As mayor, a 22-year-old jumped from public housing to London’s elite

As guests poured into Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King Charles III, a young man, dressed in ceremonial robes of blue and gold beneath a glittering chain of office, walked down the aisle and took his seat near the chancel.

He was the Right Worshipful Lord Mayor of Westminster. And he was very nervous. In the car, he’d combed his beard and checked his outfit several times before making his grand entrance.

“You’re in front of millions — you can’t afford to take a step wrong,” Hamza Taouzzale recently recalled.

Only 22 at the time of his election as mayor last year, he is the youngest ever and the first Muslim to hold the ceremonial role, which serves as a kind of ambassador of goodwill for Westminster and its people. He represents the area, which covers much of central London, at civic events with all the pomp and circumstance befitting the title, which was created by Queen Elizabeth II by letters patent in 1966.

From the moment he was sworn in, Mr Taouzzale, who grew up in a single-parent family in social housing in the British capital, was catapulted into a world of power and privilege.

In addition to a £24,000 ($30,600) stipend, he was given a spacious office; a researcher; a calendar manager; and a club bearer, who also acted as his chauffeur and etiquette guide to high-profile public engagements, many of them at Buckingham Palace.

The first funeral he attended in his life? Queen Elizabeth in September.

“You get to see a range of different lifestyles,” Mr Taouzzale said. “Westminster is a tale of two cities,” he added. “You have extreme wealth and extreme poverty.”

Westminster’s borders include some of Britain’s most famous landmarks, such as the Houses of Parliament, the Abbey and Buckingham Palace. It is also home to more than 250,000 residents, living in some of the country’s most expensive real estate as well as public housing, where many rely on food banks – a contrast that the opposition Labor Party has called a “crisis of inequality”. ” has named.

Mr. Taouzzale still lives in the apartment he grew up in. “My grandmother came to Westminster from Morocco in her early twenties,” he said. “My mother grew up on this estate and I was born and raised here. It’s a big part of who I am.”

Active in local politics since the age of 16, he was elected as a Labor member of the Westminster City Council at the age of 18, before gaining both a BA and an MA in politics. He hopes to use his council seat as a springboard to national office, with a view to entering parliament.

The council, whose more than 50 members are responsible for a number of government services, including social housing, waste collection and traffic, elects the mayor for each one-year term.

Mr Taouzzale said he was surprised to be elected as the position usually goes to councilors in the autumn of their careers.

“I think it was a statement: a sign that the City of Westminster is moving forward,” he said. “For me, there wasn’t a single mayor who wasn’t from an English or white background.”

He added, “I think it was a sign that the city is becoming more progressive.”

Mr Taouzzale said he made it a point to attend events in his home district, Westminster North, because residents in that densely packed, lower-income area felt it was always overlooked. “Growing up, I had no idea who the mayor was — I’d never seen them. I wanted to change that.”

Most mayors have had a partner or spouse to act as their official consort. Mr. Taouzzale took his mother, aunt and grandmother to big events at Buckingham Palace; younger siblings, friends and fellow councilors accompanied him to other appearances.

“I really did everything and anything,” he said. “Even if I didn’t feel like it that day, even the unglamorous stuff.”

The formal commitments of Mr. Taouzzale launched the Platinum Jubilee last June, in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s 70th anniversary on the throne. At an evening concert, he sat in the royal box directly in front of Boris Johnson, then the Prime Minister, and just behind the Prince and Princess of Wales.

It was a pinch-me moment. Mr. Taouzzale was secretly taking pictures of the world figures around him and the crowd below as a personal memento, or some kind of proof of presence, when someone tapped him gently on the shoulder and whispered, “You don’t need to take pictures, you know. You will be on television.”

It often felt, Mr. Taouzzale said, as if he was living a surreal double life.

“I’d go to a really fancy, fancy dinner at a members’ club or a private home, where everyone seems to know each other already, they’re in this circle, and then I’d go home and say, ‘Wait a minute, did I really just done?’”

Amid all the pomp and circumstance—at most events he was the highest-ranking person in attendance, even for generals, and the last to enter a room (“really weird,” he said)—etiquette issues occasionally arose.

“Which fork or knife to use was tricky at first,” said Mr. Taouzzale. “I used to never have more than one fork or one knife on the table, and suddenly I had three of each. It was like, what should I do?”

The months as mayor passed in a blur. He oversaw the felling of Britain’s national Christmas tree in Norway and lit the lights in Trafalgar Square with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.

“Hamza Taouzzale’s recent tenure as Lord Mayor of Westminster is emblematic of the power of London’s diversity,” said Mr. Khan.

To be the first Muslim to hold the role required some negotiation, as part of the mayor’s job also includes speaking regularly at the Abbey, an Anglican church.

“Whenever I gave a reading at the abbey, we had to spend a lot of time with the dean trying to figure out what the right reading was,” he said. “I’m a devout Muslim, I’m not going to hide my beliefs to read something that I don’t agree with, or that I don’t think is right. So we always had to find a verse somewhere in the Bible, or a reading, that matched my religious beliefs.”

Now that the new mayor has been sworn in – Mr. Taouzzale has had to hand in the robes, office and car with the coveted WE 1 number plate – he thinks about the future and looks for a job as a councillor. is only part-time and pays about $11,500.

He hopes his tenure as mayor will motivate Westminster’s next generation.

“Growing up in my environment, I didn’t feel that we were allowed to have positive ambitions. They were closed quite early,” he said. “If you had a decent job, people would say ‘oh, you’re lucky. Oh, you’re lucky you went to college.’ Why isn’t that the bare minimum, why isn’t it the standard?”

He added: “Hopefully I was able to inspire people. I hope they can say, “Well, if Hamza did it, so can I.”