Sadiq Khan no longer lives in a glass onion, the distinctive bauble down near Tower Bridge. In 2022, the Mayor of London took the entire machinery of London governance, including the London Assembly and the GLA, with him down to the Royal Docks, where they now reside in an angular building formerly known as The Crystal. It sits, proudly, on Kamal Chunchie Way, named after a local race relations campaigner, and is the nerve centre, the Starship Enterprise, of London politics. It is here where Khan administers his £20.4 billion budget, ostensibly to improve London’s economic and social development; here where he oversees everything from transport and culture to housing and policing.
A divisive figure, Khan nevertheless won an unprecedented third term back in May (endorsed by The London Standard), trouncing the woefully unimpressive Tory candidate, Susan Hall. She campaigned largely on Khan’s equally divisive Ulez scheme, but it turned out Londoners weren’t as binary as she believed. However, the Mayor is continually lambasted for being unable to significantly affect rising crime in our city, and obviously for the chaotic nature of our roads. While everyone wants a cleaner, healthier city, it’s often impossible to negotiate it. As for cycle lanes, they’ve started to define London in a way that often feels overwhelming. Back in the Nineties people used to say that there was such a proliferation of Starbucks that they were starting to open Starbucks in other Starbucks. That’s how many feel about a city that’s quickly becoming a cyclist’s nirvana.
