and just before we kick off I've just
been aware of a poll that's going on
Twitter which of the main which of the
three main candidates do you think we
improve London a London for all was the
question posed now this poll is still
going on Zach Goldsmith 14% sadik Khan
20% George Galloway
67% okay so I'm going to hand over the
mic now and we will take your questions
if you could be as concise as possible
George can answer your questions
straight away thank
you azal Sharif uh George uh excellent
hearing from you again thank you just a
question um I I hope I'll be clapping
and we'll all be clapping when you
become mayor thank you very much thank
you and do you see yourself joining the
labor party again
okay are we doing it three at a time
yeah my name is muham and I just wanted
to mention to you in your speech you
have mentioned about the Camas we have
record-breaking Camas in London than
anywhere else in the
world C yes traffic Camas cameras yes
traffic cameras yeah okay
hi George um what would you do about the
rising problem of homelessness in London
throughout London not just in this
area thank you very
much let me deal with the I've stopped
smoking so I'm on 60 of these gums a day
please forgive
me let me do with the last Point
first there's a housing crisis in London
great than we have ever faced even at
the end of the second world war at the
end of the second world war when we were
bankrupt we were building 300,000
Council houses a
year even under the Tories we were
building 200,000 houses a year last year
in London we built
81 Council houses
81 in a city where hundreds of thousands
of people are on the waiting list and
where hundreds of thousands if not
millions of people are living in
substandard and overcrowded
accommodation and Rising numbers have no
accommodation at
all I'm
giving to buy hats
beanies for people without
houses I'm giving to support soup
kitchens and food banks for people who
have nothing to to eat in London in
2015 in a city that is dripping with
gold unfortunately only a tiny
percentage of the population gets a
share of that wealth this is the capital
city of the sixth largest economy in the
world and record and Rising numbers of
people are sleeping in the
streets and when they're not sleeping in
the streets they're sleeping on
somebody's floor or somebody's sofa if
they're lucky if there's not somebody
already sleeping on the sofa where
people's children have no chance
whatsoever of getting a house remotely
in the area of their
parents where children who can call them
that in their late 30s are still living
at home with their parents because they
simply cannot afford
the deposit and the rent or the deposit
and the
mortgage to
buy or rent houses that are eye
wateringly
expensive here's what I'm going to do
I'm going to lead a campaign to build
100,000 Council houses in London not 81
like last year but
100,000 Council houses in London cuz I I
believe in Council houses I was brought
up in one uh I was born in a slum in an
attic when I was four but it was an
outside toilet shared with five other
families the seat was always
warm and when I was 4 years old nearly
five I moved to a brand new Council
house and I love Council houses because
you get to sack your
landlord every four years in an election
you can remove your landlord if they
haven't been doing a good enough job try
removing your private landlord that are
back in force
rakman screwing the Blood and Tears out
of people with ever higher rents ever
more insecure tendencies that they rip
up at the first possible excuse and
opportunity there are 800,000 houses in
London that haven't been bought as house
houses at all but have been bought as
safety deposit boxes for hot money
coming from abroad usually crooked money
that is parked in London in houses that
nobody lives in or will ever live in
it's only an investment so when these
developers come to me as they must and
say we want to build yet another block
of luxury Flats in Harrow Buton some
parts of Harrow I'll say if you want to
build then half of the houses have to be
affordable
rents and by affordable I mean half of
the rent prevailing in the area now to
give you a yard stick to measure that
against the latest luxury development in
London is at the batter C Power Station
where just
8% of the houses are affordable houses
and by affordable they mean
80% of the prevailing rent in the area
so I'll say if you want to build half of
these houses must be affordable rented
houses and by affordable I mean half of
the prevailing rent in the area now
somebody told me just our Christmas
party on Friday night I don't know why
they were there with views like this
maybe to Lobby me they said well the
developers won't
develop I said well I think they
probably will because Ken Livingston had
exactly the same policy he didn't quite
achieve it but that was his
policy and the developers continued to
develop but if they W if they can't if
they won't that's fine we'll build some
of our 100,000 Council houses on that
plot of land we need to build up there's
no way that London can continue to exist
with so few high-rise uh buildings
there's nothing wrong with high-rise
buildings there's only something wrong
with them if you don't look after them
if you don't have a conage 24/7 conage
system stopping people trashing them and
bringing the value of them down to the
point that you've got to knock them down
we need to incentivize people to build
granny flats for their old mother
instead of putting her into a granny
Farm bring her into your own house and
we'll give you Financial incentives to
build more units and the house that your
granny was living in or your old mother
was living in is thus freed for someone
else to rent or to buy a a price that is
falling and I have powers of compulsory
purchase and I've
announced that any house that is left
empty for more than one year without
good excuse I will compulsorily purchase
them and put them onto the market so
there are many things I can do on
housing the main thing I can do is lead
London needs a leader not a
reader like sadik Khan reading out
sheets of paper that somebody else wrote
London needs a leader not a reader and I
am that
leader the
the first question I greatly appreciated
I was a member of the labor party for 36
years I joined it when I was 13 years
old my mother and father were members of
the labor party all of their lives I
have never been in any
other ideology other than
liberalism I'm not a communist or a
Marxist or a trotskyist or any other
kind of V just a labor
EST and I was expelled by Tony
Blair after 36 years of membership in a
hearing that lasted 36 minutes how's
that for symmetry Michael foot was there
to give evidence in my
defense Tony Ben was there to give
evidence in my defense and Jeremy Corbin
was there to give evidence in my defense
but they didn't care because Blair had
already told
them that they had to rid him of this
turbulent
priest why was I
expelled because I was one of the
leaders of the campaign against the war
in Iraq and how right have I turned out
to be if they'd listened to me they'd
listened to Mr Ben they'd listen to Mr F
they'd listen to Mr Corbin a million
Iraqis would still be alive and Al-Qaeda
and Isis would never have been held off
never have been held off in Iraq and
Syria and when I'm lectured when I'm
lectured by Hillary Ben who voted for
the war in Iraq even though his father
was our leader in the anti-war movement
who went around the country prizing for
the invasion of Iraq when I'm lectured
by him about what we must do in the next
War and the next one and the next one I
tell you it's impossible for me to
quietly accept it so will I ever end up
in the labor party nobody can tell Ken
Livingston defeated labor to become the
mayor of London I intend to defeat labor
to become the mayor of London what
happens after that is another
matter now we we do have more CCTV
cameras in London than any where else on
the earth I'm not against them myself
I'm
not one of these liberals who thinks the
state should never see should never
hear but I want to trust the state that
is hearing and watching I always used to
say my telephone has been tapped by the
government since I was 18 years old and
I never complained about
that MI5 I've got somebody in this room
listening to this speech good evening to
you by the way don't know if you'd like
to take a
bow I have no problem with
that I'm an open book what I stand for
what I say I've always stood for and I
said it yesterday and I'll say it again
tomorrow if you like I'll phone you up
and tell you what I'm going to say you
don't have to send an officer along to
hear it but when Rupert Murdoch tapped
my phone I sued him and got a lot of
money thanks very much for it
because it's one thing it's one thing to
be
observed by the country's Security
Services it's quite something different
when you're being hacked by a grubby
dirty sorted tax dodging former
Australian former British former
American God knows what he is now it's
very very different indeed when you're
being tapped for commercial purposes and
sometimes I wonder first of all is there
film in all these CCTV
cameras there wasn't in the Stockwell
Underground when John Charles was cruy
slain and sometimes I wonder when I hear
that the film wasn't
there I wonder what the purpose of Big
Brother really is in all these cameras
but I must tell you that London's
traffic congestion problems are real
they are real and life-threatening
economy threatening societally
threatening and we won't be able to do
away with parking wardens we might be
able to force them to be a bit nicer
a bit more flexible but we won't be able
to do away with them but what we mustn't
have is the use of parking
legislation to generate Revenue that's
not the proper way to generate
revenue and if it's killing local
business in walam store where we were
for example just a few weeks ago they've
introduced something called the mini
Holland scheme which involves the
closure of a huge number of
roads for pedestrians and
cyclists but the small
businesses that depend on cars and
people jumping out the car nipping in
buying something nipping out and taking
off again are being squeezed to death
this is
madness it's crazy to have these
experiments when local people are not
properly consulted and when local
business is being choked to to death I
mean I'm sadik Khan says he's going to
be the most Pro business mayor in
history well I'm going to be the most
Pro worker mayor in history that's
another of the big
differences between
us but I'm in favor of small business
small and mediumsized business is vital
to the health of London and we can't
have parking restrictions choking these
businesses to death we have to be
flexible what's wrong with say you can
park here but only for 20 minutes and
you can park here entirely free for 20
minutes what's wrong with that then
you're allowing people to drop the
husband or the wife off to nip into the
business make the order bring it out or
you're allowing the driver uh to do it
if they are alone so I will look at the
point that you made but I can't promise
you that there will be fewer cameras
because we're living in very difficult
times very difficult times in terms of
the security London is in a very very
grave uh degree of risk and Peril and
once we've invaded Libya trust me it'll
get even more
dangerous just thinking of the time if
we can make these the last three
questions please yeah if you just put
your hand up if you'd like to ask a
question thank
you good evening George um good evening
I'm not from the MI5 uh just
to in fact I'm a minicap driver I'm one
of the uh founders of the uh United
private hire drivers uh group um and
this is a a question but really more of
an appeal an appeal for understanding
and appeal for your help and we can't
wait until May um we need your help now
as well um I like other mini cab drivers
despite what you might hear I'm fully
insured I've got an advanced crb check
um and I uh uh I'm well capable of of
doing my job um but at the moment um uh
tfl are running a consultation to change
the private higher regulations and it's
very punitive um and this is where we
need understand in um let's start with
tfl's board you talk about diversity 53%
of this city comes from Minority
communities well there's not one member
minority uh representation on the board
of tfl have a look at the website when
you go home not one and that starts the
rut starts from the top and it moves
down uh in the private hire regulatory
review we have we have three board
members of tfl that have said this about
our ranks one who was going to be your
opponent in this election Michael liick
he was pipped for the Tory U nomination
by Zach he went with um on an
enforcement Mission and he said he saw
amongst our ranks potential sex
attackers do you know what a potential
sex attacker looks like because I don't
and I think it's an outrageous statement
for a board member of our regulator who
we fund with our taxpayers and our
license fees each year to say that about
us another board member
Steve Wright who represents um uh the
the major mini cab owning firms
including Addison Lee he said about us
that um we shouldn't be giving our money
uh directly into foreign bank accounts
because we're probably going to be
supporting
terrorism uh I think this is outrageous
coming from a tfl board member I'm Irish
I'm not that old but I'm old enough to
remember what this was like for us in
the 80s and 90s and to hear it again uh
for Muslims in 2015 is absolutely
outrageous tfl in these private hire
regulations are proposing that our
details are passed to the Department of
work and pensions because they can
better identify us well they've already
identified Us by licensing us but they
say they need to do this because we
might be benefit sheets this is
outrageous regulatory overreach and it's
defamatory they've also o said that
we're potential tax cheats as well so
we're sex attackers we're terrorists
we're tax Dodgers we're benefit cheets
and all not only this they want to
restrict us to work for one operator at
a time I earn 5 pounds an hour that's
what what the going rate is our guys are
working 18 19 hours a day because that's
what they have to work in order to pay
the rent on their vehicle or to the
local minicap firm at 4:00 this morning
I went up the Cromwell Road and there
was an ADD League Galaxy wrecked and I
have no doubt why that happened it
happened from fatigue no other reason
and I think it's just I I cannot believe
George in 2015 2016 we see 100,000
londoners who have been treated this way
with such disrespect one other board
member let me tell you one other story
and then I'll sit down one other board
member from tfl Isabelle dead ring there
was a story from the stop Heathrow
expansion um group in Heathrow that
driver were defecating in gardens in
Heathrow around the Heathrow area it
never happened there was no evidence but
it was a convenient story and another
way to again demonize a group of people
100,000 harder working people earning
very little money and have no employment
rights whatsoever because we're
allegedly self-employed Isabel deeding
our tfl board member who we fund with
our license fees and our taxpayers went
to the newspapers talking about us
defecating in garden in herro it is
degrading dehumanizing it never happened
there's no proof and it's just another
way for tfl to absolutely demonizes in
one more example in the statement in the
in the private higher regulations tfl
said they need to monitor us not monitor
us just for enforcement but for I quote
behavioral
indiscretions this kind of treatment
this disrespect from tfl it needs to
stop George it needs to stop not in
it needs to stop now and we need your
help to do that will you help
us okay so that was the first of three
questions if I could ask the next two
questions please just ask a question
because we're just a push for time thank
you good evening the buffoon which is
the current mayor of London as you
alluded to earlier on went to Israel a
few weeks ago uh for his trade Mission
as the mayor of London what would you do
to boost the Palestinian course and show
that we are in solidarity with with them
over there thank
you one
more George uh you discuss about this uh
parking restrictions in Bor of brand in
my opinion I think the brand is one of
the worst borrow where they have the
restrictions now I don't understand it
that one street you go there 6 hours a
day parking restrictions and the next
street you go there is only about 3
hours a day uh it doesn't make no sense
at all so do you think that you will do
something about it to curve this uh
restrictions or you know just finish it
off completely okay thank you well um
parking restrictions are of course under
the control of the
uh London burrow of Haro and Brent and
the mayor has no power on it except this
Rel relates to the second question also
except the power of the pull pit I can
say this in a church uh
unequivocally the mayor of London has a
pull pit like no other it is the largest
direct election in Europe with the
exception of the president of France no
other leader in the whole of Europe is
elected directly by more people than the
mayor of London that's a hell of a
mandate it allows you to speak directly
to the Prime Minister it certainly
allows you to speak directly if not down
to the leader of baras and
counselors and I will use that power to
the best of my ability and I think you
probably know that when I'm speaking
people tend to listen if they don't I
just turn up the volume and I don't need
a microphone for that either akib if
he's our member of the GLA will have a
powerful role in relation to the town
hall but we will have to change Town
Halls too I personally think we've got
too many town halls I think we've got
too many baras got too many directors
deputy director dors assistant Deputy
directors assistant assistant Deputy
directors and so on I don't think that
we need all of these for me I've always
lived in South London or North London
maybe I'll see I live in northwest
London as it happens I live literally on
the border of uh Hammersmith and Fulham
and Brent and Harrow but I'm only 5
minutes away from
Kensington and uh
Chelsea I don't place myself in any
specific burough I live in an area of
London and I believe that substantial
cost savings can be made we've got too
many counselors and we've got too many
Council officials for all the good that
they've been doing but that's my
personal point of view I don't have
power to bring it about uh but as long
as these Burrows exist I promise you
I'll be using the bully pull pit on the
housing issue on traffic and traffic
management issues uh with some power um
I made clear earlier I think I have
since the summer of
1975 which is not
yesterday been involved in the
Palestinian cause I promised the
refugees in Lebanon on in
1977 that as long as God gives me breath
I will speak for them anywhere and
everywhere and that's a promise I have
kept and I don't think that there is
anywhere a stronger voice for the
Palestinian people uh anywhere in public
life than me I know the
uh thank you I think Netanyahu would
probably say the same
thing I will not I have no power to and
I don't intend to stop any Israeli from
coming to London or buying in London or
investing in London I've have I have no
intentions in that
regards but I will not lead a delegation
to Tel Aviv I will not visit Tel Aviv if
the mayor of Tel Aviv comes here he
won't be meeting me he won't be entering
the town hall because
we are against aparte we were against it
in South Africa I was myself for a time
Underground in aparte South Africa
working for the Liberation movement for
the African National Congress then led
by the great Nelson Mandela and by the
way every person helping me in my
mission every house I slept in every I
was driven in every meal I ate every
Rand that was put in my pocket came from
Jewish members of the African National
Congress some of the great Heroes of
thec were and are Jews so Jews don't
have to choose aparte they can be
against aparte in South Africa they were
against aparte and we need them to be
against aparte in Israel uh too
our friend from the private high drivers
Union with whom I'm already uh
cooperating I made a powerful and
heartfelt
plea um and it's part of the big picture
I tried to allude to earlier nobody in
London can be allowed to work for5 an
hour that's not even the national
minimum wage still less is it the London
living
wage and I've
pledged that if your
employer is paying less than the London
living wage of £940 an hour they will
not be doing any business with us they
will not receive one penny piece from
tfl or any of the meril Departments so
so this will act I believe as a
tremendous upward pressure on wages
because frankly many of these companies
will not want to lose the opportunity to
Tender for work from tfl and from the
mayor because there's far more profit to
be made from doing such business but we
our whole budget is going to be on the
blockchain which means that people will
see in real time online
every penny of the 18 billion
expenditure I mean every penny so if I
take as I
want akib for dinner in a Chinese
restaurant in Tuli
Street you're going to know that I'm
there that I used the mayor's credit
card that my guest was akib and that
Numbers 22 and 45 on the menu cost us 18
quid and you're going to be able to say
why did you take him
and why did you take him to that
restaurant and you've been twice in that
restaurant this week shouldn't you be
spreading the love a little bit all of
that will be doable on the mayor's
chain and so nobody will get paid less
than £940 an hour if they either work
for me or they work for a company that's
doing business with me and that will be
an upward pressure on wages of some
significance but the issue remains with
all respect to the very eloquent Irish
man being half an Irish man myself I
recognize an eloquent Irishman and I
salute him but for all the uh eloquence
that he mastered he missed my point
there are two many cab drivers in
London and just by licensing more and
more and more of them all you're
actually doing is driving the wages down
and
down and we can't have that I believe in
standards I'm a trade unionist I believe
that we have to have
floors on our income and we have to seek
always to be raising that floor and you
can't do that if you're under cutting
and undercutting and under the Asian
people here know what I'm talking about
how many restaurants have got another
restaurant next door to it and another
one two doors down from it how many
shops have got an exact same shop next
to it that way lies ruin competition it
lose it it's called competition but it's
not rational
competition and neither is the current
state of Taxi Licensing in London it's
not
rational and that's why wages are
plummeting black cab drivers have lost
40% of their
income and they are
taxpayers they are insured they have to
pass all the tests they are regularly
inspected flaged down and
inspected and they have to achieve
certain standards they have to have a
certain uh grade of car and all the rest
and their wages have fallen by 40% why
because tfl has licensed far too many
vehicles which is driving down wages for
everybody driving down I believe
standards of course I don't believe that
your members are uh potential sex
offenders whatever that might mean or
potential tax Dodgers it' be better
parking in the city of London to look
for potential tax Dodgers that would be
a far more profitable way of raising
revenue I don't believe
that what I believe is we need a
rational plan and if I'm the mayor I'll
put one together about how many black
cabs we can have how many private hire
cabs we can have but Uber is a 50
billion American Business headquartered
in Amsterdam that don't pay any tax at
all and even deny that they're a taxi
company we're just an app they say all
we provide is an app for your phone
making everybody in here you could all
get an app you could all be cab
drivers you might not know the way from
here to
Haron but you can be you can get an app
and you can say you're a cab driver you
may be a rogue or a rascal or you may
give the app to your brother or your
brother in-law or your cousin or your
neighbor and he can drive about with
your app we can't have that we have to
maintain discipline and Order and
standards because I hear this all the
time competition burn the red tape get
rid of rules and regulations I'll tell
you where that
ends it ends in the
disaster at Thorp Park was it Thorp Park
recently tow Alton
Towers strike that from the record it
wasn't
Thorp it was Alton Towers that's where
it ends that's where burning the
regulations ends that's where tearing up
health and safety ends it ends with your
kids shooting off the end of a
Fairground R because it hasn't been
properly maintained and there hasn't
been the discipline lied to it it's a
big
subject I don't have time to go on
longer I'll just say this in
closing the gap between rich and poor in
London today is wider than it was when
Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist
that's
official I myself obtained information
as an answer to a parliamentary question
now under the last eight years of Tori
Boris Johnson that Gap has widened still
further if I'm the mayor that Gap will
close thanks very much indeed for coming