LOSING HIS COOL
Sadiq Khan lashes out in furious rant after he’s accused of ‘cooking the books’ on housing stats
The London Mayor was grilled on figures for home-building which featured housing developments being counted twice
SADIQ Khan lashed out today after he was accused of "cooking the books" by pretending to build more homes than he really is.
The London Mayor angrily insisted the claim was a "smear" - and shifted the blame onto his civil servants.
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Mr Khan's outburst came as he was grilled by members of the London Assembly.
Tory Andrew Boff asked about revelations that two developments - totalling 500 new affordable homes - had been counted as "new starts" in two different years, inflating the figures for the Mayor's housebuilding programme.
But Mr Khan claimed the fiddle was legitimate - because the plans were so badly delayed that they had to be stopped completely and then restarted.
And he suggested the double counting didn't matter because the man who found out about it is a pro-Brexit tycoon who chaired Leave.EU.
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Asked about the dodgy figures, the Mayor said: "The housing team removed those schemes under the previous mayor's programme and they tried to fix the mess, so there's no double counting because they've been removed.
"It's quite straightforward - I can see the sniggering but that's pre-rehearsed, I can't see the confusion."
Mr Boff hit back, saying: "Under a standard definition how can it happen twice, how can you start the same thing twice?
"Don't you think you’ve been caught cooking the books?"
Mr Khan replied: "Considering it's coming from somebody who's aider and abettor, the co-founder of Leave.EU - bit rich coming from you mate."
Mr Boff accused him of ignoring the issue and said: "I understand you are absolutely desperate not to talk about your failure on housing."
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But the Mayor then caused uproar by appearing to blame staff at the Greater London Authority for the dubious stats.
He said: "What I would not suggest is a very serious allegation against officers of this GLA over their cooking the books.";
Mr Boff exploded: "Are you blaming your officers for this? Are you throwing them under the bus? How big of you!"
Mr Khan said: "This is a good example of why I can't wait for the election campaign to begin so Londoners can see the sort of smears these lot will throw to try and win a vote."
After the furious exchange, Mr Tice accused the Mayor of trying to hide his true record on housing.
He said: "Sadiq Khan is desperate not to tell the truth on housing.
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"It's disgraceful for Khan not to give Londoners a straight answer as to why he fiddled the numbers, why they don't have the homes they voted for. Instead he attacks me personally – the truth obviously hurts."
Mr Khan claims that last year 12,500 affordable homes were started in London over the past year as part of a supercharged house-building agenda.
That includes the 253 homes in the Isle of Dogs and 241 in Newham which had already been included in the previous year's figures.
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