An advert in support of the Conservative’s London mayoral candidate that featured scenes from New York instead of the capital has been deleted.
The clip, posted on the party’s X (formerly Twitter) account, attacked London’s incumbent Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, and used footage of a stampede in a New York subway station, which Mr Khan criticised as “quite staggering”.
The advert, in support of Susan Hall, was quickly removed and replaced with a video where the New York scenes had been cut. Ms Hall’s spokesperson said the video had been created by Conservative Party headquarters and not her campaign team.The Conservative Party’s head office has been contacted for comment. Ms Hall is running against Mr Khan – and other candidates – in the London mayoral election on 2 May.
In the original black-and-white video, the scenes of a stampede at New York’s Penn Station in 2017 were overlaid with a US-accented narrator making alleged claims, including: “A 54% increase in knife crime since the Labour mayor seized power has the metropolis teetering on the brink of chaos.
“And in the chaos, people seek a desperate reprieve.”The video also warned of “squads of Ulez-enforcers dressed in black, faces covered with masks, terrorising communities at the beck and call of their Labour mayor master, who has implemented a tax on driving, forcing people to stay inside or go underground”.
“Gripped by the tendrils of rising crime” it continued, “London citizens stay inside”.
“The streets are quiet. Mr Khan said the Conservatives were being “unpatriotic” for “doing our city down”.
“It’s another example of my fear materialising, which is this election, from the Conservative Party, will be one where there’s misinformation, where there’s lies and, in this case, clearly videos that weren’t of this city, it was New York,” he said.
Responding to the video’s claim that crime in the capital had risen during his time in office, he said: “Because of government cuts over the last 14 years we’ve lost thousands of [police] officers.
Source: BBC
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