Each of the six contenders to be Labour’s London mayoral candidate own a home worth more than £750,000, David Lammy MP, one of the hopefuls has said.
Speaking at a hustings organised by the Guardian, the MP for Tottenham, who hopes to be selected to stand for the Labour party in the 2016 mayoral election, said the biggest challenge facing inner London was whether it would become like Paris and only be inhabited by the very wealthy.
“Everybody on this panel owns a home worth more than three quarters of a million and my office has checked,” said Lammy. “The bottom line is that’s the threat to a London that cares. Do something about homes for ordinary Londoners.”
“If you are decanting communities and driving them out of their areas through gentrification, you are destroying that neighbourliness,” he said, to enthusiastic applause from the audience in central London.
“If politicians are using the phrase affordable rents, but don’t actually believe in council houses and social rents, you are destroying those communities.”
There are six declared candidates to be the Labour party’s nominee for the London mayoral election, which will be held in May next year. They are: Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington; Tessa Jowell, former MP for Dulwich and West Norwood; Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting; David Lammy, MP for Tottenham; Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West; and Christian Wolmar, an author and journalist.
The current favourite to win is Jowell, who served as both minister for London and minister for the Olympics in Gordon Brown’s government, with YouGov polling suggesting that she has the most cross-party support and would fare best against the Conservative party’s most likely candidate, Zac Goldsmith.
Jowell is also the bookies’ favourite – just ahead of Khan – to secure the nomination, though Goldsmith is ahead of her to win the final race.
Labour members and anyone who pays £3 to register as a Labour supporter can cast a vote on 12 August. The candidate will be elected on a one-member, one-vote basis and the winner will be announced alongside the party’s new leader and deputy over the weekend of 12 and 13 September.
During the hustings, Jowell said she hoped that by 2035 central London would be free from cars apart from electric vehicles – though she said she would not expect to still be mayor by then.
“I think the presumption that the cars that go into London are electric is something that we want to bring forward as fast as the technology will allow.”
