Conservative Julie Redmond, with a campaign prop, pretends to dispense with Sadiq Khan

HARRINGTON had to be very honest with Julie Redmond and lay all the cards out on the table before she explained why she had put her name up for election again.

Having missed out on a council seat in the West End ward last year, her latest mission is to try to convince voters in neighbouring Camden (and Barnet) to elect her as their London Assembly member.

Why on Earth would she want to do that, I asked her, when I bumped into her working out what to do with a campaign prop, a certainly not life-sized cut-out of Sadiq Khan.

This diary has made no secret of its exasperation with how the mayor and London Assembly is set up – a room full of people nobody in our city has really heard of (although they are convinced we have), trying in vain to hold Mr Khan to account. What the Labour ones are doing there, beyond being quite sycophantic cheerleaders is anybody’s guess, but those who are more challenging on the opposition side have fallen foul of a presidential system.

Sadiq Khan, like Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson before him, looks bored rigid – deliberately or not –at any question asked of him. Whatever he says, no policy is going to be altered by these point-scoring fests known as “questions to the mayor” and as it’s all on the clock anybody who has something interesting to say gets timed out pretty quickly.

So, Julie, why?

“You are right, I didn’t know what an Assembly Member did or who mine was until I started in politics,” she told me.

“When I got to know the team, I realised where I could fit in, it seemed like a perfect role. Firstly, I love London. The good, the bad and the ugly. I want to hold the mayor to account as he is responsible for a huge budget and I feel the people need now, more than ever, someone who understands communities and what people really care about.”

Good luck to her and anybody else, whatever their party, if they can find a way in the current system to make City Hall more productive; but the enthusiasm is something at least.

Ms Redmond told me that she will be pressing for new approaches to hard drug dealing, and the fallout from addiction.

“We need more treatment walk-in centres and hubs, more nurses and pharmacists trained to identify problems early, more homes for people and more support in communities. In the meantime, we need a more visible police presence,” she said.

“We need better co-production and care planning and looking at Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole we can learn a lot.”

I can hear Labour members chanting back: “Where’s the money for all this going to come from?”

That’s a question which even Sir Keir Starmer’s front-benchers can’t answer right now, though, as shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell was happy to trot out the “there’s no money left” line on the radio last month.

It’s an easier way to say that all cuts they blamed on the Conservatives for in recent years… yeah, well, we won’t be reversing them.

On Ms Redmond’s quest for City Hall – how could Harrington not squeeze in a question about the ultra low emissions zone [ULEZ] expansion which Mr Khan has persevered with, despite being told it is “bad policy” by Danny Beales, the beaten candidate in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.

“ULEZ is a tricky one. I have a young son, I have asthma,” she said.

“I am as concerned as anyone about the linkage between pollution and health. I support a cleaner, greener, environment. However change needs to be managed. London is in the middle of a cost of living crisis and that is also having a huge impact on normal peoples’ lives and health. We need to get London working again and people back on their feet.

“Adding the burden of this additional cost on normal people is just not fair right now.”