It’s disappointing to see how many Tories are buying into Labour’s spin about Zac Goldsmith having fought a ‘dog whistle’ campaign and – even more ludicrously – blaming that for his defeat. Any Conservative candidate faced an uphill struggle getting elected in London, one of the only areas in the country where Labour did better in 2015 than it did in 2010. Even Boris, who has a rare ability to appeal to Labour voters, only beat Ken Livingstone in 2012 by 62,538 votes.
The first prominent Conservative to peddle this theory was London Assembly member Andrew Boff, who appeared on Newsnight to accuse Goldsmith of equating ‘people of conservative religious views’ with ‘sympathising with terrorism’. ‘It was effectively saying that people of conservative religious views are not to be trusted and you shouldn’t share a platform with them and that’s outrageous,’ he told Kirsty Wark.
But some of the people Sadiq Khan has shared platforms with, spoken alongside and defended in the House of Commons and elsewhere aren’t merely ‘people of conservative religious views’.
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