London Mayor Sadiq Khan (L) and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (Byline Times)
The Light Shines Again in America
EA on Times Radio and BBC: Can Democrats Build on Momentum of Election Success?
Politics is rarely about policy. Mostly it is about performance over conviction.
But the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City Mayor was somewhat different. Here was a man who was not shy about convictions, who presented an authentic narrative. His campaign was not just reciting lines that have been cleared by a communications advisor living in fear of upsetting focus groups.
Here was a Muslim, migrant, and democratic socialist, going up against one of the best-known political dynasties in the US. Not only did Mamdani survive, he knocked the door off its hinges and walked through. He took on the machinery of the old guard and Andrew Cuomo, powered by donors, consultants, and lobbyists. He did it without apologizing for his politics, his faith, or those whom he represents.
This was not the polite incrementalism of a generation of centrist politicians, looking like insurance salesmen and women and domesticated into an art form. This was not campaigning through spreadsheets. It was storytelling, making each person feel special and heard. Mamdani hit the emotional chords of voters with campaign videos in multiple languages, including Arabic.
Hiding in Britain
No UK politician would dare this in the current environment. The Daily Mail would declare the collapse of civilization. GB News would run a special three-hour feature titled “Who Is This Man And Why Does He Hate Britain?” Anonymous MPs would whisper to journalists that such behavior “undermines integration”.
A campaign video in Arabic? In Britain, most minority politicians do not risk a “Salaam” or a photo appearance in a mosque unless the Prime Minister is visiting.
Progressives watched Mamdani’s clips like the thirsty discovering a tap. There was an almost embarrassing fascination: “This is what it looks like when someone believes in something.” They were rapt when he looks straight into the camera and said, “When you threaten power, power comes for you — but you don’t apologize for fighting for the people who sent you there.”
Even Jon Stewart, who has seen every type of political communication, noticed the difference. When Mamdani appeared on The Daily Show, Stewart remarke,d “When I listen to you speak, I don’t hear that voice in your head going, ‘Don’t say that. We focus-grouped it!’ You just…talk like a person.”
Mamdani said simply that he could not live with a censor in his head.
That exchange in a New York studio revealed the truth for me in the UK. Our politicians don’t speak like that because they don’t allow themselves to. They live with the censor. They are the censor. They swallow sentences before they are fully formed. Somewhere in their skull lives a junior adviser from party headquarters whispering, “Careful. That might cost us that 4.5% swing vote in Nuneaton.”
Courage Not Caution
Mamdani is not a product of a political graduate scheme, a trainee politician who understands how to interpret focus groups. He became a politician after organizing tenants, leading protests on housing injustice, and living in the community which he represents. He did not have pre-approved career path. He had skin in the game.
Contrast that with Westminster’s production line: student politician, Politics-Philosophy-Economics degree, activist, researcher, special advisor, think tank fellowship, parachuted candidacy, MP. No job outside politics. Never taken a punch, but always ready to give advice about resilience.
Mamdani has faced MAGA, the far right, Islamophobes, billionaire landlords, and the Cuomo dynasty, and he did nor blink. Here an MP will go into hiding for a weekend because some legacy media Telegraph columnist has some politically charged exaggerated folly of an article against them.
Labour could also learn from what happened to Andrew Cuomo, whose campaign felt like a time capsule from the 1990s and early 2000s: overly polished, consultant-driven, and cautious to a fault. It was the politics of leaflets, TV ads, endorsements, and carefully choreographed press conferences. It was the belief that reputation and hierarchy alone could win loyalty. Cuomo embodied an old system: commanding instead of listening, performing instead of engaging, assuming that authority automatically translated into relevance.
It’s not just politicians who operate this way. So do many of our “community leaders”. They cling to titles and committee seats, wondering why the younger generation will not fall into line. Mistaking gatekeeping for influence, they speak at people instead of with them.
Mamdani’s campaign showed that the new generation do not want to be managed. They want to be moved. They do not need someone who claims to represent them; instead, they want someone who speaks their language and understands their lives. The lesson is clear: authority without authenticity collapses.
The world has shifted, and Labour and community figures trapped in nostalgia will keep losing people if they refuse to shift with it. The difference is not just courage. It’s imagination.
The hard right understands this. Donald Trump has turned politics into episodic television, portraying himself the protagonist of a political reality show in which conflict is oxygen and attention is power. He and his acolytes, including the UK Reform Party’s Nigel Farage, are unapologetic, loud, emotionally legible, and unafraid to weaponize identity.
A New Hope?
When UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was asked what Labour could learn from Mamdani’s electoral appeal, her answer was she doesn’t follow American politics.
Translated: “I don’t follow anything that requires risk, or say anything which may upset Donald Trump or bring attention to Mamdani as we don’t experiment and I don’t want to offend the men and women in grey suits.” This is why many British politicians have the energy of Marks & Spencer pension advisors: careful, dependable, non-confrontational, designed not to inspire but to reassure.
The problem is that reassurance does not win the future. Conviction does.
Consider the leader of the UK Green Party, Zack Polanski. He is not Mamdani, and he is noot pretending to be Mamdani. However, he has understood what most British politicians cannot: politics is storytelling, not sentence construction.
There is a looseness to how he speaks. A lack of fear. He uses emotion, humor, clarity. He talks to the camera, not at it. He posts videos that feel unpolished in the right places human, not branded. He does not wait for permission. He does not ask if it will play well with internal committees.
As others conduct workshops on how to appear authentic, Polanski simply is. He teases a possibility: This could be different. He has not yet proved it at scale, but he is inching towards a political future that is not allergic to risk.
People are exhausted by leaders who apologize for existing. They do not want administrators of the status quo. They do not follow PowerPoints, they follow purpose.
At some point, British politics needs to decide whether it wants to manage decline or inspire people. Progressives can continue to chase safety, caution, and respectability, hoping the far right tires itself out. Or they can learn from Mamdani: conviction, unapologetic selfhood, and fearless communication of purpose are not political liabilities — they are the future.
Because when everything feels bleak and hopeless, people don’t need leaders who say, “Be realistic.”
