Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Conservative Michael Goves where guests on the Andrew Mar show today and this is my response to the show.
The first interview I am going to focus on is Saqid Khan. He has called for the sacking or of Boris Johnson because of his failure to protect British citizens such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who has been detained in Iran and jailed for five years because she allegedly plotted against the Iranian regime and government during a visit to family and friends. Her daughter's British passport was confiscated and is now under care of her maternal grandparents in Iran.
I would personally say this is a scandal, it is not Iran's job to jail and punish our citizens and Mr. Johnson should be doing everything in his power to get her back into this country where her actions can be looked at and investigated by the British government. If Iran had worries about her plotting against the country, of course they cannot just ignore that but the reasonable thing to do is send her back to her own country so our government can investigate, not take matters into their own hands. From the understanding of the British government, she was just on a family holiday visiting relatives and was on her way back to the UK when she was detained.
If the Iranian government had reason to believe that she was plotting against the government, which I wouldn't understand how they would come to that conclusion when she was just taking her child to visit family members, then they should of worked with our government to return her to our country so we could investigate this further. The current reason for her arrest is unclear at this point to justify her imprisonment for five years. Boris Johnson should resign over this failure. A child is now away from its parents and in care in a foreign country because of his actions, disgraceful.
Saqid Khan was then asked on his record as London Mayor, partially on fare freezes and affordable housing. Saqid Khan announced in 2017 that TFL fares across London's transport network would be frozen until 2020 and has called on the government to freeze private operating train company fares too. I agree with the fare freeze, I would favour fares being a lot cheaper then they are, rail fares under private companies are priced ridiculously high, you shouldn't have to fork over a lot of your paycheck just to get to work each day. I also do agree with his Hooper policy to take two buses for the same price in an hour and I am sure that is benefiting low income familes across London but again, I would like to see transport in the UK back in public hands and fares A LOT cheaper then they are. I think we could do a lot better with #publictransportinpublichands. Sill a lot to do to make London more affordable.
The second half of his interview was on London housing and his policies on housing. I recognise that housing is a big problem in the UK and there is lack of affordable housing across London and the United Kingdom, mainly down to Thatcher's right to buy policy and not enough houses being built to accommodate for the council housing that was sold off under her government. I have called on the government to scrap right to buy for my entire political career because it is damaging. Lack of affordable council housing in London available for young people and families is driving people into homelessness and the cost of living in London, I believe, is unreasonable and I would favour rent freezes. Saqid Khan pledged that 50% of housing would be affordable and mentioned and this is changed from a target to a long-term ambition and was challenged on the number of housing being built on London was failing and he called for the government to invest more in housing and argued that Brexit and has concerns on investments with the governments.
We do need to build more homes in this country and housing needs more investment to tackle the crisis in this country at this moment but the first thing to do in my mind is scrap right to buy to make sure affordable homes always stay affordable and cannot be sold off.
Housing crisis will get worse under right to buy - https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/oct/11/housing-crisis-england-scrap-right-to-buy-help-to-buy
Saqid Khan's first affordable plot to be developed - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/sadiq-khans-first-100-affordable-housing-plot-to-be-developed-a3619051.html
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