Sadiq khan

The worldwide Uber debate is quite helpful in that it forces politicians to answer a simple question: are you for the people, or the vested interests? Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate for Mayor, declared his hand today in an LBC phone-in. Challenged by a (Scottish) black cab driver about his views on Uber, he said: There are almost 100,000 private hire vehicles in London. Over the last three years there has been, roughly speaking, a 10,000 increase in the number of private hire vehicles. The black taxis are now as low as 23,000, for the first time in a generation, there are fewer people doing the knowledge. And I’m afraid

Last night Sadiq Khan appeared on Newsnight to discuss his bid to be the next Mayor of London. Evan Davis grilled the Labour mayoral candidate on his extended family’s supposed links to extremists as well as his approach to business which appears to be at loggerheads with Jeremy Corbyn’s: ED: Corbyn has said ‘now is the time more than ever to call for public ownership and control of the banking system’. This is only 2012, this isn’t ancient history he was saying it. I mean you’re at a completely different end of the party SK: Let me tell you something, Jeremy Corbyn’s name is not on the ballot paper on May

If a dirty mind is a perpetual feast, then a filthy mind is an open sewer. You see where the manure is coming from. More to the point, you know where it is going. When Galloway faced a challenge for the Bradford West seat from the Labour candidate, Naz Shah, he thought the best way to respond was to denounce a woman’s tales of abuse. He reduced Shah’s forced marriage at the age 15, to a ‘slander of her own family, community and city’ and an appeal to ‘racist stereotypes’. When he declared Bradford an ‘Israel free-zone,’ Muslim and white anti-Semites paid attention. And when he began his campaign to be London mayor by saying that the Labour candidate Sadiq

Since Sadiq Khan was elected as Labour’s mayoral candidate, he has made an effort to distance himself from Jeremy Corbyn. Although Khan was one of the Labour MPs to help Corbyn get onto the ballot, after Khan won the nomination he turned on the Labour leader — suggesting that Corbyn’s refusal to sing the National Anthem showed he could be unfit to be Prime Minister. Now it seems that Khan just can’t help himself even when he is trying to attack the Tories. His team have released an attack ad on Zac Goldsmith — the Tory candidate for mayor — in the form of a mocked-up CV. The ‘CV’ lists the reasons Goldsmith is

Jeremy Corbyn is currently conducting his reshuffle, with a group of journalists huddled at a discreet distance from the Labour leader’s office. So far, not much has happened, other than Corbyn asking the journalists not to stand outside his office, and Barry Gardiner emerging with a smile on his face. But still the briefings around the reshuffle and the anticipation of it have dominated the news agenda. This must be intensely frustrating for Sadiq Khan, who had planned to spend today getting lots of attention for his campaign on train fares. Labour members and staffers were up long before dawn handing out leaflets publicising the four-year fare freeze promised by

Now Jeremy Corbyn has passed his first electoral test in Oldham West, the Conservatives are focusing on the next one: the 2016 London Mayor election. CCHQ has launched SadiqWatch today, a new website which shows off the Tories’ lines of attack against Sadiq Khan for the first time. Just like the Not Ken Again site from the 2012 Mayoral race, the videos and graphics don’t mention they’re from the Tories, but the site’s footer does say (in small print) they are produced at CCHQ. The most striking attack line is in the standfirst of SadiqWatch: ‘Holding Corbyn’s candidate to account’. As one of the 35 Labour MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader, the

Political party conferences have, in recent years, felt like an empty ritual. They used to be convened in seaside towns, so grassroots activists could find affordable accommodation. Now they are usually held in cities, so lobbyists can find better restaurants. Activists have been supplanted by members of the political class who are charged £500 a ticket. In the fringe debates, speakers face a volley of questions from people paid to ask them — on pensions, subsidies for green energy and the like. Politicians spend all day talking to journalists, and real politics vanishes. This year, however, politics has returned. The protesters who shrieked and spat at anyone entering the Tory

With Zac Goldsmith today announced as the Conservative candidate for the 2015 London mayoral race, the Tory MP will now face Sadiq Khan in the race to succeed Boris Johnson as mayor. However, one man who feels he should not be forgotten as a contender is George Galloway. Galloway — who is running as an independent candidate for mayor — thinks that there is a gap in the market for him in the race, as Labour’s Sadiq Khan is just not up to it. Speaking on the Daily Politics, Galloway said that while he was disappointed that Tessa Jowell is not Labour’s candidate – given that she differs from him more politically than Khan – Khan is still no real

Boris Johnson’s war with black cab drivers stepped up a notch today. His monthly Mayor’s Question Time session was abruptly shut down after cabbies packed out the public gallery of London City Hall to protest about what they see as Transport for London’s unfair regulations for Uber. As the video above shows, Johnson’s description of the cabbies as ‘Luddites’ did not go down well at all and the London Assembly’s deputy chair decided it should end. Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, has told the Evening Standard Boris’s ‘Luddite’ was to blame, saying it was not ‘the smartest of moves but it escalated out of all proportion’. The fracas

Turnout in the Labour leadership contest is going to be one of the key factors in deciding who wins. The result of the London Mayoral contest suggests that the tens of thousands who’ve joined the party as members or registered supporters have, as expected, flocked in an anti-establishment direction — which has clearly benefited Sadiq Khan and points towards a Corbyn victory. Rumours are circulating that the turnout in the leadership is varying significantly between the various parts of the electorate. Coffee House understands that the leadership campaigns are expecting the turnout among trade union affiliates to be low, possibly close to 30 per cent, while the turnout among the membership is expected