Sadiq khan

Sadiq Khan’s decision to launch a commission looking into decriminalising cannabis is a perfect advert for his time as London mayor. It shows all too clearly that Khan values empty gesture politics over getting on with his day job. Don’t get me wrong: legalising cannabis seems a smart idea. It is, after all, a waste of police time and effort stopping the trade of drugs which are widely used and cause comparatively limited harm. But is it any of Khan’s business to focus on this issue? ‘It’s time for fresh ideas to reduce the harms drugs and drug-related crimes cause to individuals, families and communities,’ said Khan this week. ‘If re-elected, I’ll establish a London

Let’s take a look into a political crystal ball: it is Friday 7 May and a beaming Sadiq Khan is being held aloft by delighted Labour supporters celebrating his remarkable achievement of being re-elected Mayor of London on the first ballot. For the first time ever the second preference votes do not need to be counted because of the diminutive Khan’s round one landslide. Most of Britain’s London-based political media decides that this is the big story to focus on. Labour party activists are happy to believe their party is on the way back and that Khan’s brand of chippy identity politics points the way ahead. The trouble is that

Shaun Bailey pulled off an amazing trick this week: he managed to unite Twitter. Left and right, Tory and Labour, Remainer and Brexiteer, all piled into a wondrously crass post by the Tory London mayoral candidate: ‘As a father and husband it breaks me to think that my wife and daughter have to live in fear in their own city. It doesn’t have to be this way. As Mayor, I‘ll ensure that we are working to deliver for the safety of women and girls in London.’ The message would have been in poor taste no matter what the timing. After all, why make crime in London about himself and his family? But

It takes quite a lot to make fireworks divisive, no? A roaring display of noise and light and colour, owed to the technical ingenuity of our old friends the Chinese, reminding everyone who’s ever been in a war of the noise of falling shells… it’s a universally popular way of seeing in the New Year. And in all the displays around the world, it’s London’s on the Thames that draws in a global audience. Normally I watch the display from Ireland; this year I could almost see them on the horizon. With the year that’s been, this was the chance to cheer everyone up. It’s been a year of plague,

Sadiq Khan’s powers as London mayor are relatively limited, but part of his remit is to act as a salesman for London. He is there to talk up the virtues of one of the greatest cities in the world. It was surprising then to see him concede at the weekend that we have to ‘accept the fact that there is potentially an existential threat to central London as we know it.’ This surely is the opposite of what the mayor of London should be saying at this moment in time. It also demonstrates why Sadiq Khan deserves to lose the election in May. Sadiq Khan already lost my vote months ago when he

Even in these strange political times, it looks very difficult for a Conservative politician to become Mayor of London. In the 20 years since the advent of the mayoralty and the introduction of the London Assembly, only Boris – as we all know, an unusual politician – has managed to beat Labour, with successive terms in 2008 and 2012. He succeeded in this by being more popular than the Conservative party in London; a politician, even then, with an independent brand. In contrast, Ken Livingstone was less popular than the Labour party at the time. These favourable winds are unlikely to blow again. On the contrary, the political ructions of

London mayor Sadiq Khan promised today that he will begin the process of pulling down ‘inappropriate’ statues around London – after Bristolians dumped the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in the river at the weekend. To investigate London’s landmarks, Khan has created a ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’ which will review statues and street names in the capital to make sure they reflect the diversity of its people. Khan said he expected the commission to find that it’s ‘not appropriate to be memorialising, or to be celebrating’ certain figures, especially those with a racist past and links to the slave trade.  Mr S wonders though if Khan’s

Sadiq Khan has ventured to Brussels today to meet with European Union negotiators. London’s mayor has a plan to convince EU officials to offer Brits ‘associate citizenship’ after the Brexit implementation period ends this year. The citizenship would grant Brits continued access to freedom of movement and residency within the EU, along with a possible host of other rights linked to healthcare, welfare and voting in European Parliamentary elections. The bid, Khan says, is for ‘heartbroken’ Londoners and others. Of course, Khan is extremely unlikely to be successful. Although London’s mayor wants associate citizenship to be high up on the negotiating agenda when it comes the ‘future relationship’, it’s probably

Sadiq Khan’s verdict was clear on plans to make voters show ID before casting their ballots: ‘This is voter suppression’, he said. ‘It will hit poorer and minority communities, just as it does in the US’. But Mr S couldn’t help but notice one of the requirements for people to attend the Mayor of London’s own ‘State of London Debate’ at the O2 earlier this year: ‘Please bring photo ID and arrive early to ensure entry’. #SpeaktoSadiq – but only if you’ve got photo ID…

‘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

Rent control would worsen London’s housing crisis while hurting the poor, immigrants, and minorities. Yet Sadiq Khan wants to make it the central plank of his bid to win re-election as London Mayor. Khan has said the case for rent control is ‘overwhelming’ and that ‘Londoners overwhelmingly want it to happen’. But while some may see rent control as a way of capping the money going into the pockets of landlords, it would actually make London’s problems worse. Rent control would lead to less home building—what London actually needs. On top of that it will mean lower quality housing and discrimination against the most vulnerable. From San Francisco to Stockholm, Berlin and New York, rent

It’s always good to remind Sadiq Khan that Brexit is more popular in London than he is. Khan loves to play the role of Mayor of Remainia, the political figurehead of this oh-so-clever capital city that can see through the folly of Brexit that those strange inhabitants of Essex, the North and Wales voted for. And yet while it’s true Londoners voted Remain by 59.9 per cent to 40.1 per cent, the fact is more of us voted for Brexit than we did for Khan: 1,513,232 Londoners want to leave the EU, which is 200,000 more than the 1,310,143 who wanted Khan as mayor. So Brexit was such a massive

Sadiq Khan has been busy. But the mayor of London isn’t snowed under trying to deal with the capital’s knife crime epidemic. Instead, he is facing down a bigger demon: junk food. This morning, Khan has been touring the studios unveiling plans to ban adverts for unhealthy food on London’s tubes and buses. It is clear the mayor has got his priorities all wrong. What’s more, this censorship is bad for free speech. It also does very little to actually deal with what Khan calls the ‘ticking timebomb’ of childhood obesity. The press release announcing the plan tells us that almost 40 per cent of London 10- and 11-year-olds are ‘overweight

It was always possible, I wrote a month ago, that the London elections would show voters baulking for the first time at the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn in power, especially after the protests in Westminster against anti-Semitism. That hasn’t quite happened: it seems there has been a slight swing to Labour in the capital, unlike the rest of the country. But fears of a Tory bloodbath in London – of Corbynistas and Sadiq Khan supporters painting the town red – were misplaced. The Tories have kept hold of their crown jewel boroughs: Westminster, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea. Remarkably, they have even taken back control of Barnet, in north London, which

The fallout of the Windrush scandal has continued from the previous week, with Home Secretary Amber Rudd still in the firing line and facing calls to resign. Rudd has been criticised after telling the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday that the Home Office did not set targets for removals of illegal migrants to the UK. However, a memorandum leaked to the Guardian states that the Home Office had actually exceeded a quota of ‘12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18’, which Rudd later apologised for not having been aware of. Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis, who was the minister responsible for immigration at the time, took to the Andrew Marr Show