A political pygmy and narcissist obsessed with puerile stunts
Although by nature a tory, two years ago I voted for labour’s Sadiq Khan to be mayor of london. My principal motivation was the fact that I abhorred the way his tory rival, Zac goldsmith, conducted a divisive campaign that highlighted Khan’s religious background.
these tactics were abominable — particularly considering that london is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse cities.
Also, I thought it would be good for Britain’s capital to have its first Muslim mayor, and I was impressed by Khan himself.
two years on, it pains me to say that Khan has failed in his job. he’s a political pygmy. under his watch, london has suffered badly.
Above all, londoners have become more vulnerable to violent criminals. Eighty people have been murdered in the capital since the start of the year. At least 51 have been stabbed. up to the end of April, there were 1,296 reported knife attacks.
official figures for the 12 months to September 2017 show that knife crime was at its highest level for six years — up 23 per cent from 2016, when Boris Johnson was mayor.
on top of this, statistics show the rise in the number of muggings by thugs on mopeds — an average 60 attacks a day.
Khan’s failure to tackle these crimes has been widely condemned. Indeed, labour MP David lammy criticised Khan following four deaths in his tottenham constituency, complaining that neither Khan nor the home Secretary had contacted him.
he said: ‘I want a relationship with the home Secretary. I want a relationship with Sadiq Khan. I had to challenge them because I felt they were absent for too long.’
Any decent london mayor would have visited the crime scenes, trying to reassure londoners by endeavouring to put things right.
Instead, Khan has a reputation for PR stunts to promote his own image, rather than doing proper work. he hands out selfies as freely as wedding guests spread confetti. he has put 29 photos of himself on his twitter account since last Sunday!
this week saw Khan burnishing his right- on credentials by establishing himself as the champion of the motley bunch protesting about Donald trump’s visit to Britain next week.
Notcontent with accusing the u.S. President of behaving like a ‘12-yearold’ for criticising him for under-reacting to last year’s terrorist attack on london Bridge, in which eight people were killed and 48 injured, Khan has said he will permit protesters to fly a giant balloon over Westminster depicting trump as a baby in a nappy.
It is easy to see why Khan has approved this puerile insult to the leader of the Western world: he will garner effusive praise from the left. Already, the guardian newspaper has called the balloon ‘the perfect mascot for the mass demonstrations that will form Donald trump’s welcoming party’.
Wrong. It represents a juvenile gesture which damages Britain in the eyes of the world and insults this country’s greatest ally.
I don’t like trump any more than Khan does, but he’s the head of state of a country that Britain will rely on post-Brexit — an ally, moreover, which has investments worth more than half a trillion dollars in Britain, including hundreds of billions in london. If Khan succeeds in driving trump into the lap of our international rivals, such as France’s Emmanuel Macron or germany’s Angela Merkel, the risk is that thousands of londoners will lose their jobs.
the hypocrisy of this agitprop, narcissist mayor beggars belief. For, two months ago, turkey’s President Recep Erdogan visited london. Since 2016, the despot has jailed an estimated 50,000 political dissidents. he has an appalling attitude to gay rights, locking up and beating protestors at a Pride march in June. he has also jailed at least 200 journalists.
Yet when Erdogan arrived in london, there was no protest from Sadiq Khan. Not a whimper from this self-righteous hypocrite.
Donald trump may not be an attractive individual, but Khan’s hostility to him is a shaming manifestation of the double standards of the British left.
this is a long standing phenomenon. to many on the left, President John F. Kennedy is venerated. But he was more of a monster than trump. he abused women, shared a mistress with gangsters, maintained secret links with the Soviet union and committed America to the bloody disaster that turned into the Vietnam War.
For his part, Sadiq Khan would be much better employed putting the interests of londoners before his own ambitions. Indeed, it is no secret he sees his mayoralty as a launchpad to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as labour leader.
his priorities should be cutting crime, creating more social housing, reassessing the controversial cycle ‘superhighways’ that have helped reduce parts of london to gridlock, tackling the drug trade and curbing the blight of some grotesquely unaesthetic building projects.
Not insulting the leader of a country which last year imported £40,000 million worth of goods from Britain.