If Tories who want to run the capital think London is in New York, shouldn’t we be worried?

‘There’s a small possibility Susan Hall could win – which would ironically be one of the most compelling arguments London is having some form of existential crisis.’ Photograph: Getty Images

So sad to see the Conservative party talking down Britain in its new attack ad for the London mayoral elections, which – among other deliberate and unethical lies – included footage of commuters fleeing false reports of gunfire in New York’s Penn station in 2017. That bit has now been edited out, but what remains of the ad purports to be a 90-second portrait of life in the capital since London mayor Sadiq Khan “seized power”. Given that Khan has twice won the London mayoralty in free and fair votes, this feels somewhat punchy talk from a party led by an unelected man who himself “seized power” from the salad-vanquished political corpse of an unelected woman.

But look, what’s the worst that can happen if political parties tell blatant untruths to people, debase campaigning standards and conduct knowing assaults on trust? If only there were places in the world to which we could point in order to answer that question.