Sadiq Khan: ‘Our Strength Is Our Diversity’

You really couldn't make it up! London mayor Sadiq Khan told reporters that diversity is one of our capital’s strengths in the wake of the London Bridge attack.

“Look, I’m mayor of the greatest city in the world, and one of our strengths is our diversity,” he told reporters shortly the attack by Usman Khan, a convicted radical Islamic terrorist who had been freed from prison on a tag after serving less than half of a 16-year term, which left two dead and three injured.

“But we do know there are people out there who hate out diversity, hate what we stand for, and are trying to seek to divide us”, he added — although his grounds for appearing to suggest that terrorists despise Britain for being diverse were unclear.

Mayor Khan then flirted with controversy with a statement echoing an earlier, infamous former claim of his with respect to terror attacks — i.e. that “part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things” — by telling reporters: “Look, I know, speaking to colleagues around the world, mayors of other great cities, that we’re all targets for terrorists.”

Some critics of the Mayor of London have suggested that such attacks only appear to be a feature of life in cities such as London, while in a relatively homogenous place like the Japanese capital of Tokyo they are exceedingly rare — although not entirely unknown.