Sadiq khan

It was always possible, I wrote a month ago, that the London elections would show voters baulking for the first time at the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn in power, especially after the protests in Westminster against anti-Semitism. That hasn’t quite happened: it seems there has been a slight swing to Labour in the capital, unlike the rest of the country. But fears of a Tory bloodbath in London – of Corbynistas and Sadiq Khan supporters painting the town red – were misplaced. The Tories have kept hold of their crown jewel boroughs: Westminster, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea. Remarkably, they have even taken back control of Barnet, in north London, which

The fallout of the Windrush scandal has continued from the previous week, with Home Secretary Amber Rudd still in the firing line and facing calls to resign. Rudd has been criticised after telling the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday that the Home Office did not set targets for removals of illegal migrants to the UK. However, a memorandum leaked to the Guardian states that the Home Office had actually exceeded a quota of ‘12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18’, which Rudd later apologised for not having been aware of. Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis, who was the minister responsible for immigration at the time, took to the Andrew Marr Show

Ever since last year’s general election, when Jeremy Corbyn inspired the strongest Labour surge since 1945, the Conservatives have been unsure if this was a freak occurrence or the start of something bigger. As they have learnt to their cost, opinion polls aren’t as reliable as they once were: only election results matter. There will be plenty next month, with seats on more than 150 councils all over England up for grabs. The Tories are nervous in lots of areas. But what terrifies them is London. The capital has served as the incubator of Corbynism, a brand of politics once laughed off as a niche Islington interest, yet now with

Well, this is going well. Last night Jeremy Corbyn’s control of the Labour party grew even stronger with the appointment of Jennie Formby as Labour’s general secretary – the party’s most senior official. Formby – a key Corbyn ally – won the overwhelming support of Labour’s ruling NEC to take the post after a short contest, which saw her main rival Jon Lansman drop out. Only it’s not clear to Mr S that everyone in Labour is so impressed by recent goings on. Just an hour after her appointment, Sadiq Khan was entertaining hacks at City Hall – where he made a number of jokes about both Corbyn and the hire

It is Remembrance Sunday, and the party leaders put their politics aside this morning as they gathered around the Cenotaph to lay wreaths and honour those who lost their lives in times of war. However, in the TV studios, the political debate still carries on with as much vigour as before: Sadiq Khan – Boris Johnson has ‘got to go’ The Mayor of London joined Andrew Marr today and within minutes Khan had called for Boris Johnson to be dismissed from his post as Foreign Secretary. Marr raised the subject of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British national who is currently serving a five year jail sentence in an Iranian prison. During

When Sadiq Khan spoke at last year’s Labour conference, his speech was deemed hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. Fresh from victory in the London mayoral election, Khan managed to say ‘power’ a whole 38 times – in what was widely interpreted as a thinly-veiled attack on the Labour leader’s lack of electoral appeal. So, what a difference a year – and a surprisingly good snap election result – makes. After weeks of rows and attempts to prevent Khan from taking to the stage this year, the Leader’s Office must have today been left wondering what the fuss was all about. The Mayor of London fell into line – using his last-minute speaking slot to

When Sadiq Khan took to the stage at Labour’s conference last year, his none-too-subtle message to Jeremy Corbyn was a lecture on the importance of winning power. Now, a year on, some Corbynistas are determined not to give the London Mayor the same opportunity to speak up – as we have already seen in the conference. Khan was reportedly denied a slot on the main stage this time around. That decision was then reversed in the wake of a backlash by one of the big unions, as Katy Balls reports. But the row over whether Khan should be allowed to speak isn’t over yet. As proceedings kicked off this morning, one

Transport for London has decided it knows what will keep me safe better than I do. The transport regulator has today refused to reissue Uber’s private hire licence, on the basis of ‘public safety and security implications’. Let me tell you about security implications as a woman in London. If I come out of a club or bar in the middle of the night, I do not want to be hanging around alone on the pavement for half an hour while my minicab fails to materialise, engaged in a frustrating negotiation with the operator about where exactly my driver is. I don’t want to trawl the streets in the hope

I can’t work up much indignation at the collapse of London’s Garden Bridge project, which has been strangled by the refusal of mayor Sadiq Khan to guarantee its continuing operational and maintenance costs — assuming its trustees, led by former banker and minister Lord Davies of Abersoch, would have succeeded in raising the £150 million of private capital required to build the bridge and plant its 270 trees in the first place. Promoted by Joanna Lumley and Sadiq’s predecessor Boris Johnson, this was a beautiful but whimsical idea, placed in an overcrowded stretch of the Thames and based on a ramshackle business plan. In a more confident economic climate it