The Student Room Group

Is Sadiq Khan making a good impression?

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I was a bit disappointed to read tonight that he basically supports the Garden Bridge project - this is a shame, as it is a boondogle, the money would be far better spent on a big cycling bridge over the Thames to get cyclists away from the horrible Tower Bridge and London Bridge crossings. Also the Garden Bridge is going to be in use by a lot of private companies who will regularly bar access to it. It's a massive cost to council tax payers and it's a bit outrageous that average people in London are coughing up for what is basically Joanna Lumley and Boris Johnson's vanity project.

On the plus side, Khan is going to be investigating corrupt behaviour by Johnson around the procurement for it.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/14/sadiq-khan-thames-garden-bridge-boris-johnson-mayor-london
Original post by MagicNMedicine
The way to judge Sadiq is what normal Londoners think about him.

Not specific groups like those who are obviously Conservative Party supporters/campaigners or people who post all over the internet with 75%+ of their posts going on about Muslims. Obviously those groups won't like him whatever he does. There will be a lot of threads about Sadiq on TSR from these people trying to claim that he's an extremist, he's undermining UK culture or whatever but most people will look at those threads and think meh.

By that merit, we also can't consider the views of Labourites or muslims, who'll love everything he does.
Original post by Drunk Punx
Iunno, all I've really heard about him so far is that he wants diversity within the transport sector for the sake of diversity... which is a bit daft if you ask me, but I cant say I know enough about him to give an honest opinion based on one thing he's said.


This is his only real downfall. If he continues with his racist socialist policies unchallenged then things are going to get very nasty.
People say he has only just started, well he has also began a public feud with the future president of the USA, and he has used his position as Mayor of London as a platform for his Islam apologetics..............

He's going to make a huge mess and he's going to blame everyone else, by everyone I mean he is specifically going to blame white people for being racist and non-Muslims for their islamophobia.
(edited 7 years ago)
The only thing I've heard from him was that comment about too many white males and it irritated me.
But it's Labour, so causing divisions with identity politics is standard.
Other than that, he hasn't done anything that impressionable to me. Then again I don't live in London.
You only get one chance to make a good impression, and the "too many white males" comment was a real misstep. It has come to define his first few days and will not rapidly be forgotten. Expect it to be resurrected again and again because it demonstrates what he really feels.

I appreciate that he thinks this, and no doubt will implement policies to effect it. But why announce this now? Obviously it was going to be taken up and blown out of all proportion by the media that is how it works. He knows that...

In the grand scheme of things it is way too early to say. He has only been in post a matter of days. I don't have great expectations so he may exceed them. Those who have great hopes in him may find he disappoints, that is all I will say...
He seems to have wound up a lot of the reactionary right. That is a good start.
Original post by JezWeCan!
You only get one chance to make a good impression, and the "too many white males" comment was a real misstep. It has come to define his first few days and will not rapidly be forgotten. Expect it to be resurrected again and again because it demonstrates what he really feels.

I appreciate that he thinks this, and no doubt will implement policies to effect it. But why announce this now? Obviously it was going to be taken up and blown out of all proportion by the media that is how it works. He knows that...

In the grand scheme of things it is way too early to say. He has only been in post a matter of days. I don't have great expectations so he may exceed them. Those who have great hopes in him may find he disappoints, that is all I will say...


It's only a misstep to reactionaries. The board of TfL should be representative of London. A board of 16 members, 13 of whom are white men, isn't.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
It's only a misstep to reactionaries. The board of TfL should be representative of London. A board of 16 members, 13 of whom are white men, isn't.


The bolded sentence is just a crude ad hominem, Fullof. You are not addressing the rights and wrongs of discriminating against people on the grounds of their gender and skin colour. You are simply labelling those who disagree with you with a pejorative term.

As for your second point, why should the board be representative of the ridiculously complicated ethnic mosaic that is London's population? Indeed how could it ever be?

Why not select the best people for the job?

Rather than a disabled, transgender, female lesbian asyum seeker from Afghanistan who happens to be mates with Sadiq, or threw him a bung? :biggrin:
Reply 29
Original post by Fullofsurprises
He will face flack on it from parts of the London Muslim community, there's huge antisemitism amongst British Muslims, sadly. Not all, but it's widespread and includes a lot of belief in bizarre conspiracy theories about Jews. As an educated and 'liberal' Muslim, Khan also faces difficulties in being an 'outsider Muslim' and we should remember that when talking about him.

Why is his or anyone's religion so important
It's sad what this world has come to
Ok there are too many white posters on this thread, we need more black people to post. No more whites please, Its not racist because racism is only one way
Original post by AperfectBalance
Ok there are too many white posters on this thread, we need more black people to post. No more whites please, Its not racist because racism is only one way


Although you mock, it would be genuinely good to have more posters from non-white-british backgrounds on TSR. There are some, but they are not representative of the ratios in the student population at large. A more productive approach would be to ask why not and what puts them off? One thing might be the widespread racism they encounter on TSR.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Although you mock, it would be genuinely good to have more posters from non-white-british backgrounds on TSR. There are some, but they are not representative of the ratios in the student population at large. A more productive approach would be to ask why not and what puts them off? One thing might be the widespread racism they encounter on TSR.



There is hardly any racism on this website, and everyone who actually is racist is banned.
Original post by JezWeCan!
The bolded sentence is just a crude ad hominem, Fullof. You are not addressing the rights and wrongs of discriminating against people on the grounds of their gender and skin colour. You are simply labelling those who disagree with you with a pejorative term.

As for your second point, why should the board be representative of the ridiculously complicated ethnic mosaic that is London's population? Indeed how could it ever be?

Why not select the best people for the job?

Rather than a disabled, transgender, female lesbian asyum seeker from Afghanistan who happens to be mates with Sadiq, or threw him a bung? :biggrin:


The Board of TfL is there to play a supervisory role for TFL, so it would be good if they at least to some extent represent London.

Look at the current members.
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/corporate-governance/board-members

Awash with white, middle aged men.

That must leave a gap in understanding - they are supposed to be delivering services to millions of (as you say) very ethnically diverse people.

Nobody is advocating replacing all the experts, but taking a look at how minorities are represented there and making some changes would be a good thing. Sadiq is right to raise it and the cheap shots at him from the Daily Mail over this are pretty pathetic, squalid, reactionary rubbish.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
x


Whilst I agree with you in principle ("The Board of TfL is there to play a supervisory role for TFL, so it would be good if they at least to some extent represent London."), I don't see how it's practical or meritocratic to employ people based on the colour of their skin. If anything, it's discriminatory.

Also, realistically speaking, what are non-whites on the board going to do to benefit their respective communities? I haven't read much about what the people on the board actually do, so I'm fairly clueless on the subject. The only thing I can think of would be community-specific advertising, which would probably end up being a waste of time and money given that I'd wager most people who take the tube to work each day don't really give a toss about who's running the tube complex as much as they do about getting to work on time.
Original post by Drunk Punx
Whilst I agree with you in principle ("The Board of TfL is there to play a supervisory role for TFL, so it would be good if they at least to some extent represent London.":wink:, I don't see how it's practical or meritocratic to employ people based on the colour of their skin. If anything, it's discriminatory.

Also, realistically speaking, what are non-whites on the board going to do to benefit their respective communities? I haven't read much about what the people on the board actually do, so I'm fairly clueless on the subject. The only thing I can think of would be community-specific advertising, which would probably end up being a waste of time and money given that I'd wager most people who take the tube to work each day don't really give a toss about who's running the tube complex as much as they do about getting to work on time.


They would be seeking people with transport or public service experience and a commitment to London and making things better. That might be hard to find, so they wouldn't be overwhelmed by applicants, but the effort should be made to reach out to a wider sample of people. It's the same argument as having more women represented on the boards of major companies - in the long run, things will go better for those firms if they do, as 50% of their customers are often women and men don't have all the answers, especially not white middle aged men from middle class backgrounds.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
They would be seeking people with transport or public service experience and a commitment to London and making things better. That might be hard to find, so they wouldn't be overwhelmed by applicants, but the effort should be made to reach out to a wider sample of people. It's the same argument as having more women represented on the boards of major companies - in the long run, things will go better for those firms if they do, as 50% of their customers are often women and men don't have all the answers, especially not white middle aged men from middle class backgrounds.


When you select people onto a short list for a job you should beware of discrimination. Conscious and unconscious.

Yet your suggestion, replacing the number of people of a particular ethnicity (white British), gender (male) age (middle) and social background (middle class) discriminates on every single metric. It is racist, sexist, ageist and classist. You tick all the boxes. Except those boxes don't count.

These are your concepts, you invented all this stuff, "progressives." So why don't you abide by them yourselves?

Why are white British middle aged men from middle class backgrounds the scum of the earth? (One can detect your sneer as you wrote this post). The only people you CAN discriminate against in this country?
Seems a bit arrogant tbh...

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