He told a young man worried about ‘homelessness and the suffering NHS’ that it’s ‘all just hype’ (Picture: Rex/Twitter)

The Conservative candidate for Mayor of London has said homelessness and the suffering NHS is ‘just hype’.

Shaun Bailey, 48, said he wants to ‘move beyond the hype’ as he shared a video of him talking with a young man about how to ‘make London a better place’.

Bailey approaches the man on the street, who recognises him as ‘that Tory guy’ and asks: ‘Black man as a Tory, explain it please.’

The politician answers by saying he wants people to be ‘in charge’ of their lives and ‘do anything they want’.


That’s when the man, called Louis, points out: ‘People are homeless, people aren’t getting help. Money’s going to places where it shouldn’t be going. The NHS is suffering.’



But Bailey interrupts him to say: ‘All of that is hype.’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Mr Bailey has also come under fire for his comments about domestic violence (Picture: PA)

When Louis says ‘black people are suffering’, Bailey responds by saying he wants his children to ‘go to Oxford University’ and start their own businesses, but it would be down to them having ‘confidence’ and the right ‘mindset’.

Bailey has immediately come under fire from his political opponents within hours of him sharing the footage.

An activist from The Independent Group slammed the mayoral hopeful as an ‘opportunist and charlatan’.

They wrote: ‘This black kid has no hope and you’re not going to be able to do anything to help him.

‘For you it’s all about your safe seat, it’s never been about winning London, otherwise your campaign would have been significantly different.’

A spokesman for Bailey said the video is an ‘incomplete version of a longer conversation’.

Shaun Bailey said being a single mother should no longer be viewed as ‘acceptable’ (Picture: AP)

They added: ‘The point about hype was made in reference to the talk of the problems being the fault of one party of the other or that only one party can solve them.

‘Shaun’s point – as someone who has been part of the “hidden homeless” – is that we have to have a conversation free of partisan hype about our problems if we’re going to tackle them.’

Bailey’s campaign to defeat Sadiq Khan in the 2020 mayoral election has been rocked by his past stance on social issues.

In 2006, Bailey wrote in the Telegraph that inner city girls ‘deliberately become pregnant’ in order to secure houses and benefits from the government.

He also said that single motherhood was ‘wrongly assumed to be acceptable’ – despite acknowledging that many do ‘extraordinary well’ raising their children.

His comments from a 2008 meeting on gang culture were also unearthed by Labour activists, where he suggested that an end to domestic violence ‘starts with girls’.

Bailey reportedly said: ‘If you could get girls to accept less of men’s rubbish then men would have to change because ultimately men are after a girl.

‘Men’s behaviour is affected by what he feels it is to be a man and what he feels will impress a girl!’



It is not known whether the quotes were taken directly from Bailey.

Got a story for Metro.co.uk? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page.