Patrick Christys: Unless the fireworks were sourced from a laboratory in Wuhan, I struggle to see how this is a super-spreader event

London’s world famous New Year’s Eve firework display has been cancelled "due to uncertainties posed by Covid-19". It’s the second year this has happened, although we’re not where we were last year, are we? This is a mass, outdoor event, attended by people who will more or less all have been double jabbed and unless the fireworks were sourced from a laboratory in Wuhan, I struggle to see how this act as a super-spreader event.

But then again, I’m not surprised that Sadiq Khan has cancelled this event. Because it’s just another excuse for him to do nothing, isn’t it?

His silence has been deafening when it comes to the violent crime epidemic sweeping the capital. 1,100 people were stabbed in London the year before the pandemic and I can certainly remember him saying more about green spaces and emissions than that.

He doesn’t like mass gatherings on NYE, but if you’re part of Extinction Rebellion or Insulate Britain, that’s fine for Sadiq. And some of those demonstrations were at the height of the pandemic.

There were the BLM marches, he was ok with that. I can vividly remember Sadiq Khan wanting to stop Donald Trump coming to London. I think he approved a Trump blimp to hover over Parliament depicting the then current President of the United States as a giant baby wearing a nappy.

I thought that was interesting at the time, because there are a few inconsistencies when it comes to the London Mayor, especially when it comes to his values and his belief system.

Sadiq Khan did actually represent the Nation of Islam in 2001 and 2002. Which is a pretty radical group to say the least. Mr Khan was the group’s solicitor in a legal battle to overturn a ban on its leader, Louis Farrakhan, from entering the UK.

The ban was overturned, then later reinstated on appeal. Farrakhan is a hugely controversial figure who has denounced white people as 'devils' described jews as 'bloodsuckers' and called Hitler a 'very great man'.

In an interview with Jack Mendel at Jewish News Sadiq Khan said: 'I have never hidden the fact that I was a human rights lawyer. "Unfortunately, that means that I had to speak on behalf of some unsavoury individuals."

Well I’m not sure you had to, Sadiq. You can choose your clients. According to reports, Khan also denied that Farrakhan was anti-Semitic or a preacher of racial hatred, saying: "Mr Farrakhan is not anti-Semitic and does not preach a message of racial hatred and antagonism".

Now there’s a few possible explanations for this – maybe Sadiq Khan was always an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, maybe he always felt the plight of the non-binary and maybe he was always a devotee to feminism and he just managed somehow to suppress those feelings and turn up to work every day and advocate for a radical group, and a man who hates white people and jews. One must imagine that it would have been quite hard for him to sleep at night.

Maybe Sadiq Khan’s views have changed over time. All of ours do, I don’t feel the same way about a load of things as I did 10 years ago, for example. We’ll never know.