It has emerged that actor Idris Elba, is being considered as a potential candidate for Mayor of London by the Labour Party.
Reports quoting the Sun and The Standard indicate that the political party is interested in him as a candidate, following his documentaries and activism surrounding knife crime in the capital.
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Elba made the documentary Our Knife Crime Crisis, which aired in February, and has been vocal on ways to combat the problem.
“Idris has star appeal — but he is also a thoughtful political campaigner…Labour (has) a choice about who we choose to run in London.
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“We can pick a Labour insider and try to make them famous. Or we can pick someone famous who is aligned with Labour. Idris would be at the absolute top of our wish list,” a source close to the pollical party was quoted.
Elba was born in Hackney and currently lives in East London. He is best known for television shows The Wire, Luther, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and others.
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Recently, he spoke about his desire to appear in a live action version of Cyberpunk 2077, which he featured in.
“I think if any film could do a live-action rendition, it could be [Cyberpunk 2077]…I think [Keanu Reeves’] character and my character together would be, ‘Whoa.’ So, let’s speak that into existence,” he stated.
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The current Mayor of London is Sir Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate who was elected to the position in 2016. He is expected to step down before the next mayoral election, which is estimated to be in 2028.
He is the longest-serving Mayor of London since the creation of the position in 2000, surpassing the tenures of previous mayors Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson.
