'Humbled' Sir Sadiq draws new year honours list anger

Damehoods for Labour grandees Thornberry and Hewitt

- KATE DEVLIN

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has been handed a knighthood in the new year honours, one of a number of key Labour figures on the list.

Sir Sadiq, as he will now be known, said that he was “truly humbled” to receive the honour. But critics of the mayor, the son of a bus driver in the capital who secured a third term last year, hit out at his record in office and said many Londoners would be “appalled”.

A petition opposing his knighthood, started by a Conservative councillor, has had more than 200,000 signatures since 5 December.

Senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry was made a dame, as was former Labour cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt.

Mayor since 2016, Sir Sadiq’s time in office has occasionally been controversial. His green ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion, which led to higher bills for those with more polluting cars, saw protests and vandalism against the cameras and signage used to enforce the new zone.

The unpopularity of the policy was also blamed for Labour’s shock defeat in the Uxbridge by-election. He was also recently accused of not taking knife crime “seriously” in the capital by the now Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

As part of his high-profile feud with Donald Trump, he said the incoming US president’s election win in November would leave many Londoners “anxious” and “fearful about what it will mean for democracy and for women’s rights”.

In 2018, his office allowed an inflatable depicting Mr Trump as a baby to fly in Parliament Square during the US president’s visit to the UK.

Mr Trump has accused Sir Sadiq of doing a “terrible job as Mayor of London” and was “a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me”.