Sadiq khan

Although Jeremy Corbyn did his best to press David Cameron on a range of issues at today's PMQs, perhaps the most notable aspect of his performance was what he didn't say. A number of commentators were surprised that the Labour leader did not ask Cameron to apologise for the extremism remarks he made about Sadiq Khan, who is now London's mayor. Happily, one party leader was happy to put this to the Prime Minister -- even if they weren't best placed to ask it: Tim Farron: I heard the Prime Minister on two occasions this afternoon congratulate the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan -- and I would like to repeat that myself. He did not, however, apologise for the disgraceful racist campaign the Conservative party chose to run.

Hell, I wait so long to be right about something and then two bits of stuff come along at once. Nine months ago I said Sadiq Khan would become London’s mayor – partly because he was a very good candidate and a likeable bloke – but more because London is one of the world’s most leftie liberal constituencies. Which should tell you about Boris’s campaigning abilities, no? I also suggested that Labour would do better in the local elections than commentators – and desperate PLP recusants – were predicting. They did. In London, Corbyn is an actual asset to Labour. Beyond the vile metropolis, he is no more of a yoke around the party’s neck than was the hapless cockwomble Miliband.

Although Labour MPs have been encouraged not to brief what happens at meetings of the PLP to lurking journalists, Jeremy Corbyn's team have no issue briefing out what the leader will say at the meeting before it even occurs. Today hacks were told that Corbyn would use the meeting to clampdown on party in-fighting as members are sick of MPs 'parading on the media to give a running commentary'. However, what he actually said is another story. The Labour leader toned down his prose considerably -- presumably in the quest for party unity -- even though his harsher warning was already readable online. Despite this slip-up, the meeting was one of the cheeriest since Corbyn became leader.

It’s rare that an election result leaves you with a sense of giddy, disbelieving glee, but there it was in black and white. Galloway, George, Respect (George Galloway) Party, 37,007 votes. Walker, Sophie, Women’s Equality Party, 53,055 votes. Once you took second preferences into account, Walker and her newly formed feminist movement beat Galloway and his band of Islamists by almost 100,000 votes. This result is so striking, and so perfect, because Galloway is one of those old-fashioned socialists whose attitudes towards gender equality are distinctly retrograde: it is the man’s job to further the revolutionary cause and the woman’s to provide dutiful comradely support.

As Isabel Hardman wrote yesterday, many interpret Labour’s failure to fail on a bigger scale in yesterday’s election results as the worst possible result for the party.  Sadiq Khan, who had nominated Corbyn for the leadership, won comfortably in London.  Predicted to lose 150 or more council seats, by midday Labour was down a net 26 seats.    This neither puts them in an encouraging position from which to build towards the 2020 election nor signifies a disaster which might provoke Jeremy’s Corbyn’s defenestration and replacement with a more electable leader. But the Conservatives would be very unwise to take comfort from the results.

Following Thursday's elections, Sadiq Khan is on course to be the new mayor of London, with his rival Zac Goldsmith trailing a distant second. With Goldsmith's campaign billed as 'racist' and 'divisive' by critics, the Tories will now need to work out who is at fault for his disastrous mayoral bid. However, while Goldsmith could do with all the friends he can get right now, even his own sister is unimpressed with his efforts. As Khan was crowned mayor, Jemima Khan took to Twitter to congratulate the Labour MP: https://twitter.com/Jemima_Khan/status/728650778555129856 She then went on to express her sadness that her brother's Tory campaign had failed to show him for who he is: https://twitter.

Zac Goldsmith spent almost every day out on the stump during his London mayoral campaign dressed in the formal dark suit he inherited from his father, and had recut on his death in 1997. At least that is what a member of his team told me as I was out observing proceedings one day. I think that detail was offered as a bit of journalistic ‘colour’ to show Zac’s sense of filial duty, but that was the only sense in which his painfully understated campaigning could be said to have owed anything to Sir James Goldsmith’s bombastic, manic style when he ran the Referendum party. Some political campaigns are failures; others are simply tragedies, and Zac Goldsmith’s falls into the latter category.

Britain goes to the polls this week, as electoral contests take place in London, Scotland, Wales and across England. They’re the elections which James Forsyth described in the Spectator last week as the ones ‘no one has even heard of’. So what will happen on Thursday night and when will the results be announced? Here’s The Spectator’s run-through of the May 2016 elections: London Mayoral election: Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan go head-to-head in the London Mayoral contest. In 2012, Boris and Ken ran a close-fought race, with Boris getting 971,000 first-round votes to Ken’s 889,918. The relatively small margin between the two meant the result didn’t filter through until early evening.