Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Khan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Mayor of London since 2016. For the 18th-century shah of Persia, see
Sadeq Khan Zand.
The Right Honourable
Sadiq Khan
Mayor of London
Incumbent
Assumed office
9 May 2016
Deputy Joanne McCartney
Preceded by Boris Johnson
Minister of State for Transport
In office
9 June 2009 – 6 May 2010
Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Sec. of State The Lord Adonis
Preceded by The Lord Adonis
Succeeded by Theresa Villiers
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government
In office
5 October 2008 – 9 June 2009
Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Preceded by Parmjit Dhanda
Succeeded by Shahid Malik
Member of Parliament
for Tooting
In office
5 May 2005 – 9 May 2016
Preceded by Tom Cox
Succeeded by Rosena Allin-Khan
Shadow Cabinet positions

Personal details
Sadiq Aman Khan
Born 8 October 1970 (age 47)
Tooting, London, England
Political party Labour
Spouse(s) Saadiya Ahmed (m. 1994)
Children 2
University of North London
Alma mater
University of Law
Website Official website
Sadiq Aman Khan (born 8 October 1970) is a British politician. He is currently Mayor of
London, a position held since 2016. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from
2005 to 2016. A member of the Labour Party, he is on the party's soft left wing and has been
ideologically characterised as a social democrat.
Born in Tooting, South London, to a working-class British Pakistani family, Khan earned a law
degree from the University of North London. He subsequently worked as a solicitor specialising
in human rights, and chaired Liberty for three years. Joining the Labour Party, Khan was a
Councillor for the London Borough of Wandsworth from 1994 to 2006 before being elected as
Member of Parliament for Tooting at the 2005 general election. Under the Labour government of
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Khan was appointed Minister of State for Communities in 2008,
later becoming Minister of State for Transport. A key ally of former Labour leader Ed Miliband,
he served in the Miliband's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Shadow
Lord Chancellor, and Shadow Minister for London.
Khan was elected Mayor of London at the May 2016 mayoral election, succeeding Conservative
Party mayor Boris Johnson. He immediately resigned as MP for Tooting upon his victory at the
mayoral election. He is London's first ethnic minority mayor, and the first Muslim to become the
mayor of a major Western capital. Khan won the largest number of votes in one election of any
politician in British history. As mayor, he introduced reforms to limit charges on London's public
transport, backed London Gatwick Airport expansion, and focused on uniting the city's varied
communities. He was a vocal supporter of the unsuccessful Britain Stronger in Europe campaign
to retain UK membership of the European Union.
Contents
 1 Early life
 2 Legal career
 3 Parliamentary career
o 3.1 First term: 2005–10
o 3.2 Second and third term: 2010–16
 4 Mayor of London
o 4.1 2016 candidacy
o 4.2 Mayoralty
 4.2.1 Transport and housing policies
 4.2.2 Air pollution
 5 Political views
 6 Reception
 7 Personal life
 8 See also
 9 References
o 9.1 Sources
 10 External links
Early life
Khan was born at St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London to a working-class Sunni
Muslim family of Pakistani immigrants.[1][2][3] His grandparents migrated from Bombay
Presidency, British India to Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947.[1] His father
Amanullah and mother Sehrun had arrived in London from Pakistan in the second half of the
1960s.[4] Khan was the fifth of eight children, all but one of whom was a boy.[4] In the city,
Amanullah worked as a bus driver and Sehrun as a seamstress.[5][1]
Ernest Bevin College in Tooting
Khan and his siblings grew up in a three-bedroom council flat on the Henry Prince Estate in
Earlsfield.[6] He attended Fircroft Primary School and then Ernest Bevin School, a local
comprehensive.[6] Khan studied science and mathematics at A-level, in the hope of eventually
becoming a dentist. A teacher recommended that he read law instead, as he had an argumentative
personality. The teacher's suggestion, along with the American television programme L.A. Law,
inspired Khan to do so. He read Law at the University of North London (now London
Metropolitan University).[1] His parents later moved out of their council flat and purchased their
own home.[6] Like his brothers, Khan was a fan of sport, particularly enjoying football, cricket,
and boxing.[6]
From his earliest years, Khan worked: "I was surrounded by my mum and dad working all the
time, so as soon as I could get a job, I got a job. I got a paper round, a Saturday job—some
summers I laboured on a building site."[1] The family continues to send money to relatives in
Pakistan, "because we're blessed being in this country." He and his family often encountered
racism, which led to him and his brothers taking up boxing at the Earlsfield Amateur Boxing
Club.[1] While studying for his degree, between the ages of 18 and 21, he had a Saturday job at
the Peter Jones department store in Sloane Square.[7]
Legal career
Before entering the House of Commons in 2005, Khan practised as a solicitor.[8] After
completing his law degree in 1991, Khan took his Law Society finals at the College of Law in
Guildford.[9][10] In 1994 he married Saadiya Ahmed, who was also a solicitor.[6]
In 1994 he became a trainee solicitor at a firm of solicitors called Christian Fisher;[8] the firm
specialised in legal aid cases. The partners were Michael Fisher and Louise Christian.[11] Khan
became a partner in 1997,[8] and like Christian, specialised in human rights law.[1] When Fisher
left in 2002, the firm was renamed Christian Khan.[8][11][12] Khan left the firm in 2004, after he
became the prospective Labour candidate for the Tooting parliamentary constituency.[8][13]
During his legal career, he acted in actions against employment and discrimination law, judicial
reviews, inquests, the police, and crime, and was involved in cases including the following:
 Bubbins vs The United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights – shooting of an

unarmed individual by police marksmen)[14]
 HSU and Thompson v Met Police (wrongful arrest/police damages)[15]
 Reeves v Met Police (duty of care to prisoners)[16]
 Murray v CAB (discrimination)[17]
 Ahmed v University of Oxford (racial discrimination against a student)[18]
 Dr Jadhav v Secretary of State for Health (racial discrimination in the employment of
Indian doctors by the health service)[19]
 CI Logan v Met Police (racial discrimination)[20]
 Supt Dizaei v Met Police (police damages, discrimination)[21]
 Inquest into the death of David Rocky Bennett (use of restraints)[22]
 Lead solicitor on Mayday demonstration 2001 test case litigation (Human Rights Act)[23]
 Farrakhan v Home Secretary (Human Rights Act): in 2001, Khan represented the
American Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in the High Court and successfully
overturned a ban on him entering the United Kingdom, first imposed in 1986. The
government subsequently won on appeal.[24][25]
 In February 2000, Khan represented a group of Kurdish actors who were arrested by
Metropolitan Police during a rehearsal of the Harold Pinter play Mountain Language,
securing £150,000 in damages for the group for their wrongful arrest and the trauma
caused by the arrest.[26]
 McDowell and Taylor v Met Police: Leroy McDowell and Wayne Taylor successfully
sued the Metropolitan Police for assault and false imprisonment.[27]
 Represented Maajid Nawaz, Reza Pankhurst and Ian Nisbet in Egyptian court when they
were arrested on charges of trying to revive Hizb ut-Tahrir.[28][29]

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Sadiq Khan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shadow Cabinet positions

Ernest Bevin College in Tooting

 Bubbins vs The United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights – shooting of an

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