Sadiq Khan is playing political games with West Ham United which has no place in football or any other sport.
Our club and game is part of the leisure industry with the aim of bringing people together – by it’s nature politics DIVIDES..
You may remember that following his broadside against West Ham fans following the Burnley match he followed up by making a series of comments that included the incredible and still unsubstantiated claims that over 150 offences were committed.
We have been told that to date the police have still to charge anybody with anything despite his claims!
As a result ClaretandHugh sent 10 questions aimed at helping the situation. Today – 11 DAYS LATER – through a spokesman he responded with a statement answering none of them.
Instead he pointed out the failings of his predecessor Boris Johnson and his team who he claims ‘has tied the taxpayer into lengthy and legally binding contracts with West Ham United, UK Athletics and stadium operators LS185’
He adds that differences of opinion could now go to the courts which presumably could involve the taxpayers in forking out even more unnecessary expense – the very thing he claims he’s trying to correct.
The reality is that money continues to be wasted. In June 2017 we revealed that £3.3m has been spent on external legal fees relating to the London Stadium and that sum continues to grow and is well over £4m now.
Mayor Khan has employed an expensive restructuring consultant who in turn has employed more consultants plus another spending a further £140,000 on a report to tell us what we already knew.
The stadium owners have even turned down money from West Ham when Karren Brady offered to pay for a claret pitch surround which would have saved the taxpayer £160,000. They were turned down!
As Khan said in his statement today, the stadium will continue to ‘lose up to £20m every year unless action is taken’ and that ‘nobody should be under any illusions that there is going to be a quick fix’
So here’s my advice Sadiq, stop playing political games and stop spending millions on lawyers, consultants and reports.
Sit down at a table one to one with David Sullivan and try to resolve these problems out of the courts and out of the media spotlight.
A politicians dream, public money to spend, solicitors, curt cases, previous regime to blame, bla bla bla.
Just about sums up politicians, all talk and no doing and being paid for by all of us.
Have posts been deleted from this thread?
In line with our policy for personal abuse aimed at anyone or any organisation. One was removed as it aimed personal abuse at the current mayor while the other aimed particular unproven accusations at the former mayor. We can’t have double standards so all abuse aimed at anyone is removed as per our policy. P.S I had no problem being called a tory 😉 The comments can be resubmitted without the abuse against the two mayors.
They certainly have because Sean the Tory boy can’t take critique Mary. Brown nosing the board I think it’s called .
No problem with being called a Tory boy or accusing me of brown nosing
Fair enough Sean, although this softly-softly approach with the associated moderation is killing the site, imo.
Shame.
It’s not killing the site at all – Page views and unique visits grow every month
Of course it isn’t Hugh.
That must be why the last post (before yours) was at 11.08 this morning by Doc66🤔
Posts are unimportant ‘Mary’ – we see the Google analyticcs figures.Over 50 million views in four years from over 100k subscribers for starters. It’s only a tiny minority who post here . If what u were saying was correct we’d be going out of biz and we most certainly aren’t/
Sean your deleting the truth about your Boris and it’s not abuse it’s what went on so don’t you think you should also if you think that’s abuse stop bringing your anger against a mayor of London that actually isn’t in the pocket of this Tory board of directors or maybe that’s too much to ask .
Best way Mary is when this Tory boy supporter of the board does a posting is don’t reply as all or any disagreement with Tory boy will be deleted. As a working class area being brought up supporting West ham no wonder the board get away with so much when supported by people like Sean. Oh maybe another delete after moderation I think it’s called must agree with Sean site this ?
No problems with free speech or criticism on this site Razor
Sean and I are both working class. And you Razor are making this about politics – the very thing we said it shouldn’t be about and just for the record I’m a member of Momentum and a Labour activist all my life but this issue is about West Ham United and where we go from here. Nothing else!