Although there are no officially declared candidates (with the exception of transport expert Christian Wolmar), it often feels as if the race to be Labour’s next London mayoral nominee has already begun. David Lammy, Tessa Jowell, Andrew Adonis and Diane Abbott are all positioning themselves to stand, with a regular stream of op-eds and other interventions.
In an interview with me in tomorrow’s NS, Sadiq Khan, who was appointed shadow minister for London in January, hits out at what he calls “a beauty parade” and accuses his Labour colleagues of “playing ego politics”. When I asked Khan why he withdrew from a recent Progress debate on the future of capital, which featured Lammy, Jowell, Adonis and Abbott (the first hustings in all but name), he told me:
I was told it was going to be a forum to discuss ideas about London and it was quite clear to me that it was actually turned into a beauty parade. I’ve got no interest in being involved in a beauty parade, or playing ego politics. It’s about me making sure that I do the job I’ve been given as shadow minister for London with the seriousness it deserves. I’m a member of team Labour. My obsession is to make sure we do the best we can in the elections in May 2014.
As shadow minister for London, Khan enjoys the advantage of being able to prepare the ground for a future mayoral bid without being accused of “ego politics”. When I pointed out that he was viewed as one of the frontrunners for the post, he notably refused to rule out a bid: “If others want to flatter me and throw me those compliments, I’m not going to reject them, but my focus is definitely on the jobs I’ve asked been by Ed Miliband to do.”
Defends the mansion tax against Lammy, Jowell and Abbott
Khan also criticised Lammy, Jowell and Abbott after they denounced Labour’s proposed mansion tax as a “tax on London” (at the Progress event) and warned that it would penalise the asset rich but cash poor. He said:
All I say to colleagues, in the kindest, politest way is, ‘actually, you look at the bigger picture. Are you in favour of trying to help those who own the least by giving them a new rate of tax at 10p? If you are, then ask yourself how you go about doing that.’ What I’d rather do is work collegiately with senior members of the Labour Party to find a policy that works, rather than going for the cheap soundbite, which doesn’t really address the issue of making sure that we’ve got a fair tax policy.
On Boris Johnson’s Thatcher lecture: “simplistic snobbery”
In response to Boris Johnson’s recent Margaret Thatcher lecture, in which he argued, “Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130”, Khan said:
“I took the trouble of reading the speech, as well as the soundbites, and it was a frankly offensive and ill-thought through speech for the mayor of London to deliver. For a candidate to be the next Conservative Party leader, I can see why a speech talking about the importance of having more grammar schools and rewarding the top 10% can be seen as an attractive speech. But actually, in a city where you’ve got cleaners, bus drivers, hospital porters, working incredibly hard, to make a speech talking about how the lowest 16% should basically just accept it, take it or leave it, and how those top 10% should be given automatic knighthoods, showed a lack of understanding about this city.”
He added:
“Let me pose this challenge; if Barack Obama’s IQ was tested at age five, 11, 16 or 18, I doubt whether it would have been very high, he wasn’t necessarily a brilliant student, but he worked hard, he had aspiration, he reached for the top and he’s now president of the United States of America. Or if Nelson Mandela’s IQ had been tested three, five, seven, eight, 12…that sort of simplistic snobbery is not what we want the mayor of this great city to be talking about.
“What he should be saying is every child deserves to fulfil their potential, every school should be a good school, we want to make sure that everyone shares in the joys of London, whether it’s the arts, the culture, the theatre, the academics, every son or daughter of a bus driver, a cleaner, a hospital worker should recognise that the reason why your mum and dad people are doing those jobs is not because they’re not bright but because they’re very important jobs that need to be done in London.
“Give them pride in the work they’re doing. We are a London where we should be one city recognising that, to win the Olympics, the work of the construction worker was just as important as the work of Sebastian Coe.”
Pick up tomorrow’s New Statesman to read the interview in full. You can also listen to George discussing this interview with Sadiq Khan on the NS podcast:
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