Sadiq Khan has worst strike record of any London Mayor it is claimed – despite promise of ‘zero walkouts’ if he took office

SADIQ Khan has the worst strike record of any London Mayor it has been claimed – despite promising there would be “zero” walkouts if he took office.

Today’s industrial action by staff on the Piccadilly Line is the 14th since he entered City Hall in 2016, which the Tories called a “shocking failure”.

They said it proves he is “incapable of keeping his promises to Londoners”, after putting in his manifesto that he would “reduce the number of days lost to strike action”.

But that is something his office say he has done, claiming the number of days lost to strikes on the tube has been reduced by 65 per cent in the past two years.

Mr Khan also said he would “maintain better industrial relations” as Mayor, but today’s Tube strike has been blamed on exactly that.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said the action was called due to attacks on working conditions and staffing levels by London Underground.

Its general secretary Mick Cash said: "This dispute is about a comprehensive breakdown in industrial relations over a series of long-running unresolved grievances including abuse of procedures and failure to implement key safety and operational improvements agree in the past with the union.”

Back in 2016 during the election campaign he said: "As mayor what I'd do is roll up my sleeves and make sure that I'm talking to everyone who runs public transport to make sure there are zero days of strikes.”

Today's industrial action  is causing misery for thousands of commuters, and TfL say journeys will be disrupted from today until Saturday morning.

It is the 10th Tube walkout during Mr Khan’s tenure, along with one by bus staff, one by those on the DLR and two by those working on the Dial-a-Ride service.

Under the two other previous Mayors of London, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, there were 16 and 35 respectively.

They both served eight years in office, giving them an average number of strikes per year at 2 and 4.4 – while under Mr Khan it is now at 6.

But the Mayor's office reject this measurement of strike action.

A spokesman also claimed the ‘pro-rata’ calculation is inaccurate because it gives equal weighting to smaller industrial action which has a lesser impact on commuters than network-wide walkouts.

In response Keith Prince, Conservative member of the London Assembly, said: “Sadiq Khan promised zero days of strikes, yet on average he currently has the worst strikes record of any London Mayor.

“This is a shocking failure from a mayor who is proving incapable of keeping his promises to Londoners.

“In the two and a half years that Khan has been mayor there have been nearly as many strikes as there were in the entire eight years that Ken Livingstone was at City Hall.”

He added: “Khan said he would improve industrial relations, yet the unions know they can get away with making unreasonable demands and taking damaging strike action if the mayor doesn’t give them exactly what they want.

“It’s time for the mayor to stand up to the unions and put the interests of ordinary Londoners first.”

But a spokesman for the Mayor of London said: “This is categorically untrue – Londoners know from their own experience that Sadiq has a far better record on reducing strikes than his predecessor.

“Since Sadiq became Mayor the number of days lost to strikes on the tube has been reduced by 65 per cent compared to Boris Johnson’s time as Mayor and this is widely recognised as the accurate way to measure the impact of strikes.”