74 Facts About Sadiq Khan

1.

Sadiq Aman Khan is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016.

2.

Sadiq Khan was previously Member of Parliament for Tooting from 2005 until 2016.

3.

Sadiq Khan subsequently worked as a solicitor specialising in human rights issues and chaired the Liberty advocacy group for three years.

4.

Sadiq Khan was openly critical of several policies of Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and new anti-terror legislation.

5.

Under Blair's successor Gordon Brown, Sadiq Khan was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in 2008, later becoming Minister of State for Transport.

6.

Sadiq Khan was elected Mayor of London at the 2016 mayoral election, defeating the Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, and resigned as an MP.

7.

Sadiq Khan backed expansion at London City Airport and Gatwick Airport.

8.

Sadiq Khan was a vocal supporter of the unsuccessful Britain Stronger in Europe and People's Vote campaigns for the UK to remain in the European Union, and attracted international attention for his Twitter arguments with United States President Donald Trump.

9.

Sadiq Khan established the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm following the 2020 George Floyd protests.

10.

Sadiq Khan was included in the 2018 Time 100 list of most influential people in the world.

11.

Sadiq Khan has been praised for making London's transport more accessible and reducing the number of polluting vehicles in central London.

12.

Sadiq Aman Khan was born on 8 October 1970 at St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London to a working-class Sunni Muslim-Muhajir family.

13.

Sadiq Khan's grandparents migrated from Lucknow in United Provinces, British India to Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947.

14.

Sadiq Khan was the fifth of eight children, seven of whom were boys.

15.

Sadiq Khan attended Fircroft Primary School and then Ernest Bevin School, a local comprehensive.

16.

Sadiq Khan studied science and mathematics at A-level, in the hope of eventually becoming a dentist.

17.

Sadiq Khan studied Law at the University of North London.

18.

Also in 1994, Sadiq Khan became a trainee solicitor at a firm of solicitors called Christian Fisher; the firm undertook mainly legal aid cases.

19.

Sadiq Khan became a partner at the firm in 1997, and like Christian, specialised in human rights law.

20.

Sadiq Khan left the firm in 2004, after he became the prospective Labour candidate for the Tooting parliamentary constituency.

21.

Sadiq Khan was elected to Parliament at the 2005 general election.

22.

Sadiq Khan was one of the Labour MPs who led the successful opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair's proposed introduction of 90 days' detention without charge for those suspected of terrorism offences.

23.

Brown thought highly of Sadiq Khan, who moved up the parliamentary ranks under Brown's Premiership.

24.

In July 2008, Sadiq Khan helped push through a government proposal to permit the detention of those suspected of terror offences for 42 days without charge.

25.

On Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Cabinet reshuffle of 3 October 2008, Sadiq Khan was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

26.

Sadiq Khan said that British Muslims had their own part to play in reconnecting with politicians, arguing that they needed to rid themselves of a victim mentality and take greater responsibility for their own community.

27.

In what was believed to be a first for an MP, Sadiq Khan used his Twitter account to self-announce his promotion.

28.

Sadiq Khan orchestrated Ed Miliband's successful campaign to become Labour leader, and was appointed to the senior roles of Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Justice Secretary.

29.

Sadiq Khan attributed the improper claim for the cards to "inexperience" and human error and apologised for breaking the expenses rules.

30.

In December 2013, the Fabian Society published a collection of essays edited by Sadiq Khan that was titled Our London.

31.

Sadiq Khan was tasked with overseeing Labour's campaign for the 2014 London local elections, in which the party advanced its control in the city, gaining hold of twenty of the thirty-two boroughs.

32.

Sadiq Khan's options were affected by the outcome of the 2015 general election; if Labour won, then he would be expected to become a government minister, but if they lost then he would be free to pursue the Mayoralty.

33.

In December 2015, Sadiq Khan voted against the Cameron government's plans to expand the bombing of targets in the Islamic State.

34.

Sadiq Khan was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015, but has said that he was "no patsy" to Corbyn and would stand up to him.

35.

Sadiq Khan later stated that he nominated Corbyn to "broaden the debate" but did not then vote for him.

36.

On 9 May 2016, Sadiq Khan resigned as an MP by his appointment to the ancient office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of The Three Chiltern Hundreds, a customary practice in the UK.

37.

Sadiq Khan is regularly named among the Top 100 London politicians in the London Evening Standards annual poll of the 1,000 most influential Londoners and is an Ambassador for Mosaic Network, an initiative set up by Prince Charles.

38.

Sadiq Khan then announced himself as a candidate to be the Labour nominee for the London Mayoral elections of 2016.

39.

Sadiq Khan received the backing of the Labour-affiliated GMB and Unite unions, and the nomination of 44 of Labour's 73 parliamentary constituent parties in London, leaving him as one of the top two contenders.

40.

In hustings, Sadiq Khan placed an emphasis on his working-class origins, which would play against Jowell's wealthier upbringing, and argued for the need for change in London, thereby insinuating that Jowell would represent too much continuity with the outgoing Johnson administration.

41.

In September 2015, Sadiq Khan was announced as the winning nominee.

42.

Sadiq Khan gained 48,152 votes against Jowell's 35,573.

43.

Sadiq Khan vowed that if elected, he would freeze public transport fares in London for four years.

44.

Sadiq Khan spoke of clamping down on foreign property investors, and proposed the establishment of both a "London living rent" tenure and a not-for-profit lettings agency that could undercut commercial operators in order to ease the high cost of renting in the city.

45.

Sadiq Khan declared his opposition to homophobia, and said that he would have "zero tolerance for anti-Semitism".

46.

Sadiq Khan openly condemned Islamic extremism and called on the Muslim community to take a leading role in combating it, although at the same time acknowledged the Islamophobia that many British Muslims faced.

47.

Sadiq Khan agreed to attend a Britain Stronger in Europe campaign event with the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to demonstrate cross-party support for remaining within the EU, for which he was criticised by Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who claimed that sharing a platform with the Conservatives "discredits us".

48.

Sadiq Khan endorsed the Metropolitan Police's "We Stand Together" campaign to combat the rise in racial abuse following the referendum, and later backed the "London is Open" campaign to encourage businesses, artists, and performers to continue coming to the city despite Brexit.

49.

On 20 October 2018, Sadiq Khan marched with People's Vote protestors from Park Lane to Parliament Square in support of a referendum on the final Brexit deal.

50.

On 23 March 2019, Sadiq Khan took part in the Put It to the People march in London in support of a second Brexit referendum.

51.

In January 2023, Sadiq Khan said that he couldn't ignore the immense damage caused by Brexit, arguing for a more sensible approach to mitigate the damage, including a debate on rejoining the single market.

52.

Sadiq Khan then appeared at a Trafalgar Square celebration of Eid al-Fitr, endorsing religious freedom and lambasting "criminals who do bad things and use the name of Islam to justify what they do".

53.

On 9 June 2020, in response to the unrest, Sadiq Khan said that he believed some statues of slavers in London "should be taken down", and established the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm.

54.

On transport, Sadiq Khan immediately announced the introduction of a "Hopper" bus ticket which would allow a passenger to take two bus and tram journeys within an hour for the price of one; it was intended to benefit those on low incomes most.

55.

In June 2016, Sadiq Khan announced that his electoral pledge to prevent transport fare rises would only apply to "single fares" and pay as you go fares, and not daily, monthly, weekly, or yearly railcards; he was widely criticised for this.

56.

On 17 March 2020 Sadiq Khan announced the London Underground would begin running a reduced service due to the virus.

57.

Sadiq Khan was the first British political leader to call for face masks to be worn in public in April 2020.

58.

Sadiq Khan began discussing with local leaders plans for further restrictions in London in late September 2020, and delivered a plan to the central government to introduce measures to curb the worsening outbreak and called for a "circuit-breaker lockdown" of London on 13 October 2020, citing advice from SAGE.

59.

Sadiq Khan declared a "major incident" due to a need for emergency coordination to mitigate the major strain on London's healthcare system in January 2021.

60.

In July 2021, Sadiq Khan maintained a face mask requirement on London transport, despite the government removing the requirement nationwide, citing the risk of virus transmission.

61.

Sadiq Khan later expressed frustration at the subsequent fall in compliance and TfL staff's inability to enforce these rules, and said he would lobby the government to introduce legal backing for the rule.

62.

Sadiq Khan vetoed the construction of a football stadium and two blocks of flats on Green Belt land in Chislehurst, after the plan had already been supported by Bromley Council, insisting that he would "oppose building on the Green Belt, which is even more important than when it was created".

63.

Sadiq Khan launched a "No Nights Sleeping Rough" taskforce to tackle youth homelessness in London in October 2016.

64.

Sadiq Khan criticised the UK government in June 2017 for its lack of drive in improving general air quality.

65.

The BBC describe Sadiq Khan as being located on the party's soft left.

66.

Sadiq Khan criticised the Trump administration's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

67.

Sadiq Khan said the British government should apologise for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in British-ruled India.

68.

Sadiq Khan received death threats from Islamic extremists after voting in favour of the Marriage Act.

69.

Sadiq Khan was threatened by the far-right group Britain First, which in 2016 threatened to take "direct action" against Khan where he "lives, works and prays" as part of an anti-Muslim campaign.

70.

Journalist Dave Hill has said that Sadiq Khan was "savvy, streetwise and not averse to a scrap", whilst describing him as having a "joshing, livewire off-stage personality" which differed from the formal image he often projected while onstage.

71.

Comedian Arthur Smith stated that Sadiq Khan could become a "good club-level comedian one day".

72.

Shortly before Trump's 2019 state visit to the UK, Sadiq Khan compared Trump to "European dictators of the 1930s and 40s".

73.

On 9 June 2020, Sadiq Khan said that he believed some statues of slavers in London "should be taken down", and established the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to do so.

74.

Sadiq Khan is a practising Muslim who observes the fast during Ramadan and regularly attends Al-Muzzammil Mosque in Tooting.