Sadiq khan

With Labour 20 points ahead in the national polls, a lot of Tories have already written off next month’s mayoral contest in the capital. London, they maintain, is a Labour city that occasionally votes Conservative. But supporters of Sadiq Khan and his Tory challenger Susan Hall agree: it’s going to be closer than many think. The mayor’s image is as likely to be found on Conservativeleaflets as on Labour ones Three factors are held by both camps to be at play. The first is the incumbency factor versus ‘time for a change’. Khan’s re-election team has consulted other campaigns which won three in a row; all agreed this was the

For most of this year it was widely accepted that the Tories had given up on London. Sadiq Khan seemed unbeatable and the party’s hunt for a mayoral candidate to run against him became a farce as various ‘big names’ refused to run. Then Daniel Korski, the frontrunner for the candidacy, had to drop out over a #MeToo row and it fell to Susan Hall to lead the charge. And yet, despite the political drama, the Tories are within touching distance of victory at City Hall – just a couple of points behind Labour in the polls. London looks winnable. ‘Nobody likes to be unpopular, but you’ve got to have

‘Only boring people get bored’ is what we were all told as children. What we were not warned about was that boring things can also make you boring. Boringness is infectious. Or so I have come to believe. Due to the backlash against the extension of Ulez, the Mayor has come up with a fresh brilliant idea Thanks to my own low tolerance for boring things, I didn’t race to find out about the Ulez scheme. These soul-destroying acronyms often arrive at the peripheries of my vision, where I hope they will remain. Yet they make their remorseless push forward. So this week, with boring inevitability, I had to call

That the Conservatives retained the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, albeit by a whisker, has been put down to a single issue: the London Mayor’s plan to extend the ultra low emissions zone to the outer boroughs, to take effect at the end of next month. A legal challenge is currently in the works, with a ruling expected soon.  The Mayor’s argument is that improving air quality for Londoners is a priority, and he was out there repeating his point with his usual verve within hours of Labour’s failure to win Thursday’s by-election.  Whichever way the court rules, however, the extension of the Ulez is surely as

Sadiq Khan said told Radio 4 listeners this morning that, while he was grateful for the free school meals he received as a child at his primary school in Tooting, he felt stigmatised by having to queue up and eat separately from children whose parents were paying for their meals. If that is what his school was really doing then it is a pretty horrible way to treat children – and create class divisions where they don’t need to exist. Sorting out payments for school lunches can, of course be handled away from children’s noses, so none of them know who is eating for free. But does Khan’s childhood embarrassment really

What an odd thing Sadiq Khan said following this morning’s stabbings in central London. Shortly before 10 a.m., three people were attacked by a man on a bike in Bishopsgate. The criminal is still at large, according to the Telegraph. This horrifying incident was no surprise to Londoners, so you would think that the Mayor would – from experience – strike the right chord. Instead, Khan had this to say: The good news is, it’s not a terror attack. And another piece of good news is the three victims of the stabbing are not in life-threatening situations, thank God. But it’s just a reminder of the dangers of carrying a knife… Where was

Will global warming condemn Britain to more fires? Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, has been widely quoted this morning comparing recent fires around the capital to the Blitz. ‘Yesterday was the busiest day for the fire service in London since the second world war,’ he said – climate change caused the heatwave which ‘led to the fires’. He added that he was dismayed that the Tory leadership contenders were not discussing this ‘elephant in the room.’ So is this right – or misleading? As so often, it’s a mixture. Khan is correct to say that the number of calls to London fire brigade was a record high: it received more

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and his four deputies submitted themselves to a public grilling last Tuesday. The State of London debate was chaired by James O’Brien and broadcast live on LBC. ‘I will endeavour to speak as little as possible,’ quipped the garrulous radio host who maintained his line of larky, locker-room banter throughout. ‘Sadiq Khan and the deputies,’ he said, ‘It sounds like the most rubbish band of all time.’ And he ribbed the mayor for ‘dancing like a crazy man’ at the premiere of Abba Voyage in the East End. Clearly a tight and cosy friendship there. Khan opened with a sermon about how ‘humbled’ he

Like many Londoners, Mr S was baffled to see our beloved mayor cavorting around America last month. As crime in the capital continued to soar, Sadiq Khan found time for a four-day jaunt across the States, in which time London suffered a murder and an eight-man mass brawl at Selfridges. The highlight of Khan’s trip appeared to be the right-on Labour man announcing a plan to move towards decriminalising cannabis, even though he, er, has no power to do so. So how much did this joint venture cost the taxpayer? Well, Steerpike’s Freedom of Information request has finally got a reply and it turns out that more than £34,000 was

Sadiq Khan may have won his contest last year but he’s not having such a good election this time around. The wokest mayor in all the West has not enjoyed the best week in the run-up to polling day. First, he was accused by Grant Shapps of breaking pre-election purdah rules after Transport for London yesterday announced the opening date for the Elizabeth Line. And today, Khan has reminded floating voters, uncertain of who to vote for in this year’s London council elections, of his key priorities. The mayor used polling day to tell male voters to ‘#HaveAWord’ and not laugh at ‘sexist “banter”,’ demanding that Londoners interrogate their friends when offensive language is

It’s not just The Smiths who warned of panic on the streets of London. The capital’s crime rate isn’t doing terribly well these days with five stabbings, a shooting and an acid attack all in the past week. Indeed, 2021 was a record year for teenage homicides in the great metropolis. Even former boxing champion Amir Khan has now claimed the capital is ‘a very dangerous place to visit’ after being mugged of his £70,000 watch, telling Sadiq Khan to ‘pull his finger out’ over the issue. Fortunately, it seems that the city’s beloved mayor has indeed finally listened. For this morning Sadiq published his advice to wannabe crime busters on the streets of London,

Oh Sadiq Khan. The mayor of London was swept to office back in 2016 on a wave of Labour optimism about their plans for the great metropolis. One of his main pledges was for ‘zero days of strikes’ as ‘every day there’s a strike, it causes huge misery and inconvenience to Londoners.’ Khan claimed, prior to his election, that walkouts were ‘a sign of failure’ and that ‘as mayor, what I’d do is roll up my sleeves and make sure that I’m talking to everyone who runs public transport to make sure there are zero days of strikes.’ Fast forward to 2022 and a very different picture emerges. For this week’s industrial action by

Sadiq Khan had a jolly old time this weekend. First, the £152,000-a-year mayor got to watch Liverpool beat Norwich for free at Anfield on Saturday. And then, hours later, he received another complimentary ticket to watch the boxing at the Manchester Arena, where his friend and namesake Amir Khan was battered by northerner Kell Brook.  But while all eyes were on the ring, Mr S couldn’t help but notice in the excitement that the London mayor had removed his face mask to watch the fight, despite being in a crowd of some 20,000 roaring boxing fans. Ticket-sellers had previously told those applying that ‘face masks must be worn throughout the performance’ – a

Sadiq Khan forced Cressida Dick out of her job as Metropolitan Police chief. Both made that very clear this evening, with Dick saying ‘the mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue’, while Khan said he was ‘not satisfied with the Commissioner’s response’ to his ultimatum for changing the Met’s culture of misogyny, racism, homophobia and bullying. The Met is clearly an institutional basket case The Mayor of London has played a political blinder on this. Unlike Home Secretary Priti Patel, who has the ultimate authority on the appointment — and exit — of the Commissioner, he has been quick to respond to last week’s report which revealed