Sadiq Khan: ‘Maybe Trump fancies me, I don’t know. I’m happily married! I’m not interested’

Sadiq Khan was born in October 1970 in London. He earned a law degree from the University of North London and went on to specialise as a human rights solicitor. He represented Tooting as a councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth from 1994 to 2006.

In 2005 Khan was elected MP for Tooting. He was appointed minister of state for communities in 2008 and later became minister of state for transport, becoming the first Muslim and first Asian to attend cabinet.In 2016, he became mayor of London and has been re-elected twice, in 2021 and 2024.

In his Letter to My Younger Self, Khan looks back on sporting might-have-beens, how his values have informed his politics, and the unwelcome attention he’s received from the most powerful man in the Western world.

At 16, I was heartbroken. I’d had trials with Surrey to be a cricketer and been unsuccessful, so I was gutted. That season I didn’t touch a cricket bat, because I was so devastated and for the next three or four years, I didn’t play much. One of my regrets is not realising you can try again. I love cricket, but I was crestfallen.

I was a really happy child. It’s only when you’re older and meet friends who are middle class that you realise it was a relatively poor childhood in the sense of overcrowded housing and the conditions we lived in. I’ve got six brothers and one sister, so it was chaotic and loud. Mealtimes were like a factory, on a conveyor belt, you know? My dad was a bus driver who would do whatever overtime he could, my mum, in addition to raising us, was a seamstress. There was a sewing machine in the corner of the room where she’d be working away and we’d help her put the clothes together.

We were always out and about. I was out on my Grifter bike or with friends playing cricket or football. It felt safe. My parents knew we were OK. The way it worked on the estate we grew up in was that other parents kept an eye on you, so it was a really warm childhood. If there were fights or people from outside the estate being racially abusive, there was a sense of solidarity and allyship. My white mates would defend me.

My grandparents were incredibly brave, they migrated from India to Pakistan after partition. My parents were incredibly brave and migrated from Pakistan to London for a better life. I was born in South London. I was raised in South London. I went to school in South London. I fell in love in South London. I still live in South London. I will probably die in South London. The joke I make with my kids is that I’m the least brave Khan in three generations – I’ve stayed within a radius of about a mile and a half.

At my school, the bright Asian kids did sciences and the bright white kids did arts and humanities. I’m not sure why that happened. So I did biology, chemistry and maths and was destined to be the world’s greatest dentist. I thought there would be less blood and gore than in medicine. But halfway through, Mr Brown, my maths teacher, said: “You’re always arguing, why don’t you become a lawyer?” At that time, there was a great TV programme called LA Law – it’s like my generation’s Suits. So I thought, why not pivot and do a law degree. So I fell in love with the law. I wanted to do law that people I knew might benefit from, whether it’s someone unfairly dismissed, racially discriminated against or on the receiving of police misconduct. I wanted to be useful for my community.

We never saw people in suits on our estate. In our estate, people went to work wearing uniforms. We had the Airfix factory behind us. We had the buses my dad worked on, and the underground. So people went to work wearing a uniform. Bus driver, ticket collector, cleaner, factory worker. The life I’ve had would have been unbelievable when I was growing up. But I remember one life lesson from my dad, which is, because we’re different and life isn’t fair, you’ve got to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. So I’ve always had the work ethic, from doing a paper round, having a Saturday job at 15, working summer holidays and evenings. Even now, I work seven days a week. But I’ve loved all my jobs, and when you love your job, it’s a lot easier.

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I remember being on my sofa with my dad watching the news in 1987 when Bernie Grant, Paul Boateng, Keith Vaz and Diane Abbott were elected. It was literally unbelievable that these ethnic minorities were elected to parliament. It was a wild moment that still sits with me all these years later. That’s how remarkable it looked and felt. Even then, their backgrounds were very different to what I was doing as a 16- or 17-year-old at comprehensive school in Tooting. I still have pinch-me moments. There are days where I’ll get home and say to Saadiya, my wife, you won’t believe what happened today. She comes from a similarly humble background and we cannot believe the lives we lead.

There’s a great saying from an American politician which is all politics is local. It’s in my DNA. My experiences as a child formed me as a man. Even my passions – the first band I loved, The Police, I still love Sting. The first football club I supported, Liverpool, I still support. The first girl I loved, I married her. Those passions have stayed with me but also my values. If you see inequality, you try and fix it. Social justice or racial justice, allyship to your friends, whether it’s a girl in terms of gender equality, somebody who’s gay in terms of LGBT+ rights, whether it’s somebody who’s black or Jewish in terms of racial rights – they always stood with me.

Enjoy working with people you admire – they’re brighter than you, make the most of that. Enjoy getting to help people fulfill their potential. I’m a firm believer in the so-called London promise, which is simple. You work hard, you get a helping hand, and you can achieve anything. I see my mission to be that helping hand. Because I’ve seen how my family and I have benefited from a helping hand – whether it’s a council home or us going to good state schools. It’s about allyship. So I get to be that helping hand. What a privilege.

Although I’m a Muslim, I’ve got many friends who are Christian and the teachings are very similar. The golden thread running through all major religions is treat others as you want to be treated. I am the keeper of my brother or sister. Don’t cross to the other side of the road when there’s somebody that needs support. You can achieve far more together than you can alone.

When I was first elected mayor, David Cameron was prime minister. Theresa May, then Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, now Keir Starmer – so that’s six. But the role of mayor is not to be Labour’s representative in City Hall, it is to be a champion and advocate for the city. You stand up to the government if it’s in the best interest of your city. Clearly, it’s better with a Labour prime minister – we’re on the same side, we’re friends. And a Labour PM doesn’t wake up in the morning with a mission to make life difficult for me. But this government’s inheritance wasn’t great, so they can’t turn the spending taps on as I’d like. We’ve disagreed on things. I believe we should rejoin the European Union, be more strident in calling out what’s happening in Gaza – I’ve been calling for the State of Palestine to be recognised and think what’s happening in Gaza is genocide. I didn’t agree with some of the courtship of President Trump, but I’m really pleased Keir Starmer is standing up to Trump now. When it comes to Iran we’ve learned the lessons from Iraq in not entering a war because of the persuasion of a US president.

I vividly remember receiving free school meals. At break time, when my mates were playing football, I had to queue to get a token for my free meal. It was embarrassing. And that shame and stigma stayed with me. When I became mayor, I saw that there are kids going hungry, parents doing three jobs to make ends meet and skipping meals, packed lunches that aren’t nutritious because they can’t afford it. And that these kids are underperforming. When my chief of staff said, we can probably afford to do something about this, I was clear free school meals were to be universal. It’s really important for all kids to eat together. So I was incredibly proud when we brought in universal free nutritious meals for every kid that goes to a state primary school. The best policy comes from a combination of your values and evidence.

Forget my younger self, even my adult self would think it’s absurd that President Trump is obsessed with me. Maybe he fancies me, I don’t know. President Trump, I’m happily married! I’m not interested. It’s like I’m living rent-free inside this guy’s head for 10 years now. President Trump, objectively speaking, is a nativist. He’s a protectionist and a unilateralist. He believes in mono-ethnism. He believes in the superiority of his religion, Christianity, and of Americans. And look at London. A city that is progressive, liberal, diverse, multicultural and the greatest city in the world. So we are the antithesis of all he believes in. So I can understand why he wants to spread disinformation about this dystopian version of London because Londoners have chosen this guy who’s a Muslim of Pakistani origin.

The problem is, he’s brought into the mainstream views that should be in the periphery. When I was growing up, people would use the P-word to describe someone like me, or the N-word for somebody who is black, or the Y-word for somebody who’s Jewish, or would objectify women. That sort of disappeared. Now, things have gone backwards. And Trump has brought it into the mainstream. So the P-word is back, the N-word is back, the Y-word is back. And women are now being told by men what they can do with their bodies. I could go on. And so that is a problem for all of us.

The woman you fall in love with – she’s the right one. I’ve been in love once and I was lucky. We’re married and we’ve got two gorgeous kids – I’m still besotted with my wife. So trust your gut. That’s what I’d tell my younger self. Relationships shouldn’t be hard work but you get out what you put in. So date nights are important, make time to spend time together. Laughter is very important. You’ve got to respect each other. Saadiya and I not only have similar backgrounds, but similar values, same religion, and we still love each other.

I pray five times a day and it gives me a chance to pause. I’ve got friends who practise mindfulness and it’s very similar. You’re pausing to reflect. I was born a Muslim, raised a Muslim, and a lot of the values I have I didn’t realise come from the teachings of my religion. In terms of respect your elders, respect women, respect youngsters. I’m hoping it gets me to heaven. But actually it’s a useful tool dealing with the pressures of my job, just to pause and pray. So that’s been incredibly helpful.So the advice I’d give my younger self is that your religion is a source of strength – not just to get you to heaven, but to deal with the challenges of the jobs you’ll have.

I’d tell my younger self that no day is perfect. Somebody told me when I first became mayor to enjoy the experience, not just the memory. It’s a profound thing to say, and so important. I was working so hard as a lawyer but I was so busy, I never paused to think, you know what, this is a big deal, let me just enjoy this. Same when I was councillor and an MP – I was young and precocious and busy writing and making speeches and advocacy.

If I was whispering to my younger self, I’d say: try again for the cricket, don’t give up. But secondly, enjoy the ride. Looking back, I enjoyed being a lawyer, I enjoyed being an MP and a minister. What I’ve sought to do as mayor is work incredibly hard but enjoy each day as well. And that’s a different experience.

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