From Ulez to free school meals, London’s mayor introduced bold, principled policies – and won. Keir Starmer, take note
John McTernan was political secretary to Tony Blair and is now a political strategist
Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, but I never doubted that Sadiq Khan would win re-election as the city’s mayor – even when rumours of a surprise upset were being breathlessly repeated. Of course, Labour has always had the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But this has meant that the party is all too often fearful in the face of large opinion poll leads, with an electoral strategy defined by the lessons of painful defeats.
The time has come to learn from winning, and where better to start than Khan’s win in London. This was, to borrow the words of the former Australian Labor prime minister Paul Keating, the “sweetest victory of all” – a victory for the true believers. What has gained Khan the two largest personal mandates in British electoral history has been his politics.
John McTernan was political secretary to Tony Blair and is now a political strategist for BCW
