Sadiq Khan

SOMETIMES it doesn’t seem such an unreason­able idea to lock the doors of the London Assembly, turn the cameras off and leave the members babbling away at each other.

The rest of us can head on home, pretty sure that we will not be missing too much.

The dullest theatre in town has its worst shows during the regular Mayor’s Question Time session, the latest of which took place yesterday (Thursday).

The members from the Labour majority gaze lovingly at Sadiq Khan, dutifully setting up opportunities for him to praise himself.

The Tories meanwhile shove one rabid question after another at him about the Ultra Low Emission Zone.

The other parties nibble around the edges.

The council chamber, an Ultra Low Achieve­ment Zone on days like this, is an arena where political point-scoring more often than not replaces any genuine scrutiny. It is not helped by the ultimate power enjoyed by the mayor, and Mr Khan is the third in a row to treat these sessions with an air of perfor­mative exasperation.

Tony Devenish

Ken Livingstone often looked irritated that any of his policies were being questioned, while Boris Johnson tried to fend off his boredom by drifting off on irrelevant tangents, chucking in some Latin or sparking up the name-calling. His favourite whipping boy was often the old assembly member Andrew Dismore, who he told to “get stuffed” and branded a “protoplasmic jelly”.

Yesterday Mr Khan could be found flapping his arms up and down and delivering thespy sighs, while asking: “What am I supposed to do with that?”

This was all aimed at Tory member Tony Devenish, also a councillor in Westminster of course, who had been contrasting Sir Keir Starmer’s recent concern about cannabis smoke drifting into neighbours’ homes – his example of anti-social behaviour that needed a crackdown – and Sadiq Khan setting up a commission which could lead to the use of the drug being policed more lightly in London.

It all became quite a rant, but no questions were to be answered.

Harrington never touches the wackybaccy weed himself, but watching all of this does make one feel rather dizzy and light-headed.

Who knows what it all achieves?