dear brothers and sisters comrades and
Friends
assalam May the peace and blessings of
the Lord be on all of you and can I
begin by thanking the St Gabriel's
Church for the use of their Splendid
Hall which if you haven't been outside
for a little while you probably want to
stay in here because it's nice and warm
in here and increasing ly bitterly cold
outside we were worried about holding a
meeting this close to Christmas after
the schools had broken up and we worried
about the attendance but it's uh great
relief and pleasure for me to look on
this packed Church Hall this
evening I don't know who the member of
the greater London assembly for Haro and
Brent is
I've seen his name but I have no idea
what he is or what he does or what he's
ever
done but what I'm certain of is that
akib Mahmud can do a better job than him
I'm
absolutely certain of
that I'm certain that his voice his
youth his energy his intellect his
eloquence would be a terrific addition
to the greater l London assembly which
is a very important body about which
nobody knows anything at all I will give
2020 to anyone in this room that can
name five members of the greater London
assembly any
takers I thought
not because this is a
parliament like the Scottish Parliament
like the Welsh Parliament if you ask
anyone in Scotland or in Wales to name
five members of the Scottish Parliament
or the Welsh assembly you'd be snowed
under you'd be broke if you were giving
out 20 notes in exchange for that but
nobody any meeting any Gathering that I
have made that challenge to is able to
name five four three even two members of
the greater London assembly and we have
to change that
London is being short changed in the
greater London assembly but the members
of it are not short changed at all they
earn the same salary as a member of
parliament in Westminster they have the
same expenses they have the same
Staffing levels yet no one knows any of
them or what any of them does and the
reason for that is they don't do
anything at all their primary purpose
purpose is to hold the directly elected
mayor to account but Boris Johnson
treats them with absolute contempt and
they accept it because deep inside they
know that that's all that they
deserve Boris Johnson Controls a budget
of18 billion a year and he's been in for
eight years that means around 150
billion pounds has been spent by Boris
Johnson and where is it you see any
results you see any evidence of it yes
he G is sorry yes he has gone is well
he's big on Israel and I'll come back to
that point in fact let me briefly segue
into a few words on the international
situation before returning to London and
the role of the
mayor I learned
yesterday that David Cameron is about to
send a huge British Ground Force into
Libya what could go
wrong what could go
wrong and when I asked the person who
told me who's in a position to
know but will the parliament vote for
that they told me the parliament doesn't
need to vote for it it was tucked away
in the small print of the motion which
they passed two weeks ago to begin
bombing Syria and in that small print it
says that British forces will tackle
Isis wherever the government thinks they
need to be tackled and they're going to
use that small print to
justify yet another British Invasion of
yet another Muslim country what could go
wrong
456 British soldiers were killed and
thousands were disabled in the war in
Afghanistan which is reported today has
turned into a complete route a complete
shambles Helman
Province where hundreds of British
soldiers gave their life's
blood uncountable
numbers gave their limbs their Futures
fighting in Helman province is about to
fall to the Taliban from whom the
British forces took
it the puppet regime in cabul will
shortly remember remember you heard it
here be clambering on to helicopters to
escape to the countries that put them in
power the Afghan war has been a complete
bloody disaster which has caused us
hundreds of billions of pounds imagine
never mind the banks will come to them
hundreds of billions and the blood of
thousands of our servicemen either
killed or wounded has been expended for
absolutely
nothing and our prime
minister this one the last one and the
one before that who told us solemnly at
the dispatch box every
week the names and the ranks of the
fallen and promised that they would
never forget
them I promise you have long AO go
forgotten them indeed I played this put
this to the test once I asked the Prime
Minister
privately just after he had announced
the names of five British soldiers who
had been killed the previous week in
Afghanistan he just in toned their
names and told us that he would never
forget them I asked him half an hour
later do you remember the name of one of
those soldiers you have just said you
will never forget and he couldn't name
one of
them I had
a
very
stricken mother and father at a meeting
I addressed once near
Manchester who were ashen-faced
trembling as they told us
in the meeting in the
Q&A that their 19-year-old son had just
been buried having been killed in
Afghanistan and the father told
me that his son had been buried with a
picture of her majesty the queen in his
top pocket and I told him I'm sorry to
break this news to you the queen is not
carrying a picture of your son in her
top pocket these people are sending our
sons somebody else's sons of course
Never Their Own Sons to die for
nothing and we're about to do it all
again in
Libya and it won't go any better in
Libya than it went in Afghanistan than
it went in Iraq it won't go any better
and who in this country told them more
than than
me what a disaster this would all turn
out to be Jack straw currently in the
robing room waiting for his red hermine
coat the police don't get to him
first announced in
February of
2002 February
2002 that the British soldiers would be
home by
Christmas and I told told him the
British soldiers will not be home 10
Christmases
hence and he
laughed oh how he laughed he invited the
whole house to
laugh but more than 10 Christmases hence
the war is still raging and the people
that we supposedly went there to defeat
are on the verge of
Victory
now the person who told me about the
Libya
Invasion I asked
them is labor going to support
this and they told me well Corbin will
oppose it but Hillary Ben will support
it and Maria Eagle the defense Shadow
defense spokesperson will support it and
we'll have again the grotesque spectacle
of Jeremy Corbin sitting here Hillary
Ben sitting there and Maria Eagle
sitting there with the two of them
cheering for the invasion of Libya and
poor Jeremy sat in the middle deserted
Again by his closest
spokespeople now I have sat in
Parliament for almost 30 years
usually right next to Jeremy Corbin he's
my friend he's my co he's my
comrade and for nearly 40
years I've marched alongside him against
war against cuts for all the good
causes but I tell you this until he rids
himself of
these Trojan hor es sitting alongside
him he will forever be prey to ambush
from either side and the Tories will
cheer as they cheered Hillary
Ben as he spoke in favor of Britain
launching attacks on Syria the Tories
will cheer and real labor people will
weep and it's for those real labor
people that that I'm standing in this
election because I'm
opposed by one of that group one of the
Hillary Ben Maria Eagle group those who
support Jeremy Corbin as the Rope
supports the hanging man and at the end
when the Rope supports the hanging man
the hanged man is dead and that's what
these people are up to
and I for one will not be a party to it
so anybody who thinks that by voting for
sadik Khan I'm not going to waste much
air on Zack Goldsmith the multi-
billionaire blonde old daytonian
bulington
Club
Champion we've already had enough of
those haven't we eight years of Boris
Johnson why would you why would you
volunteer for another 4
years Zach Goldsmith
earns
£450,000 a month in
interest on the trust fund that his
father left him it's nice work if you
can get
it I'm not sure you'd call it
work but what can he possibly know about
the lives of people in Brent
what could he possibly know about
struggling to meet a rent about
struggling to meet a mortgage about
having to go for an interview for a job
about sending off dozens hundreds of
applications for a job how could he
possibly know anything about living life
on minimum wages or just over them how
could he possibly know about the costs
of getting on the tube of getting on the
bus he can't possibly know about any of
these things and he doesn't know he's a
decent enough
person but if you want another trust
fund
multi-millionaire blonde Tory mayor well
you've got one on the ballot paper I'm
not going to waste any more time on him
but my main
opponent and the opponent in front of
whom if I come in the first ballot I'll
be elected as the mayor because most of
those who will vote for labor will put
me as their second preference what else
are they going to do they can't vote for
Zach Goldsmith as their second
preference
surely his name is sadik Khan you won't
know
him nobody knows
him he he's a cipher he's a desiccated
calculating
machine who doesn't have beliefs and
seek to persuade you of them he wants to
know what are your beliefs and he'll
pretend that he supports them too the
problem with that is tomorrow night in a
very different area with a very
different crowd the same thing will
happen and as Malcolm X famously said if
you don't stand for
anything you'll fall for everything and
that's exactly the man that I am up
against he
is Mr flip
flop flip flop was invented for
him he nominated Jeremy Corbin and then
he voted against
him he nominated Jeremy Corbin voted
against him then announced that he would
not take a place in Corbin's Shadow
cabinet when he was selected as the
labor candidate the first thing that he
did was give two interviews to those
well-known friends of Laban the Jewish
Chronicle and the mail on
Sunday and in those
interviews he accused Jeremy Corp
and John McDonald of encouraging
anti-Semitism of encouraging terrorism
why because they stood up for the
Palestinian people under attack in Gaza
well I stood up for them too and I'm
proud of Jeremy Corbin and John McDonald
for standing up for them too the
Palestinian people are not the
terrorists they're the victims of
terrorism and it's incumbent on
everybody to stand up with the victims
of terrorism and not with the
terrorists
themselves sadik Khan told the Jewish
Chronicle that if elected he will lead a
trade delegation to Tel Aviv to boost
trading relations between Britain and
Israel I will not if I'm the mayor I
will not
[Music]
when Mr Modi the
murderer prime minister of India came
here a few weeks ago me and akib and my
wife and my friends here we were stood
outside in the cold at Downing Street
and at Wembley protesting against the
presence of Modi in London and sadik
Khan was inside Downing Street and
inside Wembley welcoming Modi if Modi
comes back to London he will not be
received by me the doors of City Hall
will be closed in his face whatever that
costs me in votes I say it because I
believe it and I say what I mean and I
mean what I say and if you know anything
about me you know that that at least is
true even if you don't agree with me you
know that I believe in what I'm saying
and that I'll do what I say I'm afraid
you will not be able to say that about
sadik Khan he was in favor as a minister
of further development that he as soon
as he became a candidate for mayor he
was equally vehemently against further
development at he flip flop flip flop
according to whomsoever he is talking
and that way lies disaster because if no
one can believe what you say then all
you are doing is deepening the sense of
disillusionment and even rage the akib
talked about in his address there are
too many liars in politics already too
many liars in Parliament already too
many fools at City Hall already it's
time for a change and we represent that
change with your support we can do it
now let me
turn to that1 18 billion a year that the
mayor has to spend that's more than the
budget of some small countries by the
way and yet it's being spent year after
year after year none of us know anything
about it none of us know what it's being
spent on whether we're getting value for
money or even frankly looking around
where it could possibly POS have gone
well let me deal with the three main
areas though there are more there are
three main areas and what we intend to
do I'm sorry to say that the first thing
I have to talk about is the
police I'm not against the police I've
often had to use
them when I was
attacked by a supporter of Israel in the
Street not very far from here not 10
minutes drive from
here I had to depend on the police and
they performed magnificently and I've
been in London for almost 35 years and
every almost every interaction I've had
with the Metropolitan Police has been a
positive one but then I'm white with
blue eyes and for most of the time I've
been in London I've been a prominent
person
my experiences with the Metropolitan
Police are not the
same as the majority of people in the
minority communities in London and don't
forget never forget that 53% of London
now are minorities the minorities are
the majority and that's going to grow
and grow it's not going to
change but we have a police force that
doesn't look like London which isn't LED
by people who look like London and many
parts of London regard the police as an
occupying Army rather than a consensual
policing organization working for
them and there are many reasons for that
and they keep on
coming we'll be very
lucky if there is no backlash to what
happened in North London just a couple
of weeks ago less than two weeks ago we
yet again a young black man was shot
dead by the police I can't say too much
the cameras are rolling and the police
officer is under arrest he was first
suspended and then put under arrest I
can't say much more though I know much
more about what happened but I can't say
this once again a young black man was
shot dead slain and and then
slandered the spin immediately spun
around the entire media that the young
man had come out of the car
firing and had to be shot
dead but there was no
gun he didn't come out firing cuz there
was no
gun these are the tales that we hear
almost every time we heard in the mark
Dugen case in Tottenham that led to
widespread
riots throughout London and other
cities and this is just not acceptable
we had it in the case of John Charles de
menzes the Brazilian
electrician who got five bullets in his
brain from a police officer lying on top
of him who had completely immobilized
him
and instead of handcuffing him he fired
five bullets into his head why because
he looked like a Muslim who might be
intent on
terrorism but he wasn't a Muslim he
wasn't an Asian he had nothing to do
with terrorism but he was shot dead and
then slandered you remember they told us
that he jumped the
barrier that he'd been running down the
stairs that he failed to stop that all
the police's efforts to apprehend him
failed none of those things were
true and the CCTV film miraculously went
missing until it was impossible any
longer to conceal the truth the police
had made yet another gigantic
blunder now I I'm here to tell you if I
had been in that car and I had got out
of that car they wouldn't have shot me
dead well maybe in my case they would
but people who look like
me would not have been shot down dead
but he was shot down dead and that's cuz
he was young and black that's the truth
of it and this is
recognized by the leadership of the
Metropolitan
Police by the commissioner himself
and right back to the mcferson inquiry
after the cruel
murder that took place what it's now
almost 20 years
ago the Lawrence
case was such a
landmark that the police had to
concede that the force was riddled with
institutionalized racism and I'm bound
to tell you you it's not any better now
the number of officers from Minority
communities began to rise after the
reforms in the mcferson inquiry but it
has begun to fall again the number of
ethnic minority police officers is not
going up it's going down and that helps
to butress the feeling in minority
communities that the police are not for
them that the police are policing them
not for them and the stop and search
statistics are of course
staggering you are 10 20 26 times more
likely to be stopped and searched in
London if you look like him than if you
look like me now I'll be a friend to the
police I'll support them on wages I'll
support them on equipment I'll support
them on fighting terrorism I'll help
them fight
terrorism I know where the terrorism is
coming from I know what it's about I'm
in the best position of all the
candidates to understand the terrorist
threat that we face but I will not
tolerate racist policing I will not
tolerate racist police officers and I
want to know every Monday morning from
the commissioner what progress is being
made on policing
London blind to the color of the face of
the person or blind to the color of
their shirt
color what do I mean by that well if you
pick somebody's pocket in Liverpool
Street Station you'll be behind bars
very quickly but if you're a banker who
picks the bank's pocket of 10 15 20
million your chances of being arrested
convicted and imprisoned are virtually
zero only one person has gone to prison
for the crash and The Reckless
negligence and criminality that caused
it and the appeal court today cut his
prison sentence to 11 years for rigging
the liore rate but he was just a pat Say
in any case we're asked to believe that
an official of his rank was deciding of
his own volution to boost the bank's
profits by rigging the foreign currency
exchange rates but that nobody higher up
in the bank knew anything about it
gov we didn't know my Lord the our
underlings were doing this we just
pocketed the money
so I'm being signaled by my boss at the
back of the room that I'm going on too
long so let me quickly address two
additional points the police is one
thing transport is the other
thing
tfl is supposed to stand for transport
for London though most people think
these initials mean something else
they are ruining transport in London
they are filling our
streets with tens scores of
thousands of new private hire Uber
drivers almost
100,000 new so-called taxi
drivers have been put onto the
streets we don't know anything about our
are we don't know if they're insured we
don't know if they're Crooks and some of
them obviously
are we don't know what will happen if
you're in an accident in their car
whether you'll be covered whether
they're
covered and the streets are absolutely
log
jammed pumping such pollution into our
air that more than 9,000 people Li last
year
died directly as a result of breathing
the polluted air that this congestion is
producing so I'm on
record and I'll say it
again if I'm the mayor I'll run Uber out
of town I'll support the Black Cab trade
and the legitimate private
hire cab
drivers and I'll work for a rational
solution to the critical problem of
congestion in London which is
economically and in health terms ruinous
I'm going to ban heavy vehicles and
trucks from Central London between Dawn
and dusk because these heavy vehicles
are killing
cyclists almost every week they're
certainly killing or maming cyclists
every week and when you get stuck behind
one and we were today in hden stuck
behind
three stuck behind two and one coming
towards us and they couldn't get past
each other so huge well they one of them
was a motor car transporter carrying
dozens of other
cars this cannot go on we have the most
most expensive tube fairs in the world
the most expensive bus fairs in the
world we have the highest rate rents in
the rented housing sector in the world
we have the highest house prices in the
world yet our wages are stagnant or in
real terms
falling that's the truth workingclass
people are being driven out of
London by house prices
and house rents that simply cannot be
afforded now the mayor has a lot of
powers in all of these
regards I think you
know by this stage in what I'm saying or
you already know if you watch me on
YouTube or listen to me on talk sport or
on LBC if youve followed my work over
decades you
know that I'm a I'm a pretty tough guy
and the bosses of Transport for London
and the commissioner of the Metropolitan
Police are really going to hate
me the property speculators are really
going to hate me they already hate me
that's why they're pouring money into
the election campaigns of my
rivals well no property developer is
funding my campaign why would they
because life's going to be hell for them
if I become the mayor the commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police is probably
praying daily that I don't become the
mayor because life's going to get a lot
more difficult for him if I become the
mayor and the Chiefs uh of tfl uh also
so I've now defied my boss for long
enough and spoken for long enough thanks
for coming and I'm ready to take any
questions thank you