On 5th May 2016 the residents of London voted for a new mayor /meə/.
The Mayor of London is a politician who is responsible for governing greater London. The Mayor is responsible for various policies and strategies related to issues that are very important to Londoners (people who are from London). These include housing, London Transport, the Metropolitan Police and other emergency services.
The role of mayor is relatively new and the first one was in 2000. Up until May this year the mayor was Boris Johnson. He was a very recognisable character and although not everybody agreed with his policies, he became quite famous as a representative of the city. We are all very familiar with the bicycle hire scheme. Londoners often call these bikes ‘Boris bikes’ after the previous mayor as the scheme was introduced and became popular when he was in power.
On 5th May Boris was out and the new mayor was elected. He is Sadiq Khan, a politician from the Labour Party. He is a Londoner, from Tooting in south London, but his parents moved to the UK from Pakistan just before Sadiq was born. He is the first Muslim Mayor of London. Before moving into politics Sadiq was a lawyer, specialising in employment discrimination, human rights and cases against the police.
So, what plans does Sadiq have for London? He has developed ten priorities that he wants to focus on to make London a better place to live. These include building thousands of affordable homes; freezing transport fares for four years; making London a safer place to live by reducing crime; pedestrianising Oxford Street which will mean that no cars, buses or taxis can use the street. These are issues that Londoners feel strongly about and it will be interesting to see how London changes in the next few months and years.
Good luck Sadiq!
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