THE new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, did not have a privileged start in life. He was one of eight children born to Pakistani immigrants, a bus driver and a seamstress, on a South London Housing Estate. From an early age, he showed a firm resolve to defy the odds in order to win success for himself and the causes important to him. That resolve has won him the biggest personal mandate in the UK, a job with wide-ranging powers over London and with enormous emotional significance for him. Some questions whether he has the experience or record of good judgement necessary for the role. He insists he is there to represent all Londoners and to tackle inequality in the capital, and now he has the chance to prove it. It was at school that he first began to gravitate towards politics, joining the Labour Party aged 15. He credits the school’s head, Naz Bokhari, who happened to be the first Muslim headteacher at a UK Secondary School, with making him realise “skin colour or background wasn’t a barrier to making something with your life”.Mr Khan was raised as a Muslim and has never shied away from acknowledging the importance of his faith. In his maiden speech as an MP he spoke about his father teaching him Mohammed’s sayings, or hadiths – in particular the principle that “if one sees something wrong, one has the duty to try to change it”.In 2005, Mr Khan fought and retained the marginal seat of Tooting for Labour, one of five new ethnic minority MPs elected that year. When Gordon Brown took over at Number 10, Mr Khan was given his first job in government as a Whip and then as Communities Minister, a move that created disquiet among some other MPs in the capital who had been around for longer. A post at the Department for Transport followed in 2009 and he became the first Muslim in the Cabinet. This was at a time when there were only four Muslim MPs and he was often confused for International Development Minister Shahid Malik. Just a week after the 2015 Parliamentary elections he announced he would seek the Labour nomination for Mayor. Mr Khan came out top as Labour choice of candidate not just with new members but in all three groups who could vote. The campaign that ensued was bloody. Mr Goldsmith’s campaign focused heavily on portraying Mr Khan as an associate of “extremists” – which in turn allowed Labour to attack the Conservatives for pursuing “divisive, dog-whistle” tactics. Now he will have to prove himself all over again as he has been accused of not having vision even by his own party. If he is to succeed he will need to display the same knack for steering his own course as he has shown as a campaigning lawyer, a backbench MP and a shadow minister. But those who voted for him will not forget his emphasis on his own disadvantaged background, his speeches about social justice and his promise to be a “Mayor for all Londoners”.
