London’s mayor needs heavy security to guard against extremists but who protects him from the new rightwing politics?
Today, as every day, police protection will be at its highest around the Queen and the prime minister and around a politician who in normal circumstances would barely need guarding. Fifteen armed officers, trained in counter-terrorism and emergency medicine, will be on alert solely because a brown-skinned Muslim, caught up in a global wave of hatred, is the mayor of London.
The level of threat Sadiq Khan must live with challenges the self-congratulatory claim that “Britain is the least racist country in the world” and many other complacent cliches.