TO run to be Mayor of London, you need a good pair of shoes.
But Mozammel Hossain – the top lawyer turned London Mayoral hopeful – didn't own a pair of his own until he was 16 years old.
The man that many top Tories hope will oust Sadiq Khan at next year's election was born in a Bangladeshi mud hut with a tin roof as the youngest of eight siblings.
The criminal barrister – dubbed Mysterious Moz thanks to his outsider status – today opens up to The Sun about his "London dream" and how he'd finally make the capital safe again.
And he thinks no one knowing him will be a big hit with voters who are desperate for change after eight years under Khan.
In his very first interview, the top lawyer vowed to:
- Crack down on drill music knife crime which is blighting communities and step up stop and search
- Force cops to go on the beat regularly to keep them in touch with their roots and step up stop and search
- Ditch the hated ULEZ extension if he's elected next year and plant millions of trees instead to improve our air
- Build on TfL land to get more Londoners their own homes
Moz told The Sun: "I love this city. It's given me everything I have, it made me.
"I am the product of London values, and I will do everything to make London safer and more affordable for you.
"I am a Londoner who was made in London. We're the most magical place in the galaxy.
"And people can relate to me – people in Tower Hamlets, in Richmond, in Hampstead."
Mo's inspirational rags to riches tale starts off when he came to the UK aged just 21 to study law in Liverpool, before setting up a life in the capital.
He admitted: "I didn't own shoes until I was 16. My parents were really poor, my mother couldn't write, she didn't know what a QC was.
"We used to bathe in a beautiful pond surrounded by papaya bushes and pineapple trees.
"I came here at 21 – the first time I got on a plane, the first time I saw the sea – and came to study law here.
"And this city embraced me. I am the real London dream – the product of London.
"But I don't think a boy from Bromley can have the same opportunities I did 20 years ago – I want to give that back."
Luckily for drivers, he is determined to ditch the hated ULEZ expansion which "hits the poor the hardest".
"It's the wrong time, we cannot do it," he says.
On building more homes for the expanding population, Moz will order TfL to build on some of the huge areas of land they already own – to give more people the chance to own despite continually soaring prices.
He says: "We have to build more, and beautifully.
"We have the equivalent of 16 Hyde Parks, we own. We must do it."
And after years working in the criminal justice system, he thinks he is the man to take on Khan's record, accusing him as having "indisputably failed".
He says: "People say they simply don't feel safe in London.
"I see how lives are destroyed by crime, and people feel those petty crimes have been decriminalised.
"You never hear Mr Khan take the blame, take the responsibility."
Under his Mayoralty, he would make sure more uniformed officers are patrolling day and night, hire more cops, and make them do patrols throughout their careers to keep them in touch with the real London.
And drill rapper gangs making sick videos before committing heinous crimes would face a two-month round-the-clock surge in monitoring to help stamp them out during his first 100 days.
He says: "All these phone gangs, we all know who is behind them. The Met knows.
"If I am lucky enough to get Londoners' votes, within two months I will do everything to cut the head off the snake.
"We must follow them, put all our resources into them, and arrest them, to dismantle those gangs."
During his years working as a lawyer he has seen countless young lives with "no hope" who then turn to a life of crime.
Shockingly, one youngster, aged 18, told him only prison was the "stability I'd been searching for my whole life".
Giving kids the opportunity, ambition and mentoring to give them back despite tricky home life will be the key to slashing crime levels, he says.
Moz adds: "I've taken certain things for granted – unconditional love of a mother and a father, support of my brothers and sisters.
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"We didn't have much money, but we had love, and each other.
"We can't just arrest people – we can be tough on gangs and crime, but also give young people hope and something to look forward to.
"It doesn't work just to be tough.
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"It costs £42,000 to send a boy to Eton, and the same for a youth offender institute, it costs £119,000 a year.
"It's an investment if we help them now."
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