With Sadiq Khan set to step down as Mayor of London before the next election in 2028, it’s anyone’s guess who’s going to take over at the helm of the UK’s capital city. Well, one man seems to have now thrown his name into the hat… The Bosh! master himself – Thomas Skinner.

Businessman, ex-Apprentice contestant, 8 out of 10 Cats and Celebrity Masterchef regular Skinner put out an impassioned Tweet earlier where he basically lamented the state of London these days, and suggested he was going to do something about it:

I love this country. I love London with everything I’ve got. It’s the greatest city on Earth or at least, it used to be. And I’ll tell you this now: anyone who says London is safer today than it was ten, fifteen years ago is lying through their teeth.

I’ve worked these streets… pic.twitter.com/sttWhILbaF

— Thomas Skinner ⚒ (@iamtomskinner) June 9, 2025

The Tweet in full reads:

I love this country. I love London with everything I’ve got. It’s the greatest city on Earth or at least, it used to be. And I’ll tell you this now: anyone who says London is safer today than it was ten, fifteen years ago is lying through their teeth. I’ve worked these streets my whole life. Grafted on market stalls since I was a kid. Rain or shine, cold mornings, long days I’ve done it all over London and the surrounding counties. It’s in my blood. I don’t know anything else and I don’t want anything else. I love the graft, the energy, the people. I love giving someone a proper deal and seeing them walk off with a smile. But it ain’t safe out there anymore. The streets have changed. And not for the better. Honestly only just Fifteen years ago, you had better community. You had characters. People would stop, have a chat, laugh with you. You had respect. Now? It’s a lot colder. It’s more hostile. It’s tense. You get people arguing, stealing, mugging. I’ve had more fights in the past few years than I ever did when I started. And for what? Just trying to earn a living. And it breaks my heart to say this but London don’t feel like London no more. The police ain’t on the beat. The people are scared. And it’s the older generation I worry about most. Their joy was getting out to the market, having a cup of tea in the café, seeing familiar faces. Now they’re prisoners in their own homes and they are too frightened to walk down their own street. That’s not the London I grew up in. That’s not the London I love. London has fallen. But I’m not giving up on it. I still believe in this gaff. I still believe in its people. And I believe it can rise again. But we need change. Real change. We need safety. We need pride. We need leadership that understands the streets, the markets, the working class. People like me. Because I’m not here to moan. I’m here to fight for what’s right. And I will never stop fighting for this gaff, for London. because it’s my we’re my family are from, it’s the absolute governor of a place, and it deserves better. It needs a bit of love. Who’s joining me? Bosh ❤️🇬🇧

Now I’m not sure that selling knock-off watches out of a suitcase in the East End qualifies someone to run London, but I guess someone has to step up and take over in 2028, so why not one of the quintessential Londoners around? After all, they’ve got Trump running the entire country over in the States, right?

The issue some people have with Tom Skinner’s “London has fallen” rhetoric is that it could be some kind of racist dog whistle, where what he’s really saying is that there’s too many immigrants in London and that the city has changed for the worse ever since it fully embraced diversity.

Obviously he wouldn’t be the first political candidate to run on that sort of premise, but the rest of them weren’t overweight, flat cap-wearing cheeky chappies who say ‘Bosh!’ a lot, were they? Guaranteed vote winner.

Anyway, there’s a long way to go before 2028 but it’s certainly interesting to see who else will be throwing their name into the hat. Could the Tories recruit Thomas Skinner as their candidate? Reform UK are already considering Derek Chisora (seriously). What a mayoral duel for the times that would be.