Meet Citizen Khan, Tooting’s local hero

Sadiq Khan, the MP at the centre of the bugging controversy, must be a huge disappointment to snooping policemen if his own blog is anything to go by. Khan, 37, is described as a rising star of the Labour party, but the blog paints a picture of a hyperactive schoolboy rather than a Westminster high-flyer.

He details his pride in the small triumphs of local politics in his Tooting constituency: trying to find a new location for a RSPCA shop, a successful campaign to install bollards near a Primary School, and "lobbying for more bins, more regular rubbish collections and for the shrubbery to be cut back so that rats no longer prove a health risk to children" in a Tooting playground.

One entry reads: "On Wednesday I took the winner of my Christmas Card Competition, eight-year-old Shanelle Taylor-Hutton, and her art teacher, Michaela Truscott, from Furzedown Primary School to meet the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. I had been bragging to other MPs about how talented children in Tooting are and how good my Christmas card design is." Not much hear to interest Mr Plod.

As for Khan's views of his party leader, he displays just the sort of doe-eyed loyalty expected of a party whip. "Clearly the highlight of the [Labour party conference] week was Gordon Brown’s brilliant speech". His low point of the week was losing 3-1 to a team of lobby journalists in a football match; he blamed his poor personal performance on his fasting.

Comments about his Muslim faith illustrate the challenge of juggling the conventions of Islam with the demands of politics. Khan snuck off to Mecca on the Hajj during parliament’s Christmas recess, and celebrated the eve of Eid at a local beauty salon.

He has spoken in front of 10,000 people at a Muslim Live Aid event to raise money for Darfur. But it was a one-on-one meeting in a Milton Keynes prison that has done the most to raise his profile.