mayor

Londoners will head to the polls on 2 May

The main contenders to be the next London mayor are making their final pitch for votes ahead of Thursday's election.

Current Labour mayor Sadiq Khan is seeking a third term, promising a "fairer, safer, greener" London.

Tory challenger Susan Hall said she offered the prospect of a mayor who listened after eight years of Londoners being "ignored".

The candidates have been staging last media events.

Ms Hall has vowed to scrap the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in outer London and tackle violent crime.

She said there was "a clear choice between being ignored for another four years by Sadiq Khan, or electing a new mayor who listens".

Among 10 key pledges, Mr Khan is offering a one-year Transport for London (TfL) fare freeze and four years of free school meals for seven to 11-year-old primary pupils.

"If I have the privilege of being re-elected tomorrow, this is where my focus will be," he said.

Zoe Garbett, the Green candidate, said she had put forward a "positive" plan for London in contrast to others.

“My plan focuses on what matters most to Londoners - making our city more affordable, making the police more accountable to communities and making our city fairer," she said.

Rob Blackie said his priority if elected was make changes to the Met Police

Liberal Democrat Rob Blackie committed to reform the police, prioritising violence against women.

He said: "Time and again, Sadiq Khan has failed to deliver on promises."

'Moment of maximum opportunity'

Polling has consistently indicated that Mr Khan is comfortably on course for a third term. But some has suggested low levels of satisfaction with his mayoralty so far.

Much will depend on turnout and whether more people are motivated to vote in outer London than inner London where Mr Khan's core support has been.

Mr Khan has based his campaign around the “moment of maximum opportunity” he says would come from having a Labour mayor and Labour government working together.

But as the incumbent, he has been forced to defend a record which his opponents have repeatedly attacked.

Sadiq Khan is hoping to win a third term as mayor

With many of the key crime indicators like knife crime against him, he has been at pains to draw favourable comparisons with other parts of the UK and stress the “massive hole” needed to fill after years of Tory-led austerity.

He says he has hit government targets for affordable homes “started”, but “completions” have lagged behind those under his predecessor. He has focused particularly on one type of tenure, council homes, with a pledge for 40,000 by 2030, two years beyond the next mayoral term.

Giving free school lunches to those seven to 11-year-old primary pupils not currently entitled to them is to continue for four years at a cost of more than half a billion pounds.

He froze many TfL fares this year, but has not guaranteed doing it again.

'Listening to London'

Two key messages of Ms Hall’s campaign have been to make London safer and end the "war" on the motorist.

She has focused on tackling rising knife crime, reviving borough-based community-faced policing and increasing women’s safety. Her commitment to £200m extra for the police has come with vagueness over where the money will come from.

With a vow to reverse the expansion of Ulez, she has claimed that Mr Khan plans to introduce a new charging system for motorists.

In the face of Mr Khan’s denials – including an explicit rejection of pay-per-mile road charging in his manifesto – she has doubled down, claiming Ulez expansion was pursued after it had not been part of his published plans at the last election in 2021.

Ms Garbett has placed rent controls and cheaper public transport at the heart of her campaign along with the plan for an “honest conversation” with Londoners about the need for a fairer road-user charging.

Mr Blackie has promised to remedy the “shameful” failure to bring sexual offenders to justice and re-think stop and search for some drugs, while being the only main contender to rule out fare freezes because they are “unaffordable”.

Zoe Garbett has pledged to bring in rent controls if elected

It has been a campaign where the frontrunners barely came across each other in person.

Ms Hall and Mr Khan debated face to face three times in a broadcast studio and once at a public hustings. Neither attended around a dozen other hustings, to the anger of some of their organisers

Mr Khan’s campaign has been marked by controlled environments, and set-piece visits and speeches where he was joined by senior Labour figures.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to support and partnership but not more spending on the capital, repeated requests for which have been a feature of Mr Khan’s mayoralty.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper promised the capital up to 1,300 extra police officers, special constables or community support officers from the increase she has pledged for the country, while Shadow Energy Secretary Ed Miliband was deployed to criticise the Tory candidate over climate change.

Susan Hall has been joined on the campaign trail by senior Conservative party figures

Ms Hall has been campaigning more in public than her opponent after a hesitant start and mis-steps in early broadcast interviews.

She was also joined by senior party figures including the prime minister Rishi Sunak and party chairman Richard Holden. However, these were - like the launch of her campaign itself in Uxbridge – sessions where the details and photographs were only released to the media afterwards.

In at least some of her campaign leaflets the word “Conservative” was not prominent. Her manifesto was launched in a car repair centre in south east London.

While insisting they are in the mayoral contest to win, the Greens and Liberal Democrats have had a close eye on elections for the London Assembly – the body which scrutinises the mayor - on the same day. The Greens currently have three members and the Lib Dems two.

For the first time for this election, the ballot papers are going to be counted by hand. That process begins on Saturday and it is hoped the result will be confirmed by early evening.

However in the six previous elections it has taken much longer than expected.

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