Sadiq Khan and his rivals are gearing up for the London mayoral elections on May 2.

The current mayor has recently cautioned that his scheme of giving free lunches to all primary school children in London is not a long-term promise.

Mr Khan has been the Labour mayor of London since 2016 and has been responsible for the £30 million used to end the Tube strike as well as rejecting the Stratford MSG Sphere and introducing the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in some areas of the city.

The Ulez extension has been disputed – and was reportedly a key factor in the Conservatives’ victory in the Uxbridge and West Ruislip by-election.

Mr Khan’s main opponent is likely to be the Conservative Susan Hall.

She proposes that foreign visitors in London should get a 20 per cent VAT refund on their shopping expenses – a measure opposed by chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

She has, however, faced criticism for ‘exploiting’ a Tube ‘pickpocketing’ incident to attack Mr Khan. She was humiliated when a person said they had given back her purse she had forgotten on a Tube seat, with cash and cards intact, after she alleged to have been robbed on the Underground.

According to Oddschecker, Mr Khan is the frontrunner to win over Ms Hall and the candidates from Liberal Democrat, Green, and Reform UK parties.

Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Amy Gallagher and independent Shyam Batra have both declared this week that they will run for the election.

The election will take place on Thursday, May 2, along with the elections for the London Assembly and local councils.

Mayoral elections are usually held every four years. However, the last election was in 2021 instead of 2020 as it was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It will be the first time the election uses the first-past-the-post system. Before, it used the supplementary vote system.

Here are the contenders.

Conservative Party

Susan Hall is a London Assembly member and a former council leader. She beat Mr Hossain with 57 per cent of the votes. The exact number of votes was not revealed.

Ms Hall will be the first female mayor of London and the first Tory winner since Boris Johnson in 2012 if she wins over Mr Khan next May.

Ms Hall, who promised to “do whatever it takes to win”, recently said that crime and policing would be her top priorities if she becomes mayor. On a LBC Radio call, Hall said that she no longer felt safe walking home by herself at night.

She said: “You ask most women – if you are walking at night and you can hear someone behind you, you think: ‘Who is that?’ I have talked to men and they don’t feel that.”

But Ms Hall also faced backlash on an LBC call and had to defend herself for liking tweets from far-right activist Katie Hopkins and one that praised Enoch Powell.

The Conservative candidate was in the news for liking a tweet that praised Enoch Powell and called Mr Khan a “traitor rat”. The tweet said: “It’s never too late to get London back!”.

It was also found that Ms Hall liked a tweet that called Mr Khan “our nipple-height mayor of Londonistan” on X.

A spokesperson for the Hall campaign said that she engages with many users on Twitter without agreeing with their views. The Conservative Party’s race was in the spotlight before when Daniel Korski quit the party’s shortlist after TV producer Daisy Goodwin claimed he groped her 10 years ago.

Ms Hall’s representative said: “Londoners want a mayor who listens to people and deals with the issues that matter to them – making our streets safer and putting more money in people’s pockets. As mayor, Susan will do that.”

Liberal Democrats

Rob Blackie is an anti-Brexit activist and a consultant for start-up tech firms who campaigned with the motto ‘Bolder with Blackie’.

On the day he was announced as the Liberal Democrats’ mayoral candidate, Mr Blackie said that under Mr Khan’s leadership, the Metropolitan Police had ignored action on rape and serious crime and focused on “minor” offences such as cannabis or laughing gas.

He said: “Sadiq Khan has not dealt with rape and other serious crimes in the last seven years and Labour have the worst priorities for the police – arresting people for laughing gas instead of spending time on serious crimes. The Conservatives are discredited nationally by their cost-of-living failures and in London they have almost given up.

“People in London have been disappointed by Labour and the Conservative plan for London shows that they are not serious about solving our city’s problems.

Independent

Independent candidate Shyam Batra has said he aims to “repair London and empower people”.

He has promised if elected to scrap the Ulez, along with the congestion zone and 20mph speed limits.

The candidate said to the BBC: “I drive an old car and now, when I go into London, I have to pay congestion and Ulez fees. It is ridiculous. You should not be charged for driving in your own city.”

Other independents in the race include Jeremy Corbyn.

Reform UK

Reform UK (previously the Brexit Party) chose Howard Cox – the leader of the Fair Fuel UK campaign – as their mayoral candidate in May 2023.

Cox promised to get rid of the whole Ulez and low-traffic neighborhoods, and lower fuel duty if he was nominated.

Social Democratic Party 

Amy Gallagher is a nurse and has witnessed the city’s transformation from working in hospitals.

She gained some attention after it was revealed in 2022 that she was taking legal action against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, claiming discrimination based on race, religion and philosophical belief, as well as victimisation and harassment.

The SDP has its roots in the party of the same name created in 1981 by four Labour moderates who were unhappy with the left-wing direction of opposition leader Michael Foot.

She said: “Poor living standards, lack of community, division, rises in crime, unreliable public transport: many people feel like politicians have failed them and they never get the change they were promised.”

Green Party

Hackney councillor Zoe Garbett ran in 2021 and will once again head the Green Party in this election.

She posted on Twitter in February: “I’m thrilled to have been selected as the @TheGreenParty candidate for London Mayor. Big thanks to @LonGreenParty for your backing & eager to begin the campaign.

Labour Party

Sadiq Khan has said he aims to “send a message” to the Tories by becoming the first politician to hold the Mayor of London office for three terms.

The current mayor has highlighted his environmental and council house-building policies as successes of his term. He will be hoping to build on Labour’s strong lead in the national opinion polls.

“This is a chance for Londoners to send a message to the Tories, not only for ruining the economy but for their anti-London stance,” Mr Khan said.

However, there have been signs that some are unhappy with Khan’s role in expanding the Ulez and it’s not clear how that will affect next year’s election. Dr Onkar Sahota, a friend of Sadiq Khan and a member of the London assembly, is reported to have recently lost the support of some of his party’s local activists because of his backing of the Ulez.