Who might replace Sadiq Khan as Labour's mayoral candidate?

Who are the names in the running to replace the mayor as Labour's candidate — and what did they say when approached by London Centric?

Sadiq Khan appeared to confirm during a recent interview with LBC’s James O’Brien that he was going to run for an unprecedented fourth term as mayor of London, which could leave him in charge of the capital until 2032.

The truth is a bit more nuanced — and it seems the mayor may have accidentally stumbled into saying something more definitive than he intended.

I’ve spent the last few days at the Labour party’s annual conference in Liverpool which has been, ironically, one of the best places to find out what’s going on in London’s Labour-dominated (at least for now) political system.

Behind the scenes there are the slow but steady rumblings of the capital’s politicians starting to get ready for a selection battle for the next mayor — and gripes that the central Labour government isn’t delivering money for the capital.

Subscribers can scroll down to read about who is considering running to be Labour’s candidate for mayor of London — therefore becoming the immediate favourite to be elected to City Hall.

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What links the tax-evading gift shops of London’s Piccadilly Circus with this Liverpool office block?

The Labour government is trying to find new sources of revenue, with a rise in VAT one of the options under consideration. One way to mitigate the impact would be to actually collect the VAT that goes unpaid by existing business — starting by sending HMRC officials to look at the substantial sum of tax that is evaded by central London gift shops, as we have previously detailed at length.

Our commitment to tracking down those responsible has already taken us to Edinburgh, where we found London Centric’s favourite landlord Asif Aziz – whose foundation has funded staff to work in the offices of many Labour MPs – was again mysteriously letting units to tax-evading shops.

Now it’s taken us to Liverpool. Earlier this year Safoora Shafeeq, the sometime legal owner of a chain of central London Harry Potter shops, changed her registered business address to this unloved office block a short walk from the Mersey. We took time away from the Labour conference to drop in and pay her a visit. Sadly, you’ll be shocked to hear, no one knew who she was.

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The battle against Labour’s ‘Not So Fair Funding Formula’.
Inner London councils are set to be one of the big losers of the Labour government’s forthcoming “Fair Funding Formula”, which is an attempt to rebalance the money sent to different local area across the country.

Camden, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth, and Westminster are facing deep financial cuts under the plans — although some outer London boroughs would receive more money.

It’s led to more complaints among Labour politicians that the capital is being taken for granted by a central party which is more fixated on marginal constituencies in the midlands and the north of England.

On Tuesday London Centric hosted a conversation with Lambeth’s Labour council leader Claire Holland. In her second job as boss of the organisation London Councils she represents all of the capital’s boroughs in their negotiations with the government. Holland said London is wrongly perceived as a rich part of the country with too much funding: “If you take into account housing costs, London has the highest levels of deprivation of any region in the country.”

She said the collective London council bill for providing temporary accommodation to homeless families, many of whom who have been forced to leave privately-rented homes, is now running at £4.5m a day.

“Our position is that no borough should be worse off, because we have terrible inequality issues across London,” she said. “If you don’t take it into account, we really are gonna probably plunge even more families into poverty in London.”

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Former Herne Hill resident makes bid for Labour leadership.

Despite growing murmurs that Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham may be the man to save Labour’s beleaguered Westminster party, Holland was clear that she didn’t think a Burnham-led government was the answer to London’s problems.

In January London Centric went to meet Burnham, to hear what he thought the capital could learn from greater Manchester. The interview, which you can read here, gives an idea of how a government run by Burnham, a former resident of both Fulham Palace Road in west London and Regent Road in south London, would treat the capital. In particular, he said the focus on London’s economic growth by the government risked “overheating” the city and “takes the soul of it to some degree”.

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Councils look to squeeze Lime for money.

Lime e-bikes were one of the persistent topics of conversation among London councillors at Labour conference. Several told us they’d read our story last week about Hackney council getting a cut of Lime’s revenue — and would now be pressing for similar deals in their part of London. Lambeth council boss Claire Holland said bad Lime bike parking is one of the most-complained issues raised by voters, while also suggesting it might be time to remove more car parking spaces to make way for e-bike zones.

The Uber-backed Californian e-bike company likes to present itself as a responsible business that respects British law, was handing out free bike helmets to Labour delegates, and in recent weeks launched an advertising campaign urging the capital’s cyclists to stop at red lights.

So London Centric was surprised to notice the US-owned tech company appeared to have missed its legal requirement to file company accounts on time, a criminal offence more commonly committed by the operators of dodgy sweet shops. Just as we were about to publish, a Lime spokesperson insisted they’d met the deadline and the public records would be updated shortly.

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Who’s going to be Labour’s candidate at the next London mayoral election?

If anyone is responsible for the chaotic headlines around whether Sadiq Khan will run in 2028 for a fourth term as mayor of London, it’s Andy Burnham.

Sadiq Khan was answering questions from LBC on Friday when he was asked about the Greater Manchester mayor’s leadership ambitions, which would require Burnham to find a parliamentary seat.

Khan, who has led London since 2016, had been responding to a caller who wanted him to return to parliament and become foreign secretary. This led host James O’Brien to segue into a series of questions about the ambitions of Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and whether he could return to parliament.

Khan then returned to addressing the caller about the idea of him returning to parliament while mayor.

Sadiq Khan: “To answer your question directly, I’ve no intention of leaving this job for another job in politics.”

James O’Brien: “And will you run again?”

Khan: “That’s my intention, yeah.”

O’Brien: “Everyone keeps telling me you’re not going to… A taxi driver told me you’re not going to…. As it stands now you’re planning to run for a fourth term?”

Khan: “I’ve given no indication that I’m not, so I’m not sure why people are drawing that conclusion. If you remember, because you and I discussed it regularly, at this stage last time I’d not declared one way or the other. So I’m not quite clear why people are suddenly drawing conclusions, because I’ve not declared this time.”

London Centric has been told that the mayor’s intention had been to shut down speculation that he might consider double-jobbing by holding a Westminster seat at the same time as the mayoral role — only to accidentally inflame speculation.

Instead, the official line remains one of constructive ambiguity — with Khan aware that acknowledging any intention to stand down at the end of his term in 2028 would leave him as a ‘lame duck’ mayor, which inevitably causes power to drain away.

Read on to find out all the speculation within Labour about who is angling to replace Khan as the party’s candidate and why they’re reluctant to go public — as well as which potential candidates ruled themselves out when contacted by London Centric.