Sadiq khan

Ken Clarke contra mundum

What to make of Sadiq Khan and Ken Clarke? As Pete has noted, Khan (and Ed Miliband) empathises with Ken Clarke’s instincts. But, as Sunder Katwala illustrates, Khan’s support is qualified. Khan gave speech last night after which he took questions. One of his answers was as follows: “It’s no use us wanting to cuddle Ken Clarke – I don’t want to cuddle Ken Clarke but perhaps others do – when he is part of a government which has got policies which will see the number of people committing crime going up.” He was referring to alleged cuts to police numbers and devices such as the educational maintenance allowance, as

Khan comes to Ken Clarke’s support (kinda)

When it comes to the overall sway of British politics, Sadiq Khan’s article for the Guardian is probably the most important of the day. We’ve heard Ed Miliband say before that, “when Ken Clarke says we need to look at short sentences in prison because of high re-offending rates, I’m not going to say he’s soft on crime.” But Khan’s article, a summary of a speech he is giving later today, actually puts that sentiment into practice – and then some. His central argument is straight from the Hush Puppied One’s playbook, particularly in its emphasis on the limitations of New Labour’s policy: “Some claim crime fell because of the

Khan to Miliband: What life experience do you have?

Ok, not quite. But this snippet from GQ’s interview with Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan is almost a description of Ed Miliband’s rise to the Labour leadership: “One of my criticisms of a lot of politicians of all parties is that they’re career politicians. Since they were 11 years old they dreamed of being an MP, being the Prime Minister, and so they’ll do A-Level Politics, Politics degree, get a job with an MP, work for a think tank, become an MP, Prime Minister. And my criticism is what life experiences do you have? The reason most MPs aren’t popular is that people can see through that.” He makes up