Let’s try a thought experiment, shall we? If a senior adviser to my old boss, Boris Johnson, had celebrated John Smith’s heart attack, mocked Gordon Brown for talking about his dead son and referred to senior members of the Labour party as ‘scum’, how long do you think that person would have kept their job? Thankfully, however, this particular mini-Trump, the former reality TV star Amy Lamé, was appointed (as London’s ‘night czar’) by a Labour mayor, and her -targets were all Tories, so it’s fine. As, apparently, are Lamé’s years of virtue-signalling on social media for higher spending and taxes while arranging to receive her own City Hall salary through a personal company so she can pay as little tax as possible.
The London Assembly is now investigating how the czar with something of the night about her came to be appointed (Lamé is a major fundraiser for Labour, but there can’t possibly be any connection). She won’t sink Sadiq Khan, but this shallow, ill-vetted hire exemplifies some weaknesses which could come to dog his so-far -successful mayoralty.
On 1 May, four days before the election, Zac Goldsmith, Khan’s Tory opponent, predicted ‘catastrophe’ if his rival won. As with similar doom-mongering over Brexit, it simply hasn’t happened. Boris’s first six months were strewn with the corpses of discarded deputy mayors. Khan’s have been smooth and politically adept. He has started to outline a vision for the left distinct from Jeremy Corbyn’s blind alley, created a clear alternative pole of power in the party and given Labour people hope that all is not doomed. In the post-referendum chaos, he looked like the only grown-up in the room.
Andrew Gilligan and Richard Watts debate Sadiq Khan’s work so far
He has been a rebuke to bigots, both non-Muslim and Muslim, who say that Islamic and western values cannot coexist, a role model for black and ethnic-minority people who feel excluded, a symbol of London’s openness.
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