Congratulations Sadiq Khan- new mayor of London

[riskllama]

*says the chinese chick in the burqa*

[mrswdk]

There is Islam as practiced by modern Britons such as Sadiq Khan and there is medieval Islam as practiced by Ayatollah Dukasaur and his fellow mods.

[riskllama]

zing!

[mrswdk]

ANYHOO

The point is that the role played by religion in the London mayoral elections was minuscule at most. The only party which attempted to play the religion card was Britain First (who ran on an anti-Islam platform), and they ended up with 1% of the vote. The majority of people in London simple don't care what religion/ethnicity their politicians are.

[The asylum]

There is Islam as practiced by modern Britons such as Sadiq Khan and there is medieval Islam as practiced by Ayatollah Dukasaur and his fellow mods.

Ah bless you, you think there's a type of Islam practiced by modern Britons. Got to love and cuddle special people like you. Hopefully the real world will never taint your beautiful naïveté

[Symmetry]

There is Islam as practiced by modern Britons such as Sadiq Khan and there is medieval Islam as practiced by Ayatollah Dukasaur and his fellow mods.

Ah bless you, you think there's a type of Islam practiced by modern Britons. Got to love and cuddle special people like you. Hopefully the real world will never taint your beautiful naïveté

The real world has spoken, kiddo. You've been left behind.

[thegreekdog]

Khan got 56.9% of the final vote in a city where 12.4% of the population is Muslim. It's most likely that the vast majority of people who voted for Khan were non-Muslim.

Religion hasn't been used at all during the mainstream mayoral campaigns. Once it became clear Goldsmith wasn't managing to overtake Khan in the polls he and his campaign started trying to smear Khan about having spoken alongside extremists in the past, but there was never any suggestion that Khan's religion made him unfit for office.

With your statistics above, you didn't actually prove anything. You would also need to show how many Londoners voted.

ANYHOO

The point is that the role played by religion in the London mayoral elections was minuscule at most. The only party which attempted to play the religion card was Britain First (who ran on an anti-Islam platform), and they ended up with 1% of the vote. The majority of people in London simple don't care what religion/ethnicity their politicians are.

Yeah, is it really notable that a Muslim was elected? I suppose if this was like rural Alabama in the United States it would be noteworthy.

[mrswdk]

Khan got 56.9% of the final vote in a city where 12.4% of the population is Muslim. It's most likely that the vast majority of people who voted for Khan were non-Muslim.

Religion hasn't been used at all during the mainstream mayoral campaigns. Once it became clear Goldsmith wasn't managing to overtake Khan in the polls he and his campaign started trying to smear Khan about having spoken alongside extremists in the past, but there was never any suggestion that Khan's religion made him unfit for office.

With your statistics above, you didn't actually prove anything. You would also need to show how many Londoners voted.

True, turnout is important. Turnout was 45.3% of eligible voters.

In the second round of voting, Khan got 1.14 million votes and Goldsmith got 910,000. This is 2.05 million votes. If 2.05 million is 45.3% of eligible voters, then that means there are 4.52 million eligible voters in London.

If we assume the proportion of Muslims/non-Muslims is the same among eligible voters as among the population at large, that means that 560,000 voters are Muslims and 3.96 voters are non-Muslim.

Scenario 1 (hereby referred to as Operation Muslim Conspiracy) is that, inspired by blind allegiance based upon religion, every single Muslim in London came out and voted for Khan. This would mean 560,000 of Khan's votes were from Muslims, while 508,000 were from non-Muslims (or that 51.8% of Khan's voters were Muslims, while 48.2% were not). However, coming to this conclusion and stating that Khan was carried to victory by Operation Muslim Conspiracy is making two huge assumptions:

1 - every single Muslim voted
2 - every single Muslim voted, and voted for Khan

There are a number of holes in these assumptions, not least that deprived sections of the population are among the most likely to be disenfranchised and therefore are more likely, on average, to refrain from voting. Given that Muslims (in common with most ethnic minority groups) are more likely to be poor, and therefore disenfranchised, then even if a higher-than-normal number of Muslims turned out just because of Khan then we can still reasonably assume that only about 50% of Muslims voted. This would mean a maximum of 280,000 Muslim votes for Khan, and 734,000 non-Muslim votes for Khan. Even if we split the difference and go for the hugely generous estimate of 75% of Muslims voting for Khan, that still means a maximum of Muslim votes 420,000 for Khan and 593,000 non-Muslim votes for Khan.

And that 420,000 is only if we're still assuming that 100% of Muslims who voted voted for Khan, which is another wild assumption in itself. Even in the US presidential elections Obama didn't manage to monopolize the black vote (even if he did get about 95% of it), and that's in a country where ethnicity plays a significant role in politics. I'd hypothesize that at least 10% of Muslims who voted in the London elections voted for Goldsmith, and in all likelihood probably more.

So, on balance, unless we subscribe to Operation Muslim Conspiracy then far more non-Muslims than Muslims voted for Khan.

ANYHOO

The point is that the role played by religion in the London mayoral elections was minuscule at most. The only party which attempted to play the religion card was Britain First (who ran on an anti-Islam platform), and they ended up with 1% of the vote. The majority of people in London simple don't care what religion/ethnicity their politicians are.

Yeah, is it really notable that a Muslim was elected? I suppose if this was like rural Alabama in the United States it would be noteworthy.

In the context of how prominent the demonization of Muslims is throughout much of Western Europe and North America, it is notable that a Western European's capital city has just elected a Muslim as its leader. While it's not particularly notable in the context of an enormously diverse capital city, it still sends quite a visible message to others.

[thegreekdog]

True, turnout is important. Turnout was 45.3% of eligible voters.

You had me at 45.3% of eligible voters... you had me at 45.3% of eligible voters.

In the context of how prominent the demonization of Muslims is throughout much of Western Europe and North America, it is notable that a Western European's capital city has just elected a Muslim as its leader. While it's not particularly notable in the context of an enormously diverse capital city, it still sends quite a visible message to others.

Frankly, I think the demonization of Muslims is overblown especially in a place as cosmopolitan as western Europe and specifically London. If we were talking about some small town in rural Alabama, then maybe I would be more moved (but even then it probably wouldn't be that shocking).

If we sit here on May 9, 2016 and say "but TGD! Look at the popularity of Trump in the United States!", my response would be - Okay, Trump is the erstwhile anti-Muslim candidate here in the US I suppose. And let's assume the reason he's winning the Republican nomination is because of that and not because of other things (like the media spending 98% of their time on him or his very isolationist economic policies). But he's not getting more than 50% of the Republican vote in any polls and we all like to think Republicans are all anti-Muslim bigots. Nevermind that he's not polling close to future president Hillary Clinton in national polls. So even here in the backwards United States, I'm not sure I understand where the idea of demonization comes from with respect to Muslims. I admittedly do not fully understand western Europe's association with or treatment of Muslims, but given their views on the Trump campaign and the United States generally (i.e. they think we are all insane, even though the vast majority of us never voted for Mr. Trump... but that's neither here nor there), I would think western Europe is much less likely to demonize Muslims than the United States, which I think I just demonstrated is not really demonizing Muslims.

Also and as well all know thanks to various expert posts on this very website, we elected a devout Muslim to the presidency in both 2008 and 2012. So there's that as well.

[mrswdk]

True, turnout is important. Turnout was 45.3% of eligible voters.

You had me at 45.3% of eligible voters... you had me at 45.3% of eligible voters.

WHATEVER I STILL ENJOYED WRITING THE REST OF THAT POST

In the context of how prominent the demonization of Muslims is throughout much of Western Europe and North America, it is notable that a Western European's capital city has just elected a Muslim as its leader. While it's not particularly notable in the context of an enormously diverse capital city, it still sends quite a visible message to others.

Frankly, I think the demonization of Muslims is overblown especially in a place as cosmopolitan as western Europe and specifically London. If we were talking about some small town in rural Alabama, then maybe I would be more moved (but even then it probably wouldn't be that shocking).

It's less of a problem in a big cosmopolitan city, sure, but it's still there. Plus, I was talking about the message it sounds to people everywhere, not just to people in other cosmopolitan cities.

If we sit here on May 9, 2016 and say "but TGD! Look at the popularity of Trump in the United States!", my response would be - Okay, Trump is the erstwhile anti-Muslim candidate here in the US I suppose. And let's assume the reason he's winning the Republican nomination is because of that and not because of other things (like the media spending 98% of their time on him or his very isolationist economic policies). But he's not getting more than 50% of the Republican vote in any polls and we all like to think Republicans are all anti-Muslim bigots. Nevermind that he's not polling close to future president Hillary Clinton in national polls. So even here in the backwards United States, I'm not sure I understand where the idea of demonization comes from with respect to Muslims. I admittedly do not fully understand western Europe's association with or treatment of Muslims, but given their views on the Trump campaign and the United States generally (i.e. they think we are all insane, even though the vast majority of us never voted for Mr. Trump... but that's neither here nor there), I would think western Europe is much less likely to demonize Muslims than the United States, which I think I just demonstrated is not really demonizing Muslims.

Having followed the US elections relatively closely I didn't think the appeal of Trump is an anti-Islam appeal. As far as I can tell he made one comment about stopping Muslims from entering the US because of ISIS and then never revisited that idea. In the UK and other Western European countries there are political movements and parties which center around anti-Islamism (e.g. Britain First, Pegida), well-read newspapers which stoke Islamophobia, and significant (if minority) levels of anti-Islam sentiment among the general populations at large. Britain First got a bit more than 30,000 votes in the London mayoral elections - it's not much, but that's 1% of voters opting for a party with no discernible policies other than suppressing Islam. If that's 1% of the electorate who care about nothing other than chucking the Muzzies out, imagine how many people there are who harbor similar views, but have a relatively 3D range of political concerns and so vote for other parties. Compared to what members of any other ethnic minority face, Muslims get the worst of it.

Also and as well all know thanks to various expert posts on this very website, we elected a devout Muslim to the presidency in both 2008 and 2012. So there's that as well.

lawl

[thegreekdog]

It's less of a problem in a big cosmopolitan city, sure, but it's still there. Plus, I was talking about the message it sounds to people everywhere, not just to people in other cosmopolitan cities.

I guess. Except that people that already hate Muslims aren't going to be like "Didn't dat dem dere London town elect dat Muslim guy?" and all of the sudden become comfortable with Muslim politicians. I'm bad at the US history thing, but didn't people freak out when Kennedy was running for president because they thought the pope was going to control him? In a lot of bigots' minds, real life doesn't really matter. Hell, for most political opponents real life doesn't matter (e.g. Obama is a Muslim; Bush was trying to get oil).

Having followed the US elections relatively closely I didn't think the appeal of Trump is an anti-Islam appeal. As far as I can tell he made one comment about stopping Muslims from entering the US because of ISIS and then never revisited that idea. In the UK and other Western European countries there are political movements and parties which center around anti-Islamism (e.g. Britain First, Pegida), well-read newspapers which stoke Islamophobia, and significant (if minority) levels of anti-Islam sentiment among the general populations at large. Britain First got a bit more than 30,000 votes in the London mayoral elections - it's not much, but that's 1% of voters opting for a party with no discernible policies other than suppressing Islam. If that's 1% of the electorate who care about nothing other than chucking the Muzzies out, imagine how many people there are who harbor similar views, but have a relatively 3D range of political concerns and so vote for other parties. Compared to what members of any other ethnic minority face, Muslims get the worst of it.

I wonder if there are just a lot more Muslims (and by "Muslims" I mean brown skinned Muslims, not white Muslims) in Europe than in the United States.

[notyou2]

Calgary Alberta, middle of redneck country Canada, elected a muslim mayor several years ago. He seems awesome.



I'm not sure, but my above comment could be an indication of the successful Rothschild jewish/muslim world domination conspiracy through social media.

[riskllama]

he's gay too, isn't he?

[thegreekdog]

he's gay too, isn't he?

Do Muslims tolerate gays (on a general basis)? Like can you be both gay and a practicing Muslim (and by "gay" I mean "practicing gay" and not "I'm gay, but I'm pretending I'm not because I want to go to Christian church gay").

[riskllama]

i'm sure i have no idea, TGD.

[riskllama]

he's gay too, isn't he?

apologies. mr. nenshi is not gay. he's married w/children. i just seem to recall him coming off that way in interviews and such.

[notyou2]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

[thegreekdog]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

Didn't Canada have a mayor that was a crack addict?

I think mayors in general are fascinating people. I've been in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and we've had some interesting mayors. I bet a lot of cities could say the same thing.

[Symmetry]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

Didn't Canada have a mayor that was a crack addict?

I think mayors in general are fascinating people. I've been in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and we've had some interesting mayors. I bet a lot of cities could say the same thing.

Oddly enough, London has two mayors. Only one has any real power though. It gets complicated to explain.

[notyou2]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

Didn't Canada have a mayor that was a crack addict?

I think mayors in general are fascinating people. I've been in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and we've had some interesting mayors. I bet a lot of cities could say the same thing.

That was Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto. He just died of cancer a month ago.

[Symmetry]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

Didn't Canada have a mayor that was a crack addict?

I think mayors in general are fascinating people. I've been in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and we've had some interesting mayors. I bet a lot of cities could say the same thing.

That was Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto. He just died of cancer a month ago.

Damn, TGD! Too soon, mate... too soon.

[mrswdk]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

Didn't Canada have a mayor that was a crack addict?

I think mayors in general are fascinating people. I've been in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and we've had some interesting mayors. I bet a lot of cities could say the same thing.

Oddly enough, London has two mayors. Only one has any real power though. It gets complicated to explain.

It's not really that complicated (or, indeed, correct).

There is the Mayor of London, who has strategic governance over the whole city （i.e. all 33 boroughs of London). That's the position Sadiq Khan now holds. Then each of London's 33 boroughs also has its own mayor, who is the head of that particular borough but usually only has ceremonial duties.

[saxitoxin]

He does come across slightly effeminate. He is loved by the people and he seems like an awesome mayor.

Didn't Canada have a mayor that was a crack addict?

I think mayors in general are fascinating people. I've been in Philadelphia since the late 1990s and we've had some interesting mayors. I bet a lot of cities could say the same thing.

Oddly enough, London has two mayors. Only one has any real power though. It gets complicated to explain.

It's not really that complicated (or, indeed, correct).

There is the Mayor of London, who has strategic governance over the whole city （i.e. all 33 boroughs of London). That's the position Sadiq Khan now holds. Then each of London's 33 boroughs also has its own mayor, who is the head of that particular borough but usually only has ceremonial duties.

That's just like New York except there are only five boroughs instead of 33, and they're called borough presidents instead of mayors. AND THEY DONT TAKE SHIT FROM NORWEGIANS -

[mrswdk]

That's how you run a city!

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Its complicated by one of the boroughs being the "city of london".