Sadiq Khan knighthood prompts Tory criticism

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has received a knighthood, one among a number of politicians named in the New Year Honours list.

Sir Sadiq said it was already the “honour of my life to serve the city I love” and that he was “truly humbled” to have been made a knight.

However, senior Conservatives including shadow home secretary Chris Philp labelled the three-time mayor’s knighthood as a “reward for failure”.

Also on the honours list are senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry, former Conservative West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and Nick Gibb, the former long-serving schools minister.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy congratulated Sir Sadiq, saying that he was proud that the UK was “a place where you can go from being the son of a bus driver”, like the mayor, to being a knight of the realm.

He also noted that he had introduced policies to make London’s air cleaner, built more council homes, and delivered free school meals.

However, Philp cited levels of knife crime in London and missed housing targets as among the mayor’s failures.

He said: “Under Sadiq Khan, Londoners have faced a 61% increase in knife crime, a housing crisis and a 70% increase in council tax – they will rightly be furious his track record of failure is being rewarded.

“By rewarding the failing Sadiq Khan, Keir Starmer has shown once again that for Labour it is Party first, country second.”

The BBC has sought confirmation from the Conservative party on the source of Philp’s statistics.

A petition against his award had been organised by Conservative councillor Matthew Goodwin-Freeman.

Sir Sadiq said he expected Conservatives would continue to criticise him.

“Unless they’ve done a new year’s resolution, it won’t be the last time they criticise me,” he the PA news agency.

Sir Sadiq worked as a human rights lawyer before entering Parliament as MP for Tooting for Labour in 2005. He became mayor of London in 2016, replacing Boris Johnson, and has since won two further terms.

Dame Emily, meanwhile said that she was “both honoured and surprised” to have been made a dame.

“My husband was knighted a few years ago and I never felt comfortable sharing his title, calling myself ‘Lady Nugee’, but Dame Emily is a name I’d be proud to go by,” she said.

She added: “I think of my grandmothers, neither of whom were even allowed to work as married women, and think how utterly delighted they’d be to see this.”

Dame Emily has served as MP for Islington South since 2005 and is now chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. She was not included in Sir Keir Starmer’s first Cabinet after Labour’s general election victory.

She is now a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Sir Andy, who was elected as the West Midlands’ first mayor in 2017, said he was only “the front man” for a project to make his position a success, and that his appointment as a knight was an “accolade for the people in the West Midlands”.

Several former MPs also received honours in the annual list.

Former MP Ranil Jayawardena, who served as environment secretary during Liz Truss’s brief time as prime minister, and former Conservative deputy chief whip Marcus Jones have both been made knights.

Former Labour MP Kate Hollern, who lost her Blackburn seat to Independent candidate Adnan Hussain in July, has been appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Lord Mike Katz, the national chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement who was recently ennobled by Sir Keir, has been appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).