At a youth club in Brixton, Sadiq Khan shoots some pool with a group of teenagers. He listens to some tracks recorded in the club’s small studio. He chats with them about a recent hiking trip. He recounts a visit to the countryside with his own youth club that included his first encounter with a cow. “We’d go out and count how many animals we saw,” he says. “Cows, sheep, horses. In inner London, you didn’t see them.”
It’s a scene in which Khan is at his most convincing, at home in a youthful, multicultural London. Today, he’s unveiling £30m for youth services. Khan’s relaxed demeanour may seem unsurprising given opinion polls that give him leads over Tory rival Susan Hall north of 20 percentage points. Yet if you listen to Khan, or the experts taking a close interest, there are some strange political currents tugging below the surface in the capital.
