-Sherelle Jacobs eviscerates Sadiq Khan’s leadership style.
-Ulez expansion project is an exercise in green gesture politics.
-Khan spins his own universe of deception out of London’s dystopia.
In a scathing critique for the Telegraph, Sherelle Jacobs criticizes Sadiq Khan’s tenure as London Mayor, drawing parallels between his leadership style and that of dictators and Soviet leaders. She portrays Khan as a seemingly unremarkable Labour figure who has transformed into a self-styled dictator-bureaucrat resembling leaders like Brezhnev and Castro. Despite his provocative social media posts and controversial projects that spark outrage, Khan is portrayed as a genuinely concerning political figure, shaping a deceptive narrative within London’s challenging environment.
Khan’s push for the Ulez (Ultra Low Emission Zone) expansion is highlighted as a prime example of his questionable decisions. The author views the project as a vanity endeavor, criticizing its potential impact on low-income residents and communities already struggling with inadequate public transport. The Ulez initiative is depicted as an exercise in post-truth politics, with Khan accused of manipulating information and discrediting dissenting voices to promote his version of reality.
Despite the divisiveness of the Ulez policy, Khan’s steadfast focus on it is puzzling to the author. She sees it as fitting within Khan’s shift from advocating for the removal of statues and engaging in BLM iconoclasm to cultivating a self-centered cult of personality. Khan’s book “Breathless” is cited as evidence of his desire to position himself as an environmentally conscious leader, transitioning from a Land Rover driver to an electric car advocate.
With the aim of establishing himself as an environmentally enlightened leader, Khan has set a goal for London to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions by 2030. The author suggests that Khan’s green initiatives, including the Ulez project, serve as symbolic markers of his role in guiding the city towards a green future.
The mind boggles when it comes to Sadiq Khan. In many ways, he is a faceless phantom – a fascinatingly bland Labour apparatchik incapable of an original thought or phrase. And yet somehow he has managed to build himself into the consummate dictator-bureaucrat, London’s own answer to Leonid Brezhnev or Raul Castro. For conservatives he is the ultimate source of irrit-ainment, a figure that is constantly triggering animated outrage over his provocative social media posts and controversial schemes. And yet he is a genuinely disturbing political figure, spinning his own universe of deception out of London’s dystopian hellscape. The mayor’s triumph at forcing through his Ulez expansion project brings home all this chilling force. It is the most egregious kind of vanity project. As an exercise in green gesture politics that is set to hit low-income residents with steep charges, and penalise communities that are already beleaguered by poor public transport, it smacks of bourgeois dogmatism. Ulez also offers a masterclass in post-truth politicking. The Tories allege in vain that Khan made ‘false’ and ‘dishonest’ claims to the London Assembly over the scheme’s consultation. It ought to be a full-blown scandal that Khan’s office funded scientists who published studies on Ulez’s effectiveness and then sought to “discredit” those whose findings contradicted grandiose claims about its impact. Nonetheless, by loudly and relentlessly blaring about a “public health emergency”, Khan has reduced the complex truth to just another version of reality. His obsession with Ulez is truly baffling. It is hardly an election winner, with polls revealing that London is largely split over the policy. Given that most cars in the capital are already Ulez compliant, Khan has essentially launched a pious eco-war against some of London’s most deprived areas for little electoral gain. Yet in one sense, for a politician like him, it fits perfectly. Having spent a good part of tenure dabbling in BLM iconoclasm, calling for the removal of statues of slavers from public squares, he has moved into the more spiritually ambitious business of constructing a cult of the self. As his recent book Breathless attests, Khan wants nothing less than to position himself as Britain’s most environmentally enlightened leader – a born again green ‘activist’ who has made the journey from Land Rover driver to electric car evangelist. Having decided to make the green revolution the centrepiece of his political brand, the mayor has had his work cut out to upstage his no less radical predecessors. After all, the red congestion charge paint splattered across London’s roads serves as a constant reminder of Comrade Livingstone’s reign of terror against motorists. And whatever name anyone else gives then, the capital’s rented wheels will always be known as Boris bikes. Naturally, then, Khan has set a target for London to be Net Zero carbon by 2030. The extensive green Ulez signage will serve as a constant symbolic reminder of his guiding role in pointing everyone towards green utopia.Worth reading in full.
