Letters: An encouraging message sent by London to the rest of the world

The people of London must be commended for acting with maturity and with a sense of rationality in their decision to trust a Muslim politician as the new Mayor of their vibrant city.

They have not allowed anti-Muslim sentiment and media's sensationalism to sway them from electing Sadiq Khan as a Mayor of one of the most civilised cities in the world.

They deserve salutation and recognition especially at a time when Donald Trump is trying to close the doors on Muslims and portray them as an elusive enemy everyone should guard against.

Londoners have made history in overcoming the hyper-sensationalised fear of “the other.”

They have shown that we ought to overcome this baseless fear and enmity of our neighbours.

I wish Mr Khan great success in his new job.

Abubakar Kasim

Ontario, Canada

Zac Goldsmith ran a disgusting racist campaign in his bid to be the Mayor of London.

In a desperate bid for office, Goldsmith's campaign linked his main rival Sadiq Khan - and by implication all Muslims - with terrorism. This tactic was last employed in election material circulated by the BNP.

And it didn't work. Glorious multicultural London with its 7 million people, 14 major faiths, and where you can hear over 300 languages spoken, rejected Goldsmith's racist poison.

Nevertheless the Tories are not apologising for their tactics.

Tory MP Michael Fallon dismissed their use of dog whistle racism as “just part of the rough and tumble of politics”.

Tory Chancellor George Osborne has rejected criticism of Goldsmith's campaign.

Fallon's comments show where the Tories really stand on racism. They see it as as a political tool to gain opportunistic advantage over their rivals.

The use of racism is never “just part of the rough and tumble of politics”.

Racism is a social poison and is never acceptable - especially when it is used by those who seek to run society.

I'm delighted Londoners rejected Goldsmith's racist tactics.

Congratulations to Sadiq Khan - Mayor of London.

Zac Goldsmith can go rot on the compost heap of history.

Sasha Simic

Stamford Hill, London

How many members of the Conservative party will be suspended for their racist attacks on Sadiq Khan?

Anthony Phillips

Oxford

Your analysis of Thursday's elections ('Sadiq Khan and Ruth Davidson were yesterday’s big winners', Sat 7th May) doesn't mention the real losers. Those of us in England, who live outside Greater London, were obliged to use the archaic first past the post system to elect our councillors.

Everyone in the rest of the UK uses systems more suited to the multi-party environment that has been the reality of British politics for more than half a century; are we non-metropolitan English perhaps considered too dim to cope with such modernity?

In Cheltenham, for example, the Labour and Green Parties each got around 7% of the vote and could thus reasonably expect to have 6 councillors between them in our 40 seat town. But neither has any. A similar story was repeated all over England.

Our rotten, unfit-for-purpose electoral system hands power to people who represent only a minority of their electorate. No wonder so few people bother to vote.

Brian Hughes

Cheltenham, Glos.

One might have thought that, after a referendum campaign in 2012-14 and two major election campaigns in 2015 and 2016, Nicola Sturgeon would at last settle down to governing, using the powers she has and making badly needed improvements in the areas of devolved responsibility, especially education. If one had thought that, one would have been naïve.

Ms Sturgeon has made it clear that, after being returned at the head of a minority government, her top priority is a ‘summer campaign’ to persuade those who voted No in 2014 that separating from the UK is a great idea.

This will no doubt please those who joined the SNP after the referendum whose dearest wish is a second referendum. But, for the rest of us, it merely confirms that the SNP is not a governing party at all. Its skimpy outline of a programme for government is a mere fig leaf. The SNP is nothing more than an agit prop campaigning party.

Jill Stephenson

Edinburgh

It’s good that talks are being resumed over the Government’s dispute with the junior doctors. As a start, it might be helpful if Jeremy Hunt would drop that persistent but unconvincing mantra ‘We are determined to carry out our manifesto commitment’. There are glaring flaws in that claim.

Firstly, what if that manifesto commitment is shown to be manifestly unjust?

Secondly, the claim would be justified if at the last election the Conservative party achieved a healthy majority and an even healthier share of the votes. It achieved neither, and therefore to claim it has a mandate for its increasingly obdurate approach is disingenuous.

But it reflects the way in which a PR- driven administration is fixated on image and political point- scoring which spreads to both sides of the divide. Thus a sensible concession - achieved by persuasion or painful extraction - is instantly seized upon as a ‘climb down’ or U-turn by one side, and ‘a listening Government’ by the other.

This is a sterile way of negotiating. Moreover, it appears to overlook those anxiously awaiting operations or the equally worried patients in the over-crowded A and E departments. If the junior doctors are finally driven to make some uncomfortable concessions they could at least see this as an admirable affirmation of their sacred oath: ‘First do no harm.’

Donald Zec

London