Speeches and letters

Opening Statement

Today I formally announce that I am a candidate to be Mayor of London - a serious candidate ready and able to tackle the serious problems faced by London and Londoners.

My pitch is simple. There is a job to be done and I will get that job done. Tackling crime, improving transport, building prosperity.

London is a great city. It has been my home all my working life. London is where I met my wife. It's where we married. It's where our children were born and grew up.

London is a world in one city. A bustling place of business, finance and government. Street Markets, sports grounds, theatres and museums. Restaurants, cafes and bars, extraordinary parks, great centres of learning, research and medicine. A home for Londoners born and bred, a place of opportunity for those like me who came to study or work, for others a haven from oppression.

So I know and value London's excitement and opportunities. I know its problems too. And I know them first hand. I don't have to hear about them on chat shows or read about them in colour supplements.

Our three children went to schools, played in local parks, used local youth clubs, loitered about on local street corners. Like us, they went to local doctors, were treated in local hospitals.

Like every other Londoner, we have experienced the run down of the trains and buses. We've seen the homeless in their cardboard boxes and we've felt the insecurity on the streets as crime and drug addiction have flourished. And like every other Londoner, we sick of it.

And that's why I want to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to do something about it. To pay back my debt to London and my fellow Londoners. The run down state of London, the gross inequalities that blight the lives of so many upset me. But that's not what makes me want to be Mayor - it's not how bad London is - it's how much better London could be.

A clean, healthy, prosperous city - where trains work and the streets are clean. Where women can travel safely when it's dark and old people can feel safe on the streets where they live. A city where their children have a decent job and their children's children a good education and the prospect of a decent job.

To do that, we have got to use London's strengths to tackle London's weaknesses:

• Get City of London private finance invested here as well as cities abroad, to improve the transport system;
• Get the Mayor working in partnership with local people, local businesses, local councils on a host of tasks - tackling crime, creating and retaining jobs, cleaning up the environment;
• We have to build on the knowledge and research at London's world famous universities, colleges, hospitals and medical schools to create the jobs of the future;
• We have to build on London's undoubted reputation as a leader in the creative industries and in modern communications, attracting both visitors and investors;
• We have to develop the latent talent of all Londoners, men and women, black white and Asian, so they can contribute to the better future London deserves. To do that we must tackle racism head on.

And I believe I have a track record that shows I can do the job. I can give a lead. I can take tough decisions. I understand that setting priorities means you can't go around saying yes to everybody. I believe that when we all work together we can get more done. So I am comfortable working in partnership with other people and organisations.

And that will be necessary. The Mayor can't be a one-man or one-woman band. We'll have to get London working together - we'll need to involve London people, London business, London groups, London trades unions.

And we'll need the support and help of the Government. And I'm better placed than any other candidate to deliver that support.

Not by keeping quiet. Nor by megaphone diplomacy, but by putting London's case carefully, clearly and cogently. And I can do that - both at home and abroad.

For the last thirty years, I've spent a lot of time trying to make London a better place. From the bottom, in local pressure groups and as a school governor, later on as a councillor. In the middle ranks, I've kept up my work for London as an MP and a Shadow Minister. Then since the last election as a Cabinet Minister. I've made sure a special effort was put into tackling London's problems.

And now there is a chance to do it from the top. That's why I'm announcing today that I'm standing as a candidate for Labour's choice for Mayor of London. Not as a celebrity, but as someone who can get the job done.

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