Dogs bark, cows moo and Sadiq Khan puts his foot in it again. With a week to go until polling day in the capital, you might have thought that the Mayor of London would try to avoid any bad headlines. But there he is, giving another ill-judged interview to Mehdi Hasan. In it, the Mayor implied that the Chief Rabbi’s criticism of Khan’s call for a Gaza ceasefire was influenced by his Muslim-sounding name. Quite the claim to throw around…

Khan told Hasan he was ‘disappointed’ when Jewish leaders and ‘friends’ including Ephraim Mirvis condemned his decision to speak out on Gaza, while a similar ceasefire call by Manchester Metro mayor Andy Burnham was ignored. He declared: ‘What motivated them to come out in the way they did against the Mayor of London, and the Mayor of Greater Manchester – I’ll give you a clue, he’s not called Ahmed Bourani, he’s called Andy Burnham, whereas I’m called Sadiq Khan.’

Unsurprisingly, such a baseless claim quickly sparked anger among the Jewish community, some of whom have had to endure intimidation on London’s streets since 7/10. Realising his blunder, Khan has now had to rush out a grovelling statement admitting his error. He now admits that: ‘It wasn’t fair of me to have levelled that frustration at the Chief Rabbi. I am sorry for any hurt this has caused and will continue working with Jewish leaders to build a safer London for everyone.’

Mazel tov with that one, as they say…

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Khan grovels for Chief Rabbi jibe

8 1
26.04.2024

Dogs bark, cows moo and Sadiq Khan puts his foot in it again. With a week to go until polling day in the capital, you might have thought that the Mayor of London would try to avoid any bad headlines. But there he is, giving another ill-judged interview to Mehdi Hasan. In it, the Mayor implied that the Chief Rabbi’s criticism of Khan’s call for a Gaza ceasefire was........

© The Spectator


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