My Interview With Sadiq Khan
The London Mayor sat down with Byline Times to talk Trump, Starmer, and the 'division dividend' now dominating our politics
Last month I sat down inside City Hall to interview London’s mayor Sadiq Khan.
Our interview, which we publish in full today at Byline Times took place almost ten years to the day since the last time I had sat down with Khan during his first campaign to become mayor.
Back then Khan was facing what he described as a “dog whistle” campaign from the Conservative party, which sought to play on racist fears about electing a Muslim man as the mayor of London.
Ten years and three elections later and in some ways little has changed. The Conservative party is still trying to profit from anti-Muslim sentiment about Khan, recently launching an attack on his hosting of Iftar celebrations in Trafalgar Square, whilst at the same time gradually losing public support in the overwhelmingly liberal city that London remains.
During our conversation Khan spoke about the racist attacks he has received from among others the US President, and how Big Tech algorithms are transforming our politics for the worst.
We also talk about his record as mayor and whether he’s actually succeeded in governing as quite the bold city-defining mayor that he claims.
As I’ve written on these pages before, I believe Khan has been underestimated by his political opponents. There are good reasons why he has won three terms as mayor and it is not because, as the Conservative party appears to suggest, that the capital city has become lost to ‘dominating’ Islamist forces.
As I wrote shortly before Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, there is much the Labour leader could and should have learnt from his London counterpart.
Perhaps if he had followed that advice, rather than that pushed by his former chief adviser Morgan McSweeney, the party would not have just suffered one of its worst ever results in the capital and the country at large.