Sadiq Khan demands answers from Fiat Chrysler over 'dieselgate' scandal

The Mayor asked the firm how many vehicles carrying “defeat devices” — software which allows a car to emit more pollution than permitted — could be on the capital’s roads.

It follows accusations that Fiat Chrysler failed to disclose such software in some of its diesel models. Similar devices were fitted to VW cars at the centre of the emissions debacle that engulfed VW in 2015.

Mr Khan believes vehicles with “defeat devices” pose a risk to air quality levels. The Department for Transport has asked US officials for details of a probe into Fiat Chrysler. The “notice of violation” issued to  the firm by the US Environmental Protection Agency covers 104,000 vehicles, including the Jeep Grand

Cherokee, of which there are thought to be some 3,700 registered in the UK.

Mr Khan asked Fiat Chrysler if any defeat devices had been installed on its vehicles sold in the UK.

He wrote that his efforts to cut pollution would be “undermined if vehicle manufacturers seek to manipulate emissions output and obtain type approval by using software to produce false results”.

Fiat Chrysler insists it has done nothing illegal. Its spokesman said: “The US and EU have different software calibrations, standards and testing. Our vehicles sold in the EU conform to EU regulations.”

 

Sadiq Khan, New London Mayor, Bans Ads Promoting Unhealthy Body Image

This from The New York Times:

LONDON — The young, thin model wore a bright yellow bikini and stared seductively at passers-by.

“Are you beach body ready?” asked the ad for Protein World, a maker of dietary supplements. The ad was defaced in subway stations across London when it appeared in April 2015, and it drew strong protests.

On Monday, London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced a ban on such ads — which critics call “fat-shaming” — from London’s public transportation system starting in July, saying the messages encourage unhealthy body images for young women.

“As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising, which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies,” Mr. Khan said. “Nobody should feel pressurized, while they travel on the Tube or bus, into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies.”

Read the full story here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/world/europe/london-bans-ads-with-unrealistic-body-images.html?_r=0

Sadiq Khan does the sums over Muslim votes

He’s an artful one, Sadiq Khan. Labour’s London mayoral candidate told the Observer: “I accept that the comments that Ken Livingstone has made make it more difficult for Londoners of Jewish faith to feel that the Labour Party is a place for them, and I will carry on doing what I have always been doing, which is to speak for everyone.” Mr Khan also said, although he is well ahead in the polls: “This is a neck-and-neck race. It is all about turnout.”

It’s worth paying exact attention to these words. First, Mr Khan blames everything on Mr Livingstone, not on any wider problem of Labour anti-Semitism.

Second, he paints himself as the moderate. Third, he assumes that only voters “of Jewish faith” will be put off, and says nothing to welcome Jewish voters. He speaks as if the row were a rather obscure subject which need not trouble other voters. If he can narrow it down to practising Jews with votes in London, he is talking about not much more than 100,000 people, most of whose votes he probably had not got anyway.

You can find the remainder of this story here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/02/sadiq-khan-does-the-sums-over-muslim-votes/

Sadiq Khan announces bid to become London Mayor

Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, has launched his campaign to be the party's candidate for the mayor of London in 2016.

Khan's announcement comes just two days after he stood down as Labour's shadow justice secretary and shadow minister for the capital. His announcement also comes on the same day that the party's selection contest for its 2016 mayoral candidate official begins.

"London has made me and my family who were are," Khan said. "I wouldn't have got to go to university but for the teachers at my school. My parents wouldn't have been able to have a council property built but for the generosity of this city...the city has made me who I am."

"I have had a chance to speak to my friends, family and my constituents to see how I can best give back something to my community and my city. I want to give something back, and the best thing I can do is to try to be mayor of this fantastic city."

David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham who many think is weighing up a leadership bid following Ed Miliband's resignation, became the first Labour figure to announce their mayoral aspirations when he came forward as a candidate in September 2014. The writer and transport expert Christian Wolmar has also officially declared his intention to stand in the party contest.

Dame Tessa Jowell and Diane Abbott, both female London MPs, are also expected to announce their candidacies.

Labour will fancy its chances in next year's election. Boris Johnson, the current mayor, will step down following his election as an MP for Uxbridge. With no clear Conservative figure to replace the charismatic mayor, Labour, which increased its number of MPs in the capital at the election to 45 out of 73, with 44 per cent of the vote, will look to win back the mayoral position which Ken Livingstone held between 2000 and 2008.

Sadiq Khan launches bid to be Labour's London mayoral candidate

Former shadow justice secretary and shadow London minister joins the race.

There was no mystery over Sadiq Khan's resignation from the shadow cabinet earlier this week. The Tooting MP has long planned to stand for selection as Labour's London mayoral candidate, whatever the outcome of the election. In an interview with me at the start of the year, he all but confirmed his intentions, declaring: "It’s a privilege just to be asked that question. I can’t tell you what a buzz it gives me as somebody born and raised here, son of immigrants, whose Dad was a bus driver, Mum was a seamstress, I’ve got eight siblings, living on a council estate ... for you to ask me that question is so flattering - and it’s a job I’d love to do one day."

Khan has now formally launched his bid, joining a field that numbers Tessa Jowell, David Lammy, Diane Abbott and transport expert Christian Wolmar. As the son of an immigrant bus driver, who grew up on a council estate, the former shadow justice secretary has the kind of backstory that all candidates now crave.

Having served as shadow London minister, and led Labour's campaign in the city, he can also take credit for the party's impressive results in the 2014 local elections and its gains at the general election. His campaign will emphasise the opportunities he benefited from and how he fears they are being denied to those of a similar background today.

He said: "People will try and label me left-wing or being this or that. What I am is a Londoner. I'm also a Muslim, I'm also of Asian decent, of Pakistani heritage, I'm the son of a bus driver, I'm the son of immigrants.

I'm from this council estate. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm many, many things. If people want to define me as left-wing or caring too much for the poor, caring too much about housing or being obsessed with everyone having their potential fulfilled, that's fine."

The challenge for Khan, however, as a close ally of Ed Miliband (he ran his 2010 leadership campaign), will be explaining why Labour performed so badly at the election and what has to change. He will need to run a strong campaign to defeat Jowell, the current frontrunner, who can trade on her Olympics role and who has embraced issues such as inequality.