Sadiq 2016 vs Sadiq 2024: what a difference eight years makes

Sadiq Khan launched his London Mayoral re-election campaign earlier this week. 

A centrepiece of Khan’s narrative is his close relationship with the leader of the national Labour Party, Keir Starmer, and the opportunity a Labour Prime Minister and Labour London Mayor working hand-in-glove presents. 

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I was struck by how different Khan’s narrative in 2024 is from the one that got him elected for the first time eight years ago.

In 2016, Sadiq Khan’s narrative focused on the fact that his parents were immigrants to the UK from Pakistan and his dad was a bus driver. 

The main reason this was clever was because his biographically focused story created an identity for his candidacy that was separate from the brand of the national Labour Party, which wasn’t popular at the time. Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn in the buildup to the 2016 Mayoral election and was polling around 30%.

Sadiq Khan’s narrative was also more interesting and memorable to voters than any policy promise. It’s a story which encourages a sense of hope and engenders a feeling of pride in Londoners about the nature of the city they live in.

In addition, his narrative was more believable than others he could have chosen; big policy pledges, especially by challenger candidates, are often dismissed as “wishful thinking”. And the Mayor’s office doesn’t have huge amounts of direct power, which further encourages scepticism.

And every time Sadiq Khan told his story, it differentiated him from his Conservative opponent, Zac Goldsmith, an old Etonian and son of a billionaire businessman.

Highlighting the difference between Sadiq Khan’s 2024 narrative and the framing of his candidacy in 2016 is not a criticism. Quite the opposite. 

It’s to demonstrate the importance of creating an election campaign narrative that is most likely to be persuasive in the political context of the moment. 

A winning narrative for a candidate in one election can easily be a losing one in another.