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Sadiq Khan has had a terrible first term as mayor of London
By Matt Kelly 29 January 2019
Livingstone and Johnson – faulty as they were – brought notable changes to the landscape of London. Khan's first term, meanwhile, remains engulfed in the knife crime epidemic. He deserves a second term, writes Matt Kelly, but only because the competition is so vile
He used to be a boxer as a child, Sadiq Khan.
He never claims to have been any good (there's a GQ video of him at his old gym, where he demonstrates some very ropey skipping skills), but you can imagine what kind of boxer the young Khan would have been.
Thoughtful, cagey, bit defensive, the kind of boxer who dances around the ring looking to jab his way to a points victory. Never a knockout merchant. His brothers, who help run Earlsfield Amateur Boxing Club to this day, have got his measure.
"He's all right for the first minute. But there's two minutes in the boxing round. We just need to work on the stamina," they told the Observer in 2015, during his first mayoral campaign.
Of course, politics isn't boxing. It's much more brutal than that. But now, as he embarks on his campaign for a second term, it's reasonable to look back over the last three years and wonder if the characteristics Khan the young boxer demonstrated in the ring, also ring true of Mayor Khan in City Hall.
In so many ways, he's got it all. Charisma, street smarts, a quick lip. And he's got balls. He's quite happy to be trading blows with the heavyweight president of the United States on terrorism and our own paperweight prime minister on Brexit.
Yet in terms of sheer impact in the job as London mayor, Khan ranks third of three.
His bad luck, perhaps, to follow a pair of showboaters in Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, but also undeniable that both his predecessors, divisive as they were, made the mayoralty their own.
Livingstone introduced the Congestion Charge and brought in the Olympics. Johnson launched the Boris Bike and the all-night Tube. What's Khan famous for?
Ask a random bunch of Londoners to name Mayor Khan's biggest achievement to date... and you'll most likely be met with a shrug
Ask a random bunch of Londoners to name Mayor Khan's biggest achievement to date, as I spent the weekend doing, and you'll most likely be met with a shrug. His good deeds in planting trees (a lot of trees, more than 90,000 this winter alone) and tackling misogynistic advertising on Tube platforms, are drowned out by one issue more than any other: knife crime.
Figures released just last week show London remains in the grip of an epidemic.
The Office For National Statistics recorded 14,847 blade offences in London during the 12 months to the end of September last year, including 83 killings and 161 rapes and sexual assaults carried out with a knife.
The consequence is apparent for any parent living in the capital, myself included. We're scared witless for our children's safety. It's hard to imagine a more damaging emotion to carry with you into a re-election campaign.
Khan seemed lead-footed when dealing with this crisis in Londoners' safety – the very thing he had put front and centre of his election manifesto
Khan blames (reasonably enough) 2010 cuts to police numbers made by then-home secretary Theresa May and says fixing the problem is a longterm project that could take more than a decade. He also points to projects he has launched, in particular imitating Scotland's highly successful Violence Reduction Unit, which cut knife murders in Glasgow by half.
But for a politician so finely attuned to the emotional intelligence of the electorate, and so savvy at managing his message, Khan seemed lead-footed when dealing with this crisis in Londoners' safety – the very thing he had put front and centre of his election manifesto in 2016.
Interviewed in the summer of 2017, during which stabbings were so commonplace on the news that it sometimes felt like broadcasters were repeating themselves day after day, LBC's Nick Ferrari asked the mayor: "How safe is London?"
Khan's answer might have been statistically true at the time, but it showed by how much he was misjudging the public mood. "We are safe. You compare London to any global city and I mean global city... we're a safe global city."
The following February, London's murder rate overtook New York's.
It is inconceivable that Sadiq Khan will not follow his predecessors Livingstone and Johnson as a two-term mayor.
Despite this, it is inconceivable that Sadiq Khan will not follow his predecessors Livingstone and Johnson as a two-term mayor. Controversial plans for rent control across the capital will be a vote winner (though not without risks, as Stephen Bush notes here), but the main reason Khan will win easily is that his opposition comes from the bum of the month club.
Shaun Bailey in particular, the Tory challenger, is a lightweight, who also has the unfortunate habit of leading with his chin, opening himself up to accusations of Islamophobia (he retweeted someone calling Khan the "mad mullah of Londonistan") and sexism ("Girls getting knocked up for housing? It's a cottage industry where I come from").
So, assuming victory, Khan has, from now, five more years as mayor to make his mark. On paper he looks formidable, occupying as he does a unique position in the Labour Party.
He's the man who helped put Jeremy Corbyn on the leadership ballot, but then didn't vote for him. He's happy to publicly challenge the Dear Leader, especially on the way he has tackled (or otherwise) anti-Semitism in the party. He's the only Labour politician currently wielding both actual power and influence on the international stage. And he is a Labour politician that can reach both the many and the few without terrifying either.
He would certainly be a credible candidate for top job post-Corbyn, and therefore perhaps the country's first Muslim prime minister
He would certainly be a credible candidate for top job post-Corbyn, and therefore perhaps the country's first Muslim prime minister, if Sajid Javid doesn't beat him to it.
But to go from undercard to top of the bill will take more than fancy footwork and the occasional decent jab. Khan needs to score a big knockout somewhere along the line in his time as mayor. It will involve dropping his guard and throwing big punches. It will mean less defence, more attack.
Sadiq Khan's about to go into that punishing second minute of the boxing round that will decide if he truly is champion material or just another contender.
Whether or not the boy from Earlsfield ABC has got the stamina remains to be seen.
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