The Liberal Democrats are the latest party to launch their London mayoral election manifesto, with a promise to clamp down on sexual offences in the capital.Candidate Rob Blackie says that a new Sexual Offences Unit within the Met Police will double the number of offenders caught in London, following Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s “shameful” record on the issue.
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00:00The mayor's performance on crime has been terrible, particularly on sexual
00:05offences. We're now catching half as many sexual offenders and rapists as we
00:10were in 2016 when the mayor took charge of that. So my key pledge in this manifesto is to
00:15double that rate. I'll do that by setting up a sexual offences unit, getting the police and
00:20bringing more police onto the job, taking them out of the back office, putting them
00:25back on the front line, and focusing their time on the crimes that matter to Londoners.
00:30Your predecessor as candidate, Louisa Porritt, talked about introducing a system of
00:34road user charging. Why doesn't that feature in the manifesto this time round?
00:38There's been a lot of change for drivers recently in London and I think the system's
00:42really got too complex. We just need to do what we have to bed in for now and
00:47really it's not the right time. The whole idea of road user charging was to
00:50simplify, to make it less complex. Would you not do that? We're not, we're not
00:54proposing it. Because? It's not the right time for it. Even though the climate crisis
00:59has arguably got worse since 2021. Road user charging doesn't help the climate
01:03crisis. Switching people over to electric cars does. That's why we've got a plan in
01:08there for more electric car charging so we can accelerate that. I was meeting
01:12London's taxi drivers yesterday and their biggest challenge in switching over to
01:16electric is finding fast chargers. Because obviously as a cab driver or
01:20delivery driver, you drive around all day, so you need to be able to top up
01:24your car with electricity. Those fast chargers are just far too few of them.
01:28There are just 70 in London that are prioritised for cab drivers and delivery drivers.
01:33There's obviously over 10,000 electric cars on the road. We can't get that switch over if we don't, to make it easier for people.
01:38We heard from Susan Hall in the last 24 hours that she plans to expand the night tube. Is that a commitment you'll match?
01:44I love the night tube, it would be great to extend it. But first of all we've got to fix tube maintenance.
01:49There is nothing more frustrating if you're on a tube on your way to work or maybe going to pick up your kids after work
01:56and it breaks down and you're stuck with all that stress. Night time is a very important time for tubes and tube tracks to be maintained.
02:03So I would like to extend the night tube. But first of all we've got to crack that maintenance problem.
02:08That's got much worse on people.
02:09Would that happen in your first term as Mayor?
02:11I'd like it to, yes.
02:13You talk a lot about the polling, you mentioned in your speech there the fact that Susan Hall is way behind Sadiq Khan.
02:19Is the natural logic of that not that you have even less hope than her of winning?
02:23Well I'm way up on where we were last time. We already more than doubled our support in the capital compared to the last election.
02:30Everyone else is really down. I think we have a great opportunity to go further.
02:34People are disappointed in the Mayor, they know the Conservatives can't win, so it's a great opportunity for us.
02:39But explain how it's possible for you to win as opposed to Susan Hall who is far ahead of you in the polls.
02:44Well if we doubled again we'd be well past her.
02:47How's that going to happen? How are you going to double your support?
02:49Well we're getting a clear message out there to people. People are responding well to it.
02:53We're running one of the biggest campaigns we've ever run in London and people are responding very well to it.
02:57The Lib Dems haven't held their deposit for over a decade now in this race. What do you put that down to?
03:02Well I'm running my own campaign obviously and we seem to be doing very well right now.
03:07We've got a clear message about the Mayor's failures on crime and what we'll do to fix it.
03:12I think we can move forward in this election with that message.
03:15Learning from previous mistakes is clearly important. Why did your three previous predecessors fail to cross 5% of the vote?
03:22The world was different back then. I think right now we're running a great campaign and I'm very happy about how we're doing.