Sadiq Khan has been re-elected mayor of London for a historic third term, becoming the first mayor to secure a third term in the British capital, British media reported after the counting of votes was completed.
At 53, the Labor son of Pakistani immigrants defeated Tory candidate Susan Hall and overtook his two-term London mayoralty predecessor Boris Johnson.
During his first term, Sadiq Khan fought hard against Brexit.
This time, he promised a “fairer, safer, greener city for the whole world”.
He wants to expand the free lunch program for public school children. The man who grew up in social housing has promised to build 40,000 new social homes. And he promised to take action to end homelessness in London by 2030.
Sadiq Khan is not considered charismatic. But that hasn’t stopped him from becoming the black sheep of the conservative press and the Tories who have been ruling continuously since 2010.
He is attacked for security in London. He is accused of being responsible for the rise in knife attacks, a scourge which Sadiq Khan attributes to conservative governments’ austerity policies that have led to cuts in police forces.
His opponents blame him for last year’s extension to greater London of the polluting car tax, introduced in 2015 by Boris Johnson. The Tories seized the opportunity to accuse Sadiq Khan of not caring about Londoners suffering from the high cost of living.
The Koran in Buckingham
Attacks against him sometimes go off the rails. Former Tory deputy prime minister Lee Anderson said in February that Islamists had “taken control” of Sadiq Khan. “He has handed over our capital to the ‘mothers’,” said the MP, who now belongs to the far-right Reform UK party. .
A few years earlier, in 2019, the then US president Donald Trump attacked the mayor of London during a wave of jihadist attacks in London and called him a “national disgrace” and a “complete loser”.
“One of us is a loser and it’s not me,” Sadiq Khan had replied.
The mayor embodies one of the success-stories that London loves, a city in the world proud of its multiculturalism, where 46% of residents declare themselves to be of Asian origin, black or mixed or “other”. He never misses an opportunity to invoke his humble origins and declares that he observes the Ramadan fast, does not drink and tries to pray every day.
Sadiq Khan was born on 8 October 1970 to a Pakistani immigrant family who had just settled in the UK.
He grew up in social housing in Tooting, a working-class district of south London with six brothers and one sister. He attended the local public high school, which did not have a great reputation, and the University of North London. There one of his professors singles him out for his oratorical skills and directs him to study Law.
As a child, he learns to box so that he can more easily deal with those who dare to face him as “Paki”.
At the age of 15 he joined the Labor Party, at the time when Margaret Thatcher was in power.
In 2005, he leaves his career as a lawyer specializing in human rights to be elected as a Member of Parliament.
Three years later, Gordon Brown offered him the Ministry responsible for Communities and then the Ministry of Transport. He becomes the first Muslim to participate in a British government.
When Buckingham Palace asked him which Bible he wanted to swear on, he suggested bringing the Koran with him. Sadiq Khan left that copy in the palace in the hope that it would serve “the next”.
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