‘I’ve heard he’s a great guy, this mayor,’ shouted Sadiq Khan to no one in particular as he arrived in the foyer of the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Festival. He barged past me and headed for the auditorium. ‘Treat him gently, please. No heckling,’ he added, talking about himself.
The audience moved into the sweltering venue where Khan answered questions from Iain Dale for 60 minutes. Some had been submitted in advance by the audience.
‘How confident are you of winning a second catastrophic term?’ That came from a disgruntled London voter. Khan looked a bit uncomfortable and muttered something about avoiding complacency. ‘It’s going to be very hard to win again.’ Another indignant Londoner said he had witnessed five crimes on the streets in recent months. ‘Do the police have London under control?’ he asked. Khan flipped the question to make himself seem competent and reasonable. ‘You’re asking me if the police are worried about a lack of numbers? Yeah, they are.’
As always he blamed Whitehall for shrinking London’s police force.
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