Businessman Alex Challoner has entered the race to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, unveiling plans to station uniformed British Transport Police officers at Tube ticket gates as a crackdown on fare dodgers.
Mr Challoner, who founded Cavendish Communications, made his late bid for the nomination with just days to go before the deadline to enter the contest. The move comes as former Home Secretary Sir James Cleverly remains the favourite to be selected to take on Lord Sadiq Khan or another Labour candidate if he does not stand in 2028.
Police on the gates as a visible deterrent
At the centre of Mr Challoner's programme would be a major crackdown on fare dodgers on the Underground. Police would guard ticket gates at Tube stations as a “visible deterrent”, with plain clothes officers operating alongside them across the network. Fare dodgers would be stopped, arrested and prosecuted.
Transport for London staff would be trained to challenge people suspected of evading fares and to back up officers on the gates. The aim would be to “end the culture in which evaders walk through knowing nothing will happen”.
Challoner's criticism of Sadiq Khan's record
Mr Challoner said: "London should be the greatest city on earth. Instead, after ten years of Sadiq Khan, it has been allowed to shrink. People who pay their fare on the Tube watch others barge through the barriers. People who work hard cannot find a home. And the places where Londoners go to stay healthy, see their mates and enjoy this city are being squeezed from every direction."
He added: "I am not standing to manage that decline. I am standing to end it. Police on the gates. A London Plan you can read in an afternoon. Tax cuts for the gyms and breweries that keep this city alive. I will unleash London."
Other proposals and the race ahead
Mr Challoner stated that in the 10 years since Lord Khan has been Mayor more than £1.1 billion in revenue has been lost because of fare dodging. He also proposed a bonfire of rules to unleash building in the capital, with the London Plan being cut from more than 500 pages to around 30. The radical reform will “keep only the rules London truly needs” while tearing up those that stop developers building thousands more homes.
Mr Challoner, who was campaign director for the Steve Norris London Mayoral Campaign in 2000 and ran himself for the Conservative nomination in 2023, is also advocating cutting VAT on gym membership. He stressed that for many men these venues are “one of the few places where they feel free to talk openly with friends about their problems”. He argued that the move would not only support physical wellbeing but would boost men's mental health. He also wants VAT to be reduced to zero for London's independent brewers which supply the pubs, bars and venues at the heart of the capital's nightlife. The Mayor does not currently have powers over VAT but could offer rebates from City Hall.
The deadline to enter the contest to be the Tory candidate is September 30. Ex-Foreign Secretary Sir James, MP for Braintree and a former London Assembly member, is the favourite to be selected, having already won the support of more than half the Conservative councillors in London. At least one other candidate, former police commissioner Festus Akinbusoye, has put his name forward.
