Sadiq Khan, the only election winner in the English Labour party, yesterday issued a not-all-veiled criticism of Jeremy Corbyn, saying that Labour will “never be good enough” in perpetual opposition.
In a speech that repeated the word “power” 38 times, he drove home the message that his party needs to start winning elections again – not exactly the current leader’s priority.
Without power, Khan claimed, Labour can’t do any of the great things it needs to. Which prompts Heat Street to ask, what has Khan done with his?
Sadiq Khan’s main achievement since taking City Hall has been burnishing the image of Sadiq Khan.
Earlier this month he managed to make it to Canada – allegedly to closen ties with Montreal. But he clearly had one prize in mind and one prize alone – a selfie with Canadian superhunk and Prince George antagonist Justin Trudeau:
Khan also managed to cram anyone who was free into his #LondonIsOpen videos, which featured: Jude Law, Jarvis Cocker, Niall from One Direction, Mo Farah, Olly Murs, The Mystery Jets, Pixie Lott, and the full cast of several West End musicals:
Apparently, integral to being in charge of London is constantly leaving City Hall unoccupied to go somewhere else.
Khan took in the sights this summer, making trips to see somewhat tarnished Leftie icon Bill de Blasio in New York, days after hanging out with Justin:
The avid tourist also got inside the New York stock exchange and threw the first pitch at a baseball game at the New York Mets’ home ground (better than Obama, apparently):
As well as NYC and Montreal, the keen sight-seer also got to go to Chicago:
And Paris:
Lucky guy! No wonder he describes his job as the “best in the world“.
One undeniable success of Khan’s term so far has been the smooth launching of 24-hour service on parts of the Tube. The problem? It was teed up by his Tory predecessor Boris Johnson, who fought battles with the unions he would likely have been unwilling to fight.
It’s not stopped him taking the credit, of course:
One thing that’s easy enough to do is ban stuff, and Khan made that virtually his first move in office.
Clamping down on bikini bodies on display on the Tube network, Khan shielded Londoners’ precious eyes from people hotter than them – to the dismay of many.
Khan published a hand-wringing gender pay audit of City Hall, which naturally chucks some blame at Boris for the fact that male and female salaries in London government differ by some 4.6%. Gesture politics at its finest.
Khan loves to roll with the social justice crowd, but even he fails to keep up sometimes.
Last month he managed to screw up an attempt at congratulating Andy Murray on the “first ever” double Olympic gold – conveniently forgetting that a woman had already achieved that and more.
Not quite a ban, but Khan managed to hobble Uber’s expansion in London after black cab drivers realised it was significantly cheaper than they are.
According to Guido Fawkes, Khan bunged a £65million subsidy to the cab industry, including building a whole raft of infrastructure that only they can use, while slapping extra regulation on app-based providers like Uber.
Not satisfied with the power he’s already got, Khan is hungry for more. Not only has he made the point that Labour might like to win an election nationally, but also demanded sweeping extra abilities for himself.
Saying that London’s mayor needs as much power as New York’s, Khan demanded power to levy income tax, run the healthcare system and social services, as well as roughly tripling his spending powers.
With a record like that, how could anyone deny that Labour – and specifically him – being in power is anything but a recipe for triumph?