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Here's a picture of a troll on a fishing trip. Next!

Quite extraordinary that even after the tragic events of last week you're still bitching about the fact that London's mayor requires 24/7 security and sometimes, on police advice, has to go further afield to take exercise than he would like. You're not being inflammatory so much as very stupid.

Nigel Garage wrote:

Or the fact that rather than tackle the issue, Sadiq's pet project this week is to allocate £25,000 grants to "decolonise London road names". That'll teach the blighters!

You don't think it's possible that those are simply two completely separate issues and action on one does not signify lack of action on the other?

No?

Ok, let's take your advice and only ever allow any level of government to work on one single issue at a time, only moving on to the next when it's completely solved. That sounds like a very clever idea, I'm sure it'll work wonderfully.

TfL, under Khan, gave Camden Council (who are responsible for the Holborn Gyratory, not TfL) £2.9M to improve the gyratory over two years ago. They have yet to do so, citing the pandemic. Earlier plans to improve the junction were spiked under Boris Johnson's mayoralty, odd that you're not blaming him for the four out of seven deaths that have occurred there since 2008 that happened under his tenure. Khan and TfL have done their duty, the blame for the lack of improvement lies squarely at the door of Camden Council.

Nigel Garage wrote:

I'm afraid when he dismisses stabbings and lawlessness as "the human cost of austerity" while simultaneously doling out cash to change the names of street signs, I can comment on the hypocrisy and lack of priorities.

Im not sure what I was expecting but the ignorance is quite staggering. Since Khan is opposed to austerity, when he say something is the cost of it, that is the opposite of a dismissal. The majority of Met police funding comes from the government. When the Tory powers that be drastically cut funding, London council tax payers can't make up that entire shortfall, despite the fact that Khan has significantly increased the funding that London itself supplies. How many policemen for how long does £25k pay for these days do you think? 

Do you guarantee that none of the last three Tory governments have spent a million pounds on anything that wasn't as important as violent crime?

Maybe they weren't spending it on anything that challenged the supremacy of White Britain, so you didn't care.

£1M on an arts project, how dare he! Why, you could give eight fraudulent £125,000 grants to the woman with whom you're having an affair for that money, or buy 1/53rd of a non-existent garden bridge!

That's a very nice example of whataboutery.

Whenever a politician insinuates that an issue they have responsibility for is suffering poor results due to a lack of funds the first question we should ask is "What else are you spending money on?"

In the case of Boris the garden bridge was a prime example of money being spent on something that most Londoners would not have prioritised.

In the case of Khan does his spending align with the priorities of the average Londoner?

Could the money spent on 'art projects' etc not have been spent on policing for example?

Rich_cb wrote:

Could the money spent on 'art projects' etc not have been spent on policing for example?

So do you believe that the GLA should ignore its arts remit? If not then what's your problem, if you do believe that one of the world's largest and most famous cities shouldn't have an arts programme then that's your problem. We could find all sorts of "unnecessary" things that could be cut to fund the police: sports programmes, parks and leisure facilities, libraries...would that be desirable?

Central government has imposed £720M in cuts to the Met's budget since 2010 and is demanding around £400M extra "savings" by 2024. That's the problem with London's policing, not a £1M arts project.

You seem to have avoided my question Rendel.

Does Khan's spending align with the priorities of the average Londoner?

My personal opinion is that politicians should spend money on necessities first (Health/Policing/Infrastructure etc) and only once all those are at a satisfactory level should peripheral needs be publicly funded.

If Khan has the choice to either spend £1m on art or the police and he chooses to spend it on art then it seems a bit rich to complain about inadequate police funding.

So you genuinely believe that we should have no publicly-funded arts or leisure until health, policing, housing etc provision is perfect? That sounds like a super world to live in.

Please answer the question Rendel.

Does Khan's spending align with the priorities of the average Londoner?

We live in a democracy.

If the average Londoner wishes to prioritise art above policing then they are perfectly entitled to vote accordingly.

If their priorities align more closely with mine then we have to ask why Khan is not taking heed of this.

As an aside I did not say 'perfect', I said satisfactory.
Other than that you are correct.

You are questioning from an entirely false premise that assumes that the budgets of large administrative organisations are dealt with on a top-down basis, moving from the highest priority to the lowest and not moving down the list until the higher area has been completely resolved. It doesn't work like that, any regional or national government has a budget for policing, a budget for the arts, a budget for education, etc, in order to fulfil its remit to provide a multiplicity of services. You know this, of course, you're not stupid, you're just being silly - if not why aren't you complaining about national government spending on the arts, leisure etc when clearly the police and health service need more funding?

"The average Londoner" re-elected Khan with an overwhelming majority not six months ago, so I think we can assume that voters are satisfied with his management of our town, thanks.

You still haven't answered the question Rendel.

Does Khan's spending align with the priorities of the average Londoner?

You are correct in that we have separate budgets for arts, health etc.

We do not have to have a budget for art though.

Politicians could, if they chose to, remove all funding for peripheral concerns and divert it all to core areas such as health, policing etc.

It is therefore a political decision to prioritise specific funding to art rather than policing.

Khan could easily have chosen to divert money from the arts to policing, he has chosen not to.

Rich_cb wrote:

You still haven't answered the question Rendel. Does Khan's spending align with the priorities of the average Londoner?

The answer is (and like it or not this is the last response you'll get as you just keep repeating the same thing over and over), as stated above, that as they voted him in by a landslide not six months ago, and part of his platform was to spend money on the arts, then yes, presumably they do. Good day to you.

If you actually answered the question the first time I asked it I wouldn't have had to repeat myself.

If the average Londoner is happy to see larger cuts to the policing budget in order to protect arts funding then that's their prerogative but it does mean they have to temper criticism of police cuts in the knowledge that they are at least partially complicit.

The question doesn't make any sense. There's no such thing as 'the average Londoner'. The remit of the Mayor is not to fulfil the priorities of some fictitious average constituent - it's to balance the competing priorities of multiple constituencies, including giving due consideration to minority and niche interests. Arts funding may not be a key priority for many, but it is important to some, and therefore warrants some funding, albeit a minor part of the budget.

I'd disagree, the concept of the average voter is well established and commonly used.

The job of any politician is, essentially, to keep the electorate happy.

If spending £1m on an arts project whilst cutting the policing budget does that then good luck to him.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Khan is cutting the policing budget. This is not true.  The savage cuts to the Met's budget have come from central Goverment, who are chiefly responsible for its funding. Khan has actually increased the part of the budget he is responsible for - and he's paying a greater percentage of the policing budget than any previous London mayor.

Despite being completely incorrect about where the cuts are coming from and yet again backing up someone who takes pride in knowing nothing about London apart from his dislike of the Pakistani Muslim mayor, there is a part of your logic that could be argued to be correct.  

You could argue that you were right that the 'average Londoner' is not happy to see the policing budget cut, because the 'average Londoner' did not vote for the Tory government who are slashing the Met's budget; and you could argue that the 'average Londoner' voted for a mayor who increased his share of the policing budget too.

Far from being complicit in cuts and having to temper their criticism of them, they voted for the opposite. Following your logic, they have every right to be furious.

Could Khan increase the police budget further?

If he can then he is, effectively, choosing to fund the arts instead of allocating more money to the police.

That's my point.

He has made a choice.

I suppose it would depend if the Police budget was cut to divert money for an art project though wouldn't it?

No.

The size of each budget is a political choice.

By allocating money to art you are choosing not to allocate it elsewhere.

You could choose to eliminate the art budget entirely in order to minimise the cuts to the policing budget.

By not doing so you have essentially chosen to fund the arts with money saved from policing cuts.

So just or? One or the other. Why only "Arts"? So funding safe infra for cycling is taking from Police? How about the Fire Service in London? Do you state to the Average Londoner you can either have more money to the fire service or to the Police. And by the way, that will take away from other services so whichever one you pick, public transport will be cut. After school activities will be closed, but don't worry as this will be spent on the Police Budget which will be needed to combat the rise if crimes caused by bored teenagers. 

I know you want to make a point, but there is no binary in budgets for services when there is more then two services needed for lots of society. 

I was using arts as an example.

The size of the police budget is within Khan's control, by choosing to pass on the central government cuts he is effectively saying that everything else that he is continuing to fund is a greater priority than reducing the cuts to policing.

That's his prerogative, he is elected to make exactly those decisions.

If you support more funding for the arts (for example) you have to do so in the knowledge that the money is being taken from somewhere else. Every £ for the arts is a £ less to spend on policing (for example).

Interesting.  So it follows that the Tory cuts to the Met straight after terror attacks, while we have an increased alert status, was a spending choice in favour of terrorism. A £ taken away from those protecting us from terrorism is a £ in support of terrorism.  

If you follow that logic then Khan, who has essentially made the exact same choice, is doing the same.

Personally I think that's hyperbolic nonsense but each to their own.

It's the exact argument you are using on this thread.  

No it isn't.

Unless you're arguing that Khan/Central Government has diverted money from funding policing to directly funding terrorism?

Which would be an interesting development.

Rich_cb wrote:

The size of the police budget is within Khan's control

No, it isn't. 70% of the Metropolitan Police budget is set by central government. This is a fact, stop lying.

And Khan can top it up can he not?

So if he chooses how much to top it up by then he controls the ultimate size of the budget...