Today Sarah Olney MP officially launched her bid to become the Liberal Democrat candidate in the London Mayoral election, which will take place in May 2028.
In her campaign to be selected as the candidate she stated that these are her priorities for London:
- Making London the most business-friendly city in the world: By harnessing the power of London’s unparalleled business community and creating a Deputy Mayor for Business, elected by a consortium of business leaders based in London.
- Improving the quality of London’s housing: Empowering renters, landlords and developers to raise housing standards; to boost energy efficiency, tackle mould & damp and guarantee accessibility.
- Building more homes across London: Challenging Khan’s self-admitted failure on housing, by building more homes for the communities that need them, including through community-led housing, estate regeneration, and reviewing affordability and fast track requirements to bring in sustainable investment.
- Connecting London with improved transport links: Halting cuts to bus services and tackling delays, while bringing all river crossings under a single strategic authority so vital arteries like Hammersmith Bridge are never again left to fall into disrepair and that important links like Canary Wharf-Rotherhithe crossing are delivered.
- A safer city for all: Reversing the closure of police station front counters and putting victims back at the centre of policing culture, with a prompt, transparent and accountable process for every Londoner who reports a crime or antisocial behaviour.
Website: www.sarah4london.com/
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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12 Comments
Does that mean a parliamentary by-election ?
David Raw – yes, it would trigger a Parliamentary by-election if she won as Mayor. Selection itself would not require it.
Simon Hughes was an MP when he stood. He got our best result.
Good luck Sarah. I wish you every success in your campaign.
Excellent and a good speaker. Highly admired in Richmond and would certainly get my vote
I guess it’s better to run an MP than someone with no profile but she’s not exactly our most Charismatic or inspiring option. Surely Bobby Dean would be a more Ideal choice?
David, given the last few years, I don’t think we can assert that charisma (Johnson) or attempts to force charisma (Starmer) are necessarily desirable qualities without oomph to back them up (not that that’s what I think are saying). I’ll be interested to see who else goes for our candidacy, but I think Sarah’s a substantial figure, a liberal soldier from the hard days, and a proper person who hasn’t been in politics forever. This is a good start, but just on principle I hope there is a contest.
Good on Sarah for doing this. Stepping forward for a London contest that will be fought hard between Labour and the Conservatives is exactly the kind of move we need more of. Business is the natural place for her to start, but the bigger point is the direction: a Lib Dem message for the inner cities, on the economy, housing and getting around, built on our values. That opens a debate we have avoided for too long, and if we get it right it sharpens our offer for cities in 2029 as well as 2028. A fair shot, and worth backing.
Its good to see an MP standing but I don’t see this Manifesto winning over many Young or Ethnic Minority Voters, it sounds to me to be aimed squarely at comfortable, ex-conservative Voters in South-West London suburbia. This isn’t going to be much help to our campaigns in Lambeth or Southwark for example.
@Paul Barker: that’s too sweeping, Paul. One of her main focuses is on increasing housing and social housing supply. That is a pressing young person’s issue in London.
I don’t get your point. Starmer’s problem was that he had no charisma or any broader understanding of how to be popular.
Boris Johnson managed to deliver the best result the Tories had had in decades, his problems came from how he governed, which obviously isn’t relevant in an election that we can’t actually win.
The Job of a lib dem London mayoral candidate is to raise our visibility, get more people voting for us and hopefully have a down allot effect on the assembly list vote.
If we actually wanted to win we’d need a candidate that could build a time machine and use it to stop the coalition. Or at least travel back to early 2024 at the latest and somehow persuade our leader and chief exec to adopt the policies, messaging and Comms strategies that would be needed for us to win over all of the voters that have moved over to the Greens in our timeline.
By this point even if the entire party did everything perfectly, the best we could realistically achieve is 3rd place, and even that would only be achievable with an especially charismatic and telegenic candidate.
It’s good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, but some quite expensive policies and no indication of how any of it can be paid for. And what on Earth does ‘Empowering renters, landlords and developers to raise housing standards‘ mean? That makes no logical sense for renters and would only make sense for landlords and developers if something under the Mayor’s control was actually preventing them from raising standards today – which as far as I can tell isn’t the case.
On the good side, the emphasis on housing, transport, and policing is welcome, since those are the key isses for most Londoners.