Sadiq Khan's incessant virtue signalling is a worrying portent of things to come

In George Orwell's epic novel 1984, published exactly 75 years ago, indoctrination was central to the ruling totalitarian regime. "Every statue and street building had been renamed. History has stopped. Nothing exists but an endless present where the party is always right," ran one chilling passage.

Disturbingly, there is an echo of that impulse for ideological control in modern Britain. As woke campaigners tighten their grip on our civic life, there is no let-up in the remorseless propaganda which views everything through the prism of identity politics. A bleak example of how the woke agenda is warping priorities can be found in the John Lewis Partnership.

Once one of Britain's bestloved retailers, it now faces the loss of 11,000 jobs because of falling sales.

Yet instead of focusing on a commercial turnaround, management declares its aim is to build "Britain's most inclusive business".

To that end, they have produced an LGBT magazine for staff, which includes advice on how to find breast binders for trans children, and how to celebrate "Pansexual and Panromantic Visibility Day".

But no figure in our public life better embodies the woke takeover than Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London. An unappealing mediocrity devoid of authority or achievement, he tries to make up for it with relentless gesture politics.

Last week he was at it again as he revealed new titles for the six local lines that make up the London Overground rail network, which carries three million passengers annually.

Costing £6.3million, this rebranding initiative was partly carried out by the DNCO agency which explained how "we explored themes of decolonisation, queer histories, inter- sectionality and young London's perspectives".

The same Left-wing mentality runs through the choice of names, which include the Windrush line after the ship that brought the first postwar migrants to England in 1948.

There is also the Suffragette line, to honour the activists who fought for women to be given the vote, and the Lioness line, celebrating the England women's team that won the 2022 Euros. This expensive exercise in virtue signalling is typical of Khan who will stand in May for a third spell as Mayor.

He has been a dismal executive for the capital, particularly because of his spectacular failure to tackle knife crime, now running at a reported 40 incidents every day.

Mr Khan has also been pathetically weak with the militant trade unions that regularly bring public transport in the capital to a halt. Instead of challenging them, he endlessly appeased them. In the same vein, he has allowed bureaucracy to spiral out of control and waged war on the motorist that has done little to relieve congestion. Even his supposed big idea, the Ultra Low Emission Zone, which imposes heavy penalties on older, polluting vehicles, was devised by his predecessor Boris Johnson.

But when it comes to political gimmickry, he is the Prince of Poseurs and the Maestro of Media Manipulation. In the past, he has used the annual New Year fireworks to trumpet support for the EU and Black Lives Matter, just as he set up a "Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm" to conduct ideological purity tests on London landmarks.

His office also issued guidance on correct terminology, frowning on the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" because it does not include non-binary people, and says illegal migrants should be called "undocumented" migrants. Far more divisive was guidance from his PR team which vetoed a photo of a white family from mayoral publicity because it "does not represent real Londoners".

Such words make a complete mockery of all City Hall's talk about "inclusion". But they are revealing of the political purpose behind Khan's long catalogue of stunts. Essentially, they are designed to appeal to different minority groups.

If he can pull sufficient groups together, he can retain power regardless of his failures. It was Ken Livingstone who, as leader of the Greater London Council in the 1980s, pioneered this socalled "Rainbow Coalition", having seen it used in the US.