My background matters only if you don’t like me

T IS less than a month to go until the mayoral election and the polls have Zac Goldsmith trailing up to eight points behind Sadiq Khan. If Goldsmith were David Cameron he would describe himself as “pumped up” at this stage. But the Conservative MP for Richmond Park, who describes his relationship with the Prime Minister as “professional rather than social”, has not changed his act or conjured new tricks.

The only sign of tension is his dependence on e - c i g a r e t t e s . He apologises for the odour, recounting how he had conducted a lengthy oneto-one campaign meeting, only for the beneficiary to complain that Goldsmith farted throughout it.

Beneath the c alm

exterior, he

is a n g r y. Sadiq Khan has accused Goldsmith’s campaign of making racist capital out of his opponent’s Muslim faith. Goldsmith says: “We have never, ever, referenced Sadiq Khan’s religion or ethnic background. Not once.

“What he is actually doing is, I think, incredibly dangerous. He is calling Islamophobia to prevent legitimate questions being asked. They are about his willingness to share platforms with people who want to ‘drown every Israeli Jew in the sea’. It’s about his h av i n g employed someone who believed the Lee Rigby murder was fabricated. It’s about his career before being an MP, coaching people in how to sue the police.

“He is hiding behind Britain’s Muslims in order to avoid having the spotlight pointed at him. It is just obscene that somebody who wants to be the mayor of the greatest city, who wants to be in charge of our police and securit y, should behave not only with such bad judgement but in a way that is totally shameless.

“To be sharing a platform with Dr Tamimi, who wants to tip all Israeli Jews into the sea. To go out of his way to persuade a parliamentary committee that Dr Qaradawi, who preached the s a me t h i n g , wa s n o t ac tu ally an extremist is just a weird thing to do. To c hoose t o def e nd one of t he 9/ 1 1 terrorists in court. You can look at the record. I have never suggested he is an extremist but without a shadow of doubt he has given a platform, oxygen and cover to people who are extremists.”

Goldsmith says all this softly, fluently and without taking breath. For an a pp a re n t l y languid and diffident character he can deliver a killer blow. An advantage of not being a populist is that he can stomach not being liked.

He further attacks Khan for writing a legal booklet advising how to sue the police on race grounds.

A popular impression is that this has become a proxy battle over Israel and Palestine. As it happens, Goldsmith is a Christian, but he is exercised by the anti-Semitism of which the modern Labour Party is increasingly accused.

His passion is striking, for the conventional wisdom is that G o l d s mi t h ’s c a mp a i g n h a s b e e n underpowered. He is not as visible as Sadiq Khan. Pressing the flesh does not come naturally to him. He talks with amused pleasure about the chaos of campaigning alongside Boris Johnson. “It is like someone turning on a very powerful light and everyone smiles.”

Although Goldsmith has yielded to “thousands of selfies”, the photographs of him on the campaign trail look formal and slightly awkward. He is not a man for crowds.

Friends say that he has always been shy and responds more naturally to animals and nature than to people. At Eton he was the only boy trusted to walk his schoolmaster’s dog. While Boris Johnson is seen by many as a demagogue, Goldsmith’s motivation, he says, is a realisation of his vision of direct democracy. He was the first to volunteer to publish his tax returns and says that others can do as they wish, but voters must ultimately decide. “If you don’t like the fact that your MP or councillor is not publishing his or her tax return you have ever y right to boot them out.”

He is exhilarated by referendums and one of the few applauding David Cameron for calling one on Europe. He says what he has most e n j oye d about c a mpai g n i n g is mee t i n g s mal l , t r a n s f o r mat i v e organisations such as St Giles Trust, which helps ex-offenders.

His campaign may have lacked r a z z ma t a z z , b u t h e c l a i ms it is “growing measurably on the back of organic, grass-roots events”. His family is associated with Mayfair haunts but it is the outer boroughs which trip most readily off his tongue, for that is where is his support comes from. Journalists h ave b e e n d i s a pp o i n t e d that the handsome playboy they were hoping for turns out to be a high-minded political obsessive.

Goldsmith i s also a supporter of