Reuters Online invited readers to send in their questions to the four leading candidates in the Mayor of London election.
Transport and the Congestion Charge dominated your questions, but you also wanted to know about race relations.
Here are the answers from Labour’s Ken Livingstone, Conservative Boris Johnson, LibDem Brian Paddick and the Green Party’s Sian Berry.
For Ken Livingstone’s answers, read here
For Boris Johnson’s answers, read here
For Brian Paddick’s answers, read here
For the Sian Berry’s answers, read here
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I have read these answers and listened to the candidates on the BBC’s Question Time program on Thursday.
We are told that 32% of the population of London was born outside the UK and that the nature of the city and the quality of its services is changing dramatically as a result, but none of the candidates acknowledge that this is a legitimate concern for the “settled population”, as real Londoners are now expected to describe themselves.
Neither do they propose to do anything about it, such as lobbying the government to put a genuine stop to the flow of unskilled immigrants who make up the bulk of these new arrivals and put the most pressure on housing and services. All state that they happy for more and more people to come crowding in with no upper limit, regardless of the effects, and each follows the collective line adopted by the national parties of dismissing anyone who questions this policy with sneering contempt or using veiled accusations of “racism” to stifle debate and the democratic process.
A choice between candidates who all refuse to discuss an issue as important as the very nature of the city is no choice at all, so I will be voting BNP. Not because I have any particular liking for the party, but because as shown in other cities it is the only party which can frighten the politicians of the main parties and it is only when they lose large numbers of votes to the BNP in London that they will be forced to address the concerns of the majority population.
Long live democracy! It is just a shame that the people who claim to uphold it have to be forced into doing so. If just one of the main parties gave people a choice in the matter there would be no place for the BNP.
- Posted by PeterAccording to leading world economists and the London School of Economics, the fastest way to equalize the world distribution of income is to permit free migration.
- Posted by marcus aureliusTherefore attempts to restrict migration have the effect of impoverishing the poorest sections of the worlds’ population of humans who starve to death in their millions each year. A large percentage of these people are children.
Restricting numbers of immigrants from extremely poor countries acts to continue the deaths of millions of children each year which is why BNP supporters are so vicious and despised by so many, whether they know it or not.
A big vote for the BNP would certainly get the chickens squawking. It might even shake the main parties out of their complacency. If it helps to get rid of Ken, fine.
I don’t think Marcus can be quite right in saying that it’s the BNP who are responsible for the deaths of millions of children. Isn’t it Mugabe and friends who do that sort of thing? Maybe they’re clever chaps at the LSE. Or jerks. Glad I never went there.
- Posted by LobitoTourists tell us how dirty and expensive London is.
They are right, and we need to get our act together to redeem Londons worldwide reputation.
- Posted by Jim AbbotsonOn the issue of youths carrying knives and guns and utilising our transport systems especially buses to carry them around, I strongly believe that introducing some form of “metal detectors” at bus entrances should help in deterring this act. Although the idea might be tricky in case of “bendy buses”, it should help with other type of buses.
- Posted by YEMI FAJUYITAN