Imran’s son backing uncle for London mayoral seat

ISLAMABAD: There is one young face on the Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign who is strikingly familiar. He is tall and handsome, very sweet but rather serious. While most 18-year-olds from his affluent background would jet off on a round-the-world gap year on leaving school, he has opted instead to pace the streets of London, knocking on doors and stuffing leaflets through letter boxes, Evening Standard, London reported.

Sulaiman Isa Khan is Goldsmith’s nephew, son of his sister Jemima and her ex-husband Pakistani politician Imran Khan. And before heading to university in September he is cutting his political teeth on the Tory mayoral candidate’s campaign to succeed Boris Johnson.

Sulaiman has much in common with his beloved uncle. They are both charming and polite, intelligent and studious, and want to use politics to make a difference. Just as Zac’s environmentalism was inspired by his father’s brother Teddy Goldsmith, the founder of the Green Party, so Sulaiman looks up to his own MP uncle.

And like Zac, whose younger brother Ben had a reputation as a bit of a wild child, he has a more gregarious younger sibling, leading to campaign insiders calling him “the more studious Zac to his brother’s livewire Ben”.

Sulaiman has become a leading light of the Tory mayoral campaign’s youth wing but is just one member of the broader drive to get Zac elected, which also includes strategists who have advised prime ministers and presidents.

Labour’s Sadiq Khan also has an impressive inner team, combining seasoned Westminster operatives with experts from outside politics, including a millionaire business adviser and an Old Etonian spin doctor. As the Tory and Labour candidates enter the final weeks of the race for City Hall, their teams are digging in for the battle ahead.