Sadiq Khan: Man for all London or political opportunist?
From tomorrow, when he walks into London’s City Hall as Mayor, Sadiq Khan will have the capital at his feet, controlling a budget of £17 billion with power over transport, policing and planning.
The son of a bus driver and a seamstress from Pakistan, Khan could not be more different in style and background to his Old Etonian predecessor Boris Johnson.
Much has been made, not least by his own side, of Khan’s humble origins.
There is certainly something of the Dick Whittington about him; the hard-working boy whose migrant family came to London in search of a better life, grew up on a south London council estate and ended up becoming Mayor of London.
But only the next few months will tell whether Khan really is the embodiment of the modern, aspirational Londoner, at ease with the city’s multiracial identity and its place in the world, or whether the reality – as is often the case - is more complicated than that.
For on his way to the top Khan has attracted accusations that he is a nakedly ambitious political opportunist, willing to change sides when it suits him.
Worse, there have been claims that the new Mayor has shown a serious lack of judgment over the type of person with whom he has been willing to share a political platform in the past.
During the Mayoral campaign his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith repeatedly accused Khan of having given "platform, oxygen and cover” to religious and political extremists.
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