Sadiq Khan
 Sadiq Khan  (Politician) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Sadiq Aman Khan 8 October 1970 London | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of North London | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Islam | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Saadiya Ahmed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of | British-American Project, Franco-British Colloque | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sadiq Khan (born 8 October 1970) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting in South London since 2005. He is standing as the Labour Party's candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election.
Landslide?
In January 2016, Sadiq Khan was reported to be set for a landslide victory over his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith in the race to be Mayor of London. Khan, who began the new year with a pledge to freeze London transport fares, is now ten points clear of Goldsmith according to the YouGov poll for LBC. Khan is on 45% compared to just 35% for Goldsmith, once undecided and non-voters have been excluded.
If borne out on 5 May 2016, it would be the largest victory for any candidate since the London mayoralty was set up and a major boost for the Labour party.[1]
Look at second preferences
Asa Bennett, the Assistant Comment Editor at the Daily Telegraph, told LBC that Zac Goldsmith's team does not need to be too worried, saying:
- "Boris has shown he can come from behind. For example, in the 2012 campaign, about six months before, Johnson was at 39% and Livingstone at 45%. So this is very surmountable. The thing that people aren't looking at is second preferences.
- "When it comes down to it, Zac will have the Greens in the bag who would love to vote for the former editor of The Ecologist magazine. He'll have UKIP in the bag, given he's a Eurosceptic.
- "But Sadiq will be under threat from some left-wing voters who are going to be tempted by George Galloway, who is trying to out-Corbyn Sadiq."[2]
No unnecessary risks
Sadiq Khan's team know they face a struggle to win back the sort of working class outer London voters that the party lost to Boris in both 2008 and 2012. Whatever the polls say, Labour needs to reach beyond their comfort zone if they are to see off Goldsmith in May. That said, Khan's campaign are also not willing to take any unnecessary risks either. And with Livingstone's long history of putting his foot in it, Khan's team appear to believe that standing beside Livingstone would be the biggest unnecessary risk of all.[3]
