Sadiq Khan’s virtues

The new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he wanted ‘the most transparent, honest and accessible administration London has ever seen’. It sounds lovely, especially if the Underground is cheap too.

Mr Khan’s are a very 21st-century triad of virtues, though honest might sound old-fashioned. It would once have appeared on a housemaid’s reference: ‘Diligent, sober and honest’, i.e. not lazy, drunken and thieving. We now grow sceptical of politicians who begin replies by saying ‘To be honest’ (as if this was a rare departure).

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Ross Clark

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Honesty once measured outward respectability, as reflected in a Tudor description of Eton as ‘an honest Colege of sad Priestes, with a greate nombre of children’. Of course sad has changed in meaning too, meaning here ‘serious’. Zac Goldsmith did not play on his Etonian honesty during his campaign.