Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London and a high-ranking member of the Labour Party. Last week, he traveled to the United States on some kind of goodwill/we-need-American-tourism tour which saw him meeting with representatives from government, charity and the arts. He was in LA for a meetings and at least one VIP party. Do you see where this is headed? Because Mayor Khan is like most British people, he seemed to think that Montecito-to-LA was some kind of easy distance and that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could simply pop by the VIP party in LA. Khan invited them and they declined, but like the lovely people they are, Harry and Meghan extended an invitation to Mayor Khan to come up to Montecito. He declined. Guess how the story is being reported?

Sadiq Khan was secretly invited to meet the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at their £11m mansion in California on his trip to the US, the Evening Standard can reveal. The offer was made after Harry and Meghan were unable to accept an invitation to be the star guests at a VIP party hosted by the mayor in Los Angeles last week.

However Mr Khan was unable to accept due to “logistical” difficulties with an already packed schedule and because their home near Santa Barbara was a 90-minute drive from where the City Hall-organised party was being held in West Hollywood.

It is also likely the mayor would not have wanted to be drawn into the royal family’s “civil war”, especially ahead of meeting Prince William at the FA Cup final last Saturday and the Queen’s visit to Crossrail on Tuesday. Mr Khan has a good relationship with the Duke of Cambridge who he has met on several occasions. They have a shared interest in tackling environmental issues.

Harry and Meghan, who stepped back as senior royals in 2020 and relinquished their role as working members of the royal family last year, sent three aides to the mayor’s rooftop party. They included James Holt, who was head of communications for Nick Clegg when the then Lib-Dem leader was Deputy Prime Minister. Mr Holt is now executive director of the Archewell Foundation, the couple’s charity.

A spokeswoman for the Archewell Foundation, when contacted by the Standard this week, did not deny the couple had been invited to the party nor that a return invitation had been extended to the mayor.

[From The Evening Standard]

Imagine leading with “Harry and Meghan invited Mayor Khan to their home” and/or “Mayor Khan REJECTS Harry and Meghan!” While the Evening Standard puts it in some kind of context, other British outlets did not. Outlets like the Daily Mail, which made the story into something hyper-political… despite the fact that it’s clear Sadiq Khan reached out to the Sussexes first and not the other way around.

Norman Baker, former Lib Dem Transport Secretary and an author of a book on the Royal Family, said he was ‘surprised’ at the Sussexes decision to invite Mr Khan to their home.

‘Although Harry and Meghan are semi-divorced from the Royal Family they need to be careful not to demonstrate any political allegiance,’ he told MailOnline. ‘Sadiq Khan was right to turn this invitation down.’

Mr Khan, 51, is a friend of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, and it is likely he would want to avoid being drawn into the ‘civil war’ between the Sussexes and the rest of the Royal Family. The Mayor met William before the FA Cup final last weekend, and also appeared alongside the Queen during the opening of Crossrail on Tuesday.

Meghan, 40, is believed to harbour political ambitions, with past reports suggesting she had been networking with senior Democrats with a view to building a campaign and fundraising teams for a tilt at the US Presidency. Sources close to the couple have previously declined to comment on the rumours, but the couple have made little secret of their political beliefs.

[From The Daily Mail]

Again, for all of us in the cheap seats… Khan reached out to the Sussexes first. They were merely being nice by offering him a chance to come by, which they only did because they were declining HIS offer to come to LA. And why all of this talk about how Khan is close to Prince William? William is quite clearly and quite openly a Tory stooge. William barely associates with anyone from the Labour Party. All of his senior staffers are Tories. But we’re supposed to be left with the idea that Khan has to “choose a side” between William and Harry. Worse yet, we’re supposed to believe that Khan declined Harry and Meghan’s invitation *because* Khan doesn’t want to piss off Willy Incandescent.

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