00:00Well, those are two questions. And now we're going to put to the former candidate for the Mayor of London, Howard Cox, for his take. Howard Cox, always a pleasure to have your company. So how did the words arise, Sir Sadiq Khan, make you feel today?
00:14Hello, Martin. Long time no speak. Good to see you, mate. Honestly, look, you know what I think. And, you know, we should be after the watershed before I could actually say anything. But I just got back from a campaign meeting because I'm preparing for the spending reviews tomorrow regarding, you know, fuel duty and things like that for Fairfield UK. And I came back and I've got a skilled contractor, a building contractor doing some work in my home. And he said to me, Howard, have you heard?
00:40Sir Sadiq Khan is now Sir Sadiq Khan. And the words he actually used are so colourful. You cannot honestly, he's discussed in colourful language, cannot be repeated.
00:50I mean, how has an anti-British politician who has destroyed London's economy and, as you know, the road infrastructure can be knighted, I believe, is sick?
01:01Well, Howard Cox, a lot of people might say, depending on your political allegiance as well, you know, he's put cycle lanes in, he's brought LTNs in, he's made the air cleaner, he's after a cleaner, greener future where we can all dance with unicorns.
01:18Should not that be worthy of a gong from His Majesty?
01:22Look, violent crime's up. I'm going to go through some stats I quickly put together.
01:28Violent crime since he's been involved is up 35 percent. Sexual offences, 51 percent. There's a rape reported every hour.
01:36Homicides up 5 percent. Knife crime up 54 percent. Machetes, you can get on every corner of the street now with him.
01:41Trains covered in graffiti. Jews are scared to go into London. Not building affordable housing, as he promised.
01:46He's ignored public consultations, which is where I was very close with on the ULES expansion, which two out of three people were against.
01:54He just said, forget it. I'm ignoring that. We're still going ahead with it.
01:57And he lied about the emissions impacts that 4,000 people were dying because of emissions.
02:03One person has been actually on any death certificate for that.
02:07And my point is this. It's very, very simple. He's been rewarded for failure.
02:11And yet I just don't understand. And I'd love to know, Martin. And as my Craig, my contractor said, who actually recommended him for a knighthood?
02:20As you alluded to in your question, is this just a default thing? Because he's mayor of London, he gets a knighthood.
02:27These are the sorts of things that's really upset me beyond belief.
02:30And yeah, I have to say to you, I feel very emotional, very upset and physically sick about this man being rewarded for failure.
02:38Howard Cox, clearly, you know, there's no love lost between yourself and Sir Sadiq Khan.
02:46What about the broader topic of should we just do away with gongs for politicians full stop?
02:51Because it doesn't matter who you support, somebody's going to be upset.
02:55Baroness Margaret Thatcher, no doubt you believe, was highly deserving of that award.
03:01A lot of people would disagree. Gavin Williamson got one.
03:05A lot of people believe David Cameron's hairdresser.
03:08You know, this sort of thing. Should we just be stopping people in politics getting gongs full stop?
03:14Because whoever you give a gong to, somebody somewhere is going to be extremely unhappy.
03:20Well, my feeling has always been this way. If you're paid to do the job and you do it well, that's enough for reward.
03:26You get paid to do it and that sort of thing. But if you're a volunteer and there's a lot of people out there day and day and night delivering things voluntarily,
03:34helping people beyond belief who are not rewarded, they're not noticed by the media, etc.
03:40because they're not a sexy person or a sexy name.
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