Starmer Expected to Hand Sadiq Khan a Peerage
Sir Keir Starmer is expected to offer Sir Sadiq Khan a peerage after the local elections in an attempt to bring one of his most prominent critics on side. The Telegraph has more.
Sir Sadiq, who was handed a knighthood last year, has been a vocal critic of Sir Keir’s leadership, recently accusing him of taking “liberal, progressive voters” for granted in a shift to the Right.
He also backed Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, after he called for a change in the Prime Minister’s approach last year.
Promoting Sir Sadiq to the Lords would be seen as an attempt to secure his support after the local elections on May 7th, when Sir Keir is facing a moment of maximum danger.
Labour has been forecast to lose as many as 2,000 councillors as disenfranchised voters flock to the Greens and Reform UK, putting the Prime Minister’s political future at risk.
Sources claimed that the peerage would amount to an attempt to mollify one of Sir Keir’s most high-profile critics.
One told the Financial Times that there had been talk of a potential Cabinet role for Sir Sadiq, but a Downing Street official dismissed the claim.
On Friday morning, Josh MacAlister, the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, did not deny that Sir Sadiq could be handed a peerage.
Asked whether the reports in the Financial Times were true, he said: “I have no idea.”
However, he said it was “not a bad idea” to offer Sir Sadiq a spot in the Lords, telling Sky News: “What I would say is that as a minister who’s sat in the House of Commons, when you’ve got members of the House of Lords in local government, and now in mayoral positions, it’s incredibly important for the legislation we’re trying to pass, and making sure that the laws that we make are scrutinised by, challenged by and improved by those who are closest to the ground.
“So the principle of it is certainly not a bad idea. We’ve got lots of great mayors across the country.”
Sir Sadiq, who was a Labour MP before becoming the Mayor of London, has previously been touted as a possible future leader of the party, though he has denied harbouring such ambitions.
But if the knighthood didn’t work, why would a peerage?
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Stumbler works hard to keep all his political competitors onboard. A promise here, a Cabinet job there, a chairmanship of a committee, a gong, a lordship… It’s a shame that this juggling leaves no spare concern for other matters, like guiding a country through difficulties.
One day the patronage will run out, or be valueless.
Soon, if not already, the greatest honour will be to have no gong at all
Life Peerage is now like the Nobel Peace Prize, reserved for the dross at the bottom of the barrel.
We’ve gone from hereditary peers to selection via nepotism, I don’t see it as an improvement, with a few notable exceptions!
They’re all still unelected, same as the judges, the NGOs and the Think Tanks!
Khanage-the-Vile – the man who thinks moderate Muslims are Uncle Toms – does not belong in our House of Lords. But then, I don’t expect anything better from The Party of Anti-Whitists and Anglophobes (formerly The Labour Party).
He doesn’t belong in our country.
Sir Khan of Jihad.
A very steep drop and fall from the days of say Lord Kelvin.
The idea of that PoS improving the quality of law making is so risible I think it’s time for a triple gin.
Thick idiot gives valueless title to anti white British man.
Yep, Dame Sadiq just about right
No offence to Toby, but it seems a peerage can be given to anyone at any time for no good reason. The whole system is broken.
And this is why the House of Frauds needs to be fundamentally reformed – or abolished.
It wouldn’t surprise me, should Khan be given a peerage, that he’d defect to the Greens, thus shoring up the Muslim presence.
King Sadiq Khan?