As the MP for Tooting, Sadiq Khan represents a constituency that is home to the largest Chicken Cottage in Europe. Not that he seemed proud of this fact at last night’s Evening Standard Labour mayoral hustings.
While the candidates debated how to deal with the spread of high street gambling shops since Labour brought in the Gambling Act, Khan turned his attention to another guilty pleasure: fried chicken.
‘We’ve got too many chicken shops in our town centres. We’ve got too many pawn brokers in our town centres. We’ve got too many gambling shops in our town centres. Elect me to be the London Mayor and we’ll sort all those three things out.’
However Khan may find it hard to win with his current stance on poultry:
So @SadiqKhan NOT getting my vote for Mayor. At hustings he said "London has too many chicken shops" WAR @98rosjon @NandosUK @ChickenShop
— Josh Feldberg – joshfeldberg.bsky.social (@JoshFeldberg) August 6, 2015
@JoshFeldberg @axelk @NandosUK @ChickenShop – Impeach @SadiqKhan.
— Jonny Rose (@98rosjon) August 6, 2015
https://twitter.com/HKesvani/status/629014717680484353
Furthermore, Khan has a history with chicken that is beginning to catch up with him. The Labour MP was the guest of honour at the 2012 Chicken Cottage awards, where he spoke about… fried chicken:
‘Here’s the beautiful thing, this is a British product selling Islamic products, selling Halal products, that is niche and general but it’s gone mainstream.’
What a U-turn for the man who also only recently praised the opening of Soho House’s chicken shop in his constituency:
‘We’ve seen some exciting new businesses open recently, including the Chicken Shop and The Little Bar and the national press have recently described Tooting as “cool” – but that isn’t to say there isn’t room for improvement.’
Mr S quizzed Khan following his comments on why he had changed his stance on fried chicken. The London mayoral hopeful then said that his concern was primarily for children. ‘I don’t want any new chicken shops to open within 400m of a school,’ he told Mr S. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope he leaves it at that.
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