Ask Me Anything With Sadiq Khan ｜ Mayor of London Answers Your Questions

What's your go-to comfort food after a tough day? I love a samosa. It's got to be with chilli sauce and tomato ketchup. It's a must. That wasn't make-up, man. The foundation and blush is not very expensive, bro. Lip gloss. Are more underground train lines getting mobile data connections? Yes. So the Elizabeth line is fully connected to 4G. Most of the Northern line and Jubilee line and Victoria line are all lines I use. But also the Central line and the Piccadilly line. We're rolling out to the DLR, to our stations, to our platforms, to our tunnels. So very soon we'll have 4G and 5G. And so no excuse not to take my calls when I'm ringing the office. What do you enjoy using the data on when you're using the tube? As in this year, it's watching the football goals the next day. So I'm watching Salah score goals. I'm watching Van Dijk score the header. I'm watching Alisson make great saves. I love 4G and 5G. The next question is about something that's close to my heart as well. There's a lot of hate about now. What are you doing to make sure everyone feels safe and welcome in London? Look, there is, I'm afraid, across the globe, a rise of nativist populist movements. People who try and win votes by dividing communities. By dividing old from young, black from white, Muslims from Jewish people and so forth. And I think in London, one of our biggest strengths is our diversity. It's a source for me of pride, not of embarrassment. It makes us richer, not poorer, stronger, not weaker. But we can't assume we're all going to get on really well. So we've got to make an effort to make sure we build bridges and not walls. So we've invested from City Hall in making sure we go into schools to bust those myths and prejudices about certain communities. To work with community groups to build resilience and stoicism. To make sure young people can't be radicalised by charismatic people of hate. To build that resilience that we need in our communities. At the same time, we've got a great campaign called Loved and Wanted. So everyone in London, whatever your background, whatever your ethnicity, whatever your religion, whatever your sexual orientation, you know that in this great city of ours, you're not just tolerated, you're respected, you're embraced and you're celebrated. What's your favourite bakery in London? That's a trick question, because whatever answer I give, all the other bakeries are going to be upset. So I'll just give two, but there are many, many, many, many, many great bakeries in London. I've been to the Dusty Knuckle, where I've seen the great work they do. And the wonderful thing about this bakery is, they work with those who've recently left prison or a young offenders institution. They train them up and give them a job for life, which is just great. And I got a soft spot for Jolene's, which is pretty cool. And by the way, when my daughters saw that I'd been to Jolene's, they were very jealous, but also thought they'd got the coolest dad in London. You've only mentioned North London bakeries, what about South London? Yeah, can I say, I've deliberately begun with North London bakeries, because I live in South London. We've got great bakeries in South London as well. One of them, a better name, because I was there recently, is Toad Bakery. Great, great coffee, great donuts. What's your go-to comfort food after a tough day? I love crisps, love crisps. Two hundred flavours, prawn cocktail and Worcester sauce. Worcester sauce, hard to get, when you get it, fantastic. I love a samosa and a pakora, onion bhaji. Got to be with chilli sauce and tomato ketchup, it's a must. The next question is something that keeps me up at night time, it's around crime. And the question is, we need to stop knife crime, I'm worried about my child, what are you doing? And look, I was a Member of Parliament for 11 years, I've been the Mayor now for 9 years. I've met too many bereaved families, too many victims of crime. One crime is one too many as far as I'm concerned. I don't think crime is inevitable. I think it's inevitable that a young person picks up a knife, I think it's preventable. So what we're doing is a combination of things to be tough on crime. So record investment from City Hall in our police, I've more than doubled the amount of money the police get from City Hall. So we've got 1,300 more officers than we otherwise would. Hundreds of police community support officers, really important. That we support our police at the same time as transforming the police service, really important. But also we've got to be tough on the causes of crime by investing in young people. I'm really proud, six years ago, to have set up the country's first violence reduction unit with a public health approach. And you know what, we've invested in youth clubs and youth workers, so 400,000 young people have got something constructive to do after school, at weekends, during the holidays. One of the things that the VRU is doing is trying to ensure that children stay in school rather than the challenges and problems there can be when they're excluded. So we've got an inclusion charter. We're working with councils and schools to keep young people in schools. We've invested an additional £12 million to keep young people in schools. And the good news is we've massively reduced homicides. We've massively reduced young people who are injured with a knife. We've massively reduced lethal barrel discharge. I'm not saying where we want to be. What advice would you give to a younger self? God, that's a bit of a deep question, isn't it? It depends, look. I think the best advice I'd give to anybody young is work hard, take the advice from people around you who you respect and love, and enjoy the experience. One of the things I always say to somebody when they get a great job is enjoy the experience, not just the memory. And, you know, enjoy life. London's a great city in the world, and, you know, the trick is to work hard and you'll get the help in hand, and you'll fulfil your potential. I've really enjoyed answering your questions, and so I want to do this again, so send your questions in. Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot.