A record number of 20 London mayor candidates are running for local elections on Thursday, which have been suspended since last year.
Sadiq Khan of the Labor Party will fight for a second term, while Sean Bailey plans to restore power to the Conservative Party in the British capital, which was occupied by incumbent Prime Minister Boris Johnson between 2008 and 2016.
The two main candidates – both of whom are 50 years old, the first of Pakistani and the second of Jamaican descent – reflect the importance of London’s cultural diversity, an exception in the British electoral context.
The city’s cosmopolitan character is reflected in its population: only 45% of the population declared themselves “white British,” according to the 2011 census.
These elections are also taking place at a time when the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has reignited debate about racism and colonialism in a country where politics is still dominated by the elite formed in private schools and the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
Khan, the son of a bus driver, has already made history by becoming the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital, while Bailey wants to be the “first” black mayor “of London.”
The pro-European, well-known, in the first period assumed the freezing of public transport prices and the creation of low-emission areas to reduce car pollution. Sadiq Khan adopted for this campaign the slogan “Jobs, Jobs and Jobs” with the aim of revitalizing the economies of the impact of the Covid-19 and “Brexit” epidemic.
Governor Sean Bailey is campaigning about the need to strengthen security in the capital, a major concern of voters, and to build affordable housing.
Its popularity soared, but the polls continued to give a major advantage to the “Labor” competitor.
The Liberal Democrats and the Greens will try to retain some of the 25 seats in London’s powerful mayoral assembly, but these elections are also a platform for a host of small and new parties and independent candidates.
One of the most famous, although he always appears with his face hidden behind a mask in the form of a trash can, is the Count of Benvis. [Conde Cara de Caixote], Formerly known as Lord Packethead [Lorde Cabeça de Caixote], Who ran for lawmaker against Theresa May in 2017 and Boris Johnson in 2019.
Promises include banning the sale of croissants for more than a pound or granting a base to environmentalist David Attenborough in Trafalgar Square, “or a statue of him”.
The list also includes Pierce Corbyn, brother of former labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, climate change denialist and activist against restrictions against the transmission of the Covid-19 virus, and Representative Lawrence Fox of the Reclaim party, known for its anti-vaccination and anti-vaccination. -feedlots.
Other candidates are Max Fuchs, the “YouTuber”, who basically wants “to get more votes from Lawrence Fox”, and Richard Huyson, who is representing the Rejoin Party, a party in favor of the UK’s accession to the European Union (EU).
But using elections as satire or personal promotion is not cheap: to participate you have to pay 10,000 pounds (12,000 euros), and the amount is only refunded to candidates who have obtained at least 5% of around six million votes, or 300,000 votes.
