There was a strange opening line of questioning from Andrew Marr to Sadiq Khan this morning:
Welcome, Sadiq Khan. Congratulations on your victory. As you were going through that campaign did it feel to you like it was a racist campaign directed at you?
Did you think it was racist?
Did you feel that in effect they were saying, Sadiq Khan is a Muslim and therefore we can’t trust him with Londoner’s safety?
And, strangest of all, this apparently spontaneous question from the BBC man:
The Labour Party’s now got an inquiry into anti-Semitism inside the party which I think you felt damaged your campaign to certain extent in the final stages. My question is, do you think the Conservatives now have a question to answer? Do you think they ought to be investigating racism in the Conservative Party?
Sadiq hadn't suggested such a thing himself, so why did Andrew Marr choose to put that (helpful) question to Mayor Khan?
Andy's next question was:
London is probably the world’s greatest melting pot experiment in terms of whether people of very conservative religious views can live alongside people of very liberal, nonreligious views. How are you going to kind of steer this city in that regard over the next four years?
And that really was as tough as it got.
The rest of AM's questioning of SK focused relentlessly on the 'Jeremy Corbyn v Sadiq Khan' thing.
The whole interview was uncanny in its echoing of the BBC's other reporting in the past day or so - a mix of positive stuff about Sadiq Khan being elected, attacks on the 'racist' Tory campaign and attacks on JezWeCan.
You might possibly say: Agenda? What agenda?
