London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has been "rewarded for failure" after receiving a knighthood from the King, former mayoral candidate Howard Cox has claimed.Speaking to GB News, Cox declared he feels "physically sick" after seeing Khan being given the top honour at Buckingham Palace.FULL STORY HERE.
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.
