A vicious cycle of suspicion,allegation and exasperated denial is disfiguring the fight for City Hall
We’re at that seductive stage in many election races when a consensus starts to form that one side cannot win and the other is within sight of victory. The London mayor contest now has some of that beguiling quality. It began with opinion polls earlier this month showing Labour’s Sadiq Khan maintaining a healthy lead over the Conservative Zac Goldsmith. It continued with reports of London Tories in despair. And has strengthened in recent days due to mishaps befalling Goldsmith’s intensified attempts to depict Khan as a useful idiot for Islamist extremists.
Is a Tory defeat inevitable? The very fact that Goldsmith has revved up this element of his campaign is being characterised by Khan as a sign of weakness and a lack of anything else with which to catch the London electorate’s eye. The Labour man’s favourite words for it are “desperate and “divisive.” Goldsmith is accused of seeking to mobilise anxiety about Muslims by implying that Khan, who is one, and cannot be trusted with Londoners’ security in the face of the terror threat. Former shadow domestic secretary Yvette Cooper has piled in on Khan’s side,writing that “what started as a subtle dog whistle is fitting a full blown racist scream.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com