Do we like Sadiq Khan?
Our score: 7 out of 10. He has stood with LGBTQ+ Londoners and clean air for years, with a regulator's ruling on misleading ads and some policing criticism as the stains.
Khan was born to a bus driver and a seamstress who came from Pakistan, and he went from a council estate to a career as a human rights lawyer. He won Tooting for Labour, served as a transport minister in the last Labour government, and in 2016 became London's first Muslim mayor. He won a third term in 2024 with 43.8 per cent of the vote.
The story that shows his spine is the 2013 equal marriage vote. Khan backed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, and in the aftermath a Bradford imam issued a fatwa calling him an apostate, and he reportedly received threats from hardline groups. He voted that way when it cost him personally, and that counts for more than a Pride flag in an election year.
On the harm check, he comes up clean. Asked by Attitude in July 2026, he said trans people face stigma that is “unacceptable” and told politicians to stop treating them as a political football. He has put City Hall behind LGBTQ+ venues since 2016. No campaigning against any group, and no dodgy co-stars or platforming, turned up.
The big stoush on the climate side is ULEZ. Five Conservative-led councils took him to the High Court over the expansion and lost in July 2023. In February 2024 the advertising watchdog upheld complaints about TfL and Mayor's office ads, finding the NO2 and deaths claims misleading. Khan's office called it a minor technical point, so the policy won in court but the spin took a knock.
The other long-running fight is with Donald Trump, who in his September 2025 UN speech called him a “terrible mayor” and said London wanted sharia law. Khan responded by accusing Trump of being racist, sexist and Islamophobic, and ministers defended him. In April 2026 he told diplomats to rebut what he called “lies” about London, so he is still swinging at it.
The good stuff is practical. NPR's ten-year review credits him with free school meals, more public housing, electric buses, cheaper bus fares and a low emission zone that environmentalists praise. His critics are mostly motorists who dislike the low emission zone. He is still a politician, and a decade at City Hall means plenty of people are cross with him.