A balloon of the London mayor wearing a yellow bikini is set to fly over the city of London in response to the 'Trump baby' blimp.

In July 2018, a giant air balloon of current United States President Donald Trump, where he was depicted as an orange, crying baby wearing a diaper and clutching a smartphone, was flown over London during his official visit to the UK. It was created and flown in protest of many of Trump’s actions, politics, and statements. More than 100,000 protesters attended the balloon’s launch and subsequent flight over the city, with a sister protest in Edinburgh boasting 50,000 additional protesters. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, gave final approval for the giant balloon to be flown during Trump’s visit in support of the right to free speech. Because of the balloon, Trump canceled his stop in London.

“I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London,” Trump had said of his decision. Trump then went on to bash Khan in an interview with The Sun.

#TrumpBaby just gave @realDonaldTrump the welcome he deserves. “I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London." pic.twitter.com/LoakgcaXai — Trump Baby (@TrumpBabyUK) July 13, 2018

Now, in counter-protest to the Trump balloon, protesters against Khan are campaigning to raise funds for a Sadiq Khan balloon to fly above Parliament Square in Westminster in London on September 1.

“In light of the Donald Trump ‘Baby Trump’ ballo[o]n being allowed to fly over London during his visit to the U.K., let’s get a ‘baby Khan’ one and see if FREE SPEECH applies to all and whether or not Mr Khan and the London assembly will also approve this,” the campaign description reads. “Under Sadiq Khan, we have seen crime sky rocket to unprecedented levels. People in London don’t feel safe and they aren’t safe, 81 murders this year alone….!”

The Khan balloon measures up at 29 feet and will feature Khan dressed in a yellow bikini. This is a throwback to the mayor’s decision to ban a controversial series of ads for a weight loss supplement that featured a woman in a yellow bikini asking, “Are you beach body ready?” in 2016. According to the BBC, Khan argued that the advertisement promoted “unhealthy or unrealistic body images.”

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Khan has taken news of the balloon in stead as protesters received the okay to fly the balloon today.

“If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they’re welcome to do so,” Khan told the BBC. “I don’t really think yellow’s my colour though.”

So far, the campaign has raised just under £59,000, or just under $77,000, which is around 78 percent of its overall fundraising goal.</s>LONDON — London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the one who let protestors fly a float of President Donald Trump as an angry baby while the American president was in England, is getting his own balloon.

Critics of Khan have been given permission to fly a giant balloon over London that depicts him dressed in a bikini.

Organizer Yanny Bruere has raised more than 58,000 pounds through the Crowdfunder website for the 29-foot blimp as part of a campaign to oust Khan from his post.

Khan angered some people in the British capital and elsewhere last month when he allowed a balloon caricaturing Donald Trump as an angry baby to float above the city while the U.S. president was in England.

Bruere cited rising crime and “defending free speech” as factors in his anti-Khan campaign.

A City Hall spokeswoman says the balloon has permission to fly Saturday over Parliament Square.

The balloon was a reference to a “Beach body ready” ad that Khan banned in 2016.</s>The London Mayor has allowed a huge 29ft blimp depicting himself wearing a bright-yellow bikini to fly over London. The bikini-clad balloon of Mr Khan got the permission yesterday after crowdfunding target was smashed in just a few days. The balloon was made in a bid to humiliate the Labour party politician after he approved a giant balloon of Donald Trump in diapers to be used in the London protest against Trump’s UK visit in July. Organiser Yanny Gruere has raised nearly £60.000 so far, nearly twice the amount that was raised for “Trump Baby” a month ago.

In response to the blimp Mr Khan said: “If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they’re welcome to do so – I don’t really think yellow’s my colour though.” The blimp of the Mayor of London is nine feet bigger than the one of Donald Trump and is part of Mr Gruere’s campaign “Make London Great Again”. Mr Gruere told Daily Star Online: “I started it because I was irritated that Khan was willing to mock a great ally like the US president — particularly at such an important time as Brexit. "We thought it would be ironic and humorous if the situation was reversed and Khan had to submit himself to the same mockery in the name of free speech. "Khan should be focusing on soaring crime levels in London, not point scoring with a great ally."

When will the Blimp of London Mayor fly? - Location, timings, details The balloon will fly over Parliament Square in Westminster this Saturday, September 1. This is the exact same spot “Trump Baby” was floating a little over a month ago. People can see the giant blimp from 9.30am to 11.30am. You can find more information on the “Sadiq Khan Balloon” Facebook event.

So far the event has 700 saying they will attend and almost 5,000 interested. It was only yesterday Mr Bruere could confirm the bikini-clad blimp was granted permission to fly. On Twitter, the 28-year-old Londoner wrote: “It’s OFFICIAL. The balloon WILL fly. “Sadiq Khan had no choice in the end.”

The reactions have since varied with some finding it hilarious and others, not so much. Journalist Joani Walsh tweeted: "Trump Baby crowdfunding ended on £35,000. Bikini Khan still going on £58,000. "Looks like the British public hates Sadiq Khan even more than the Donald." Others are not happy with the bikini-clad blimp.</s>These are external links and will open in a new window

Protesters have been given permission to fly a bikini-clad blimp of London mayor Sadiq Khan over Westminster.

Campaigners raised £58,182 for the 29ft-long 'baby Khan', which will fly over Parliament square on 1 September.

A crowdfunding anti-Khan campaign was launched following the giant Donald Trump baby balloon flown by protesters during the president's visit in July.

The balloon has been approved by City Hall, the police and air traffic controllers NATS.

The giant inflatable shows Mr Khan wearing a yellow bikini in a nod to the 'Beach Body Ready' advert he banned in 2016.

The fundraising page for the balloon said: "In light of the Donald Trump 'Baby Trump' balloon being allowed to fly over London during his visit to the UK, let's get a 'baby Khan' one and see if free speech applies to all."

It adds: "Under Sadiq Khan, we have seen crime skyrocket to unprecedented levels. People in London don't feel safe and they aren't safe. [...] Khan out."

The site also says that if the campaign raises any extra money it will be "used for a continuing campaign to remove Sadiq Khan from office" and "defending free speech".

The Greater London Authority (GLA) city operations team gave permission for the blimp to fly over Parliament Square between 09:30 and 11:30 BST.

"As always, City Hall has been working in very close coordination with the Metropolitan Police and other key agencies to ensure this protest is able to be carried out in a safe and secure way," a spokesman for the mayor said.

A NATS spokesperson said: "Following a thorough evaluation, we are satisfied that the balloon will have no impact on normal air traffic operations. The Met Police has also approved the flight and accordingly air traffic control permission has been granted."</s>Remember the "Trump Baby" balloon depicting the U.S. president in diapers clutching his cellphone and throwing a tantrum, the one that protesters flew beside the Palace of Westminster during his visit to Britain in July?

London's liberals were having a laugh. "Never has an inflatable gotten such international media attention," The Washington Post reported.

Well, it's now turnabout-is-fair-play time.

Protesters plan to fly a blimp of London Mayor Sadiq Khan clad in a bikini over Parliament Square on Saturday.

The pouty-faced "Bikini Khan" is intended to call attention to the rise in violent crime in London (more below).

About 3,400 people have pledged around $75,000 so far to an Internet group - "Make London Safe Again" - to fly the 29-foot-long balloon, according to the Crowdfunder page.

The mayor, who gave permission for the Trump Baby blimp to float in the restricted airspace over Westminster, was taking "Bikini Khan" in stride.

"If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini, they're welcome to do so," he said. "I don't really think yellow's my color, though."

Yanny Bruere, 28, the brain behind the latest blimp, said "Bikini Khan" was done "in retaliation to the Donald Trump balloon being approved by Sadiq Khan in London."

"I didn't think it was very fitting to do that to a great ally and the president of America, and I didn't think it would have been approved if it had been Barack Obama, for example. So I decided to test that free-speech angle and threw an application in to see if Sadiq Khan would be willing to submit himself to the same mockery as he's willing to impose on the leader of the free world," Bruere said.

Now that the Khan blimp has been given approval? Bruere said it was probably because the Trump balloon came first.

The choice of a bikini is a reference to a 2016 advertising campaign that featured a young woman in a yellow two-piece that Khan had removed from buses, subways and transit stations for promoting "unhealthy or unrealistic" body images.

The ad asked, "Are you beach body ready?" and touted a weight-loss remedy.

"It made sense to put Khan in a bikini," Bruere said. "It's summer time. He gets to show off his physique a little bit."

That both Khan and Trump should be honored with dueling blimps makes a bit of sense.

The two have a history.

During Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Khan predicted that his populist rhetoric would flop with voters.

Then after Trump's surprise victory, Khan said it would be "inappropriate" to invite Trump to meet the queen for a state visit because of his call for a ban on U.S. travel from predominantly Muslim countries.

Khan is a Muslim, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver.

Just hours after a terrorist attack in London in June 2016, Trump tweeted, "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!' "

In a May speech to the National Rifle Association in which he referred to knife crimes in London, Trump alleged that there was "blood all over the floors" of a hospital in the British capital that he compared to a war zone.

In an explosive interview with the Sun tabloid that published during his July trip to London, Trump charged that Khan was doing a "bad job on crime" (he also said Prime Minister Theresa May was botching Brexit; the next morning, he backtracked on the Brexit comment during a news conference).

The people behind the Khan blimp echo Trump's criticisms. The Facebook page promoting the protest states, "Under Sadiq Khan, we have seen crime skyrocket to unprecedented levels. People in London don't feel safe and they aren't safe."

Bruere said he wanted to highlight how "the crime in London under his [Khan's] watch is particularly bad." He said that instead of "political point-scoring against Donald Trump," Khan "should be making London a safer place."

The mayor, a rising star in the Labour Party, is still pretty popular.

Two years into his term, a YouGov survey in April commissioned by Queen Mary University of London found that 52 percent thought Khan was doing a good job, compared with 30 percent who said he was doing badly. But the survey also found large majorities saying crime overall had gotten worse, especially knife crime.

The Metropolitan Police has launched more than 80 murder investigations in London since the start of 2018. Most of the victims were stabbed.

London's knife killings have generated a lot of ink, especially the news that the British capital surpassed New York City in the number of homicides for a month earlier this year.

The mayor's supporters say violent crime has increased across both England and Wales, not just London, and that both New York and London are relatively safe cities, especially when compared with Venezuela's Caracas, South Africa's Cape Town and Mexico's Acapulco - as well as U.S. cities such as Baltimore, St. Louis and Chicago.</s>LONDON: London Mayor Sadiq Khan today downplayed a giant yellow bikini-clad balloon of him set to fly over the city demanding his ouster over growing safety concerns in the city.

A crowdfunded Make London Safe Again campaign raised more than 58,000 pounds for the 29-foot giant balloon as part of its drive calling for Khan's removal from his post.

"If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they're welcome to do so - I don't really think yellow's my colour though," Khan said.

The balloon, along the lines of a Donald Trump giant "angry baby" inflatable blimp that flew over Parliament Square in London during the US President's UK visit in July, is set to rise above the same spot on Saturday morning.

A spokesperson for City Hall, the Mayor's office, said the organisers of the bikini blimp's flight had been given permission to use Parliament Square Garden.

"As always, City Hall has been working in very close coordination with the Metropolitan Police and other key agencies to ensure this protest is able to be carried out in a safe and secure way," the spokesperson said.

Protesters claim that the giant inflatable is intended to highlight the rising crime levels in the British capital under Khan's leadership.

"Under Sadiq Khan, we have seen crime skyrocket to unprecedented levels. People in London don't feel safe and they aren't safe, (there have been) 81 murders this year alone," Yanny Bruere, a self-proclaimed free speech advocate, wrote on the Make London Safe Again campaign fundraising page.

He added: "In light of the Donald Trump 'Baby Trump' balloon being allowed to fly over London during his visit to the UK, let's get a 'Baby Khan' one and see if FREE SPEECH applies to all and whether or not Mr Khan and the London assembly will also approve this.

Any surplus money raised will be used for a continuing campaign to remove Sadiq Khan from office and also for defending free speech which is constantly under attack.

The so-called "Baby Khan" inflatable depicts Khan lying on his side wearing a yellow bikini.

The London Mayor had angered Trump supporters when he gave permission for the US President's angry baby balloon to take flight in the city during the presidential visit in mid-July, saying the idea that we limit the rights to protest, we limit the rights to free speech because it may cause offence to a foreign leader is a very, very slippery slope.

A group calling itself Trump Babysitters had said at the time that the protest was intended as a humorous way to counter the misery created by the US President.</s>About 3,400 people have pledged about $75,000 to an internet group — Make London Safe Again — to fly the 29-foot-long balloon, according to the Crowdfunder page.

LONDON — Remember the “Trump baby” balloon depicting the president in diapers clutching his cellphone and throwing a tantrum, the one protesters flew beside the Palace of Westminster during his visit to Britain in July?

London’s liberals were having a laugh. “Never has an inflatable gotten such international media attention,” The Washington Post reported.

Protesters plan to fly a blimp of London Mayor Sadiq Khan clad in a bikini over Parliament Square on Saturday.

The pouty-faced “Bikini Khan” is intended to call attention to the rise in violent crime in London.

About 3,400 people have pledged about $75,000 to an internet group — Make London Safe Again — to fly the 29-foot-long balloon, according to the Crowdfunder page.

The mayor, who gave permission for the “Trump baby” blimp to float in the restricted airspace over Westminster, was taking “Bikini Khan” in stride.

“If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini, they’re welcome to do so,” he said. “I don’t really think yellow’s my color, though.”

Yanny Bruere, 28, the brain behind the latest blimp, said “Bikini Khan” was done “in retaliation to the Donald Trump balloon being approved by Sadiq Khan in London.”

The choice of a bikini is a reference to a 2016 advertising campaign that featured a young woman in a yellow two-piece that Khan had removed from buses, subways and transit stations for promoting “unhealthy or unrealistic” body images.

The ad asked, “Are you beach body ready?” and touted a weight-loss remedy.

“It made sense to put Khan in a bikini,” Bruere said.

That both Khan and Trump should be honored with dueling blimps makes a bit of sense: They have a history.

During Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Khan predicted his populist rhetoric would flop with voters. After Trump’s surprise victory, Khan said it would be “inappropriate” to invite Trump to meet the queen for a state visit because of his call for a ban on U.S. travel from predominantly Muslim countries.

Khan is a Muslim, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver.

Hours after a terrorist attack in London in June 2016, Trump tweeted, “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’ ”

In a May speech to the National Rifle Association in which he referred to knife crimes in London, Trump incorrectly claimed that there was “blood all over the floors” of a hospital in the British capital that he compared to a war zone.

The mayor, a rising star in the Labour Party, remains popular.

Two years into his term, a YouGov survey in April commissioned by Queen Mary University of London found that 52 percent thought Khan was doing a good job, compared with 30 percent who said he was doing badly. But the survey also found large majorities saying crime overall had gotten worse, especially knife crime.

The Metropolitan Police has launched more than 80 homicide investigations in London since the start of 2018. Most of the victims were stabbed.

London’s knife killings have generated a lot of ink, especially the news that the British capital surpassed New York City in the number of homicides for a month earlier this year.

The mayor’s supporters say violent crime has increased across England and Wales, not just London, and that New York and London are relatively safe cities, especially when compared with Venezuela’s Caracas, South Africa’s Cape Town and Mexico’s Acapulco — as well as U.S. cities such as Baltimore, St. Louis and Chicago.</s>LONDON | Critics of London Mayor Sadiq Khan will be allowed to fly a giant balloon over London that portrays the city leader dressed in a bikini.

Organizer Yanny Bruere raised close to $75,000 through Crowdfunder for the 29-foot (8.8-meter) blimp.

Khan upset some people when he OK’d a balloon caricaturing Donald Trump as an irate baby to float above London while Trump was in town.

Bruere cited rising crime and “defending free speech” as factors in his anti-Khan campaign.

The balloon has permission to fly Saturday over Parliament Square, according to a City Hall spokesperson.

The balloon was a reference to a “Beach body ready” ad that Khan banned in 2016.</s>A blimp of Sadiq Khan wearing a yellow bikini is to fly over Westminster on Saturday morning in response to the Donald Trump baby balloon that the London mayor permitted in July.

A crowdfunding campaign has raised more than £58,000 for the blimp, which references the bikini-clad “body-shaming” adverts Khan has vowed to ban on the tube. Organisers says they want to highlight the rise in violent crime in London this year.

Yanny Bruere, a self-described free speech advocate, is behind the Make London Safe Again campaign. “Under Sadiq Khan, we have seen crime skyrocket to unprecedented levels. People in London don’t feel safe and they aren’t safe, [there have been] 81 murders this year alone,” he wrote on the blimp’s Crowdfunder page.

“In light of the ‘Baby Trump’ balloon being allowed to fly over London during his visit to the UK, let’s get a ‘Baby Khan’ one and see if free speech applies to all and whether or not Mr Khan and the London assembly will also approve this.”

Khan said: “If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they’re welcome to do so. I don’t really think yellow’s my colour though.”

By Thursday afternoon, more than 700 people had signed up to a Facebook event page calling for people to gather in Parliament Square to watch it, while about 4,800 indicated that they were “interested”.

A city hall spokeswoman said the organisers of the blimp’s flight had been given permission to use Parliament Square Garden. “As always, city hall has been working in very close co-ordination with the Metropolitan police and other key agencies to ensure this protest is able to be carried out in a safe and secure way.”

Trump supporters were infuriated when Khan allowed protesters to fly a blimp depicting the president as an orange-skinned baby clutching a mobile phone, in a nod to his outbursts on Twitter.

Bruere’s blimp highlights Khan’s nose, and dresses him in a yellow bikini – a reference his 2016 call to ban “body-shaming” advertising on London’s transport network. Khan’s intervention, one of his first acts as mayor, followed an outcry over a protein shake poster featuring a model posing in a yellow bikini with the text: “Are you beach body ready?”</s>LONDON >> Critics of London Mayor Sadiq Khan have been given permission to fly a giant balloon over London that depicts him dressed in a bikini.

LONDON >> Critics of London Mayor Sadiq Khan have been given permission to fly a giant balloon over London that depicts him dressed in a bikini.

Organizer Yanny Bruere has raised more than $75,000 through the Crowdfunder website for the 29-foot blimp as part of a campaign to oust Khan from his post.

Khan angered some people in the British capital and elsewhere last month when he allowed a balloon caricaturing Donald Trump as an angry baby to float above the city while the U.S. president was in England.

Bruere cited rising crime and “defending free speech” as factors in his anti-Khan campaign.

A City Hall spokeswoman says the balloon has permission to fly Saturday over Parliament Square.

The balloon was a reference to a “Beach body ready” ad that Khan banned in 2016.
Protesters against Mayor of London Sadiq Khan plan to fly a balloon of him in which he is wearing a yellow bikini over Parliament Square, London on 1 September in the same spot where the Donald Trump baby balloon was flown on 13 July.