Watch This Powerful Mamdani Speech

It's fair to say Zora Mandamani is the most impressive left-wing politician in the angophone world right now. Elsewhere, Claudia Shinbound and Pedro Sanchez are deeply impressive, as is Luda Silva and Brazil. But across North America, the UK, Ireland, and the antipities, we have to be honest, the mayor for New York City is presently in a class of his own. That was true when he campaigned, overwhelming Andrew Cuomo in a shock defeat to win the Democratic nomination last year. But it's also been true in power. After all, Mani presently has a 58% approval rating among New York City residents, which is significantly higher than when he won. It's quite the achievement given the zeitgeist of anti-incumbent populism. Uh that reflects a widespread recognition for his achievements to date, improvements to infrastructure, most notably basic repairs, among them, uh memorably the city fixing over a 100,000 potholes in Mamani's first 100 days. Uh then there were expansions to New York's free child care and transport offer and a pilot with that publicly owned grocery store. But yesterday, Mandani did something a little different. Speaking at the Urban 20 summit in Los Angeles, a global conference featuring mayors from major cities in the G20, the world's 20 largest economies. Mandani, who remember won his party's nomination as a member of the Democratic Socialist of America, said this >> in New York City. There are certain words that have taken on ideological associations. One of them or certain phrases. One of them is quality of life. Over the last few decades, quality of life has come to be seen as somehow a right-wing concern. Uh efficiency, especially in the age of Doge, efficiency has been taken on as a right-wing concern. Rooting out fraud and waste a right-wing concern. And there has been a sense that if you are to admit to an interest in those then you are assisting the rightwing when in fact what I think the truth is is that if you ignore these things that is what the assistance is. These are in and of themselves incredibly important things that we have to deliver on and not allow there to be some kind of an ideological monopoly on who cares and who can deliver on them. And frankly to me, quality of life, which is used to describe potholes, speed bumps, a tree on your block, if politics cannot deliver on the block where you live, why would you trust it to deliver anywhere in your city? And so, frankly, the smallest concerns are often times the most important concerns because that is where you can build the early blocks of trust and faith with a constituent that this government could somehow be bit different than those which have preceded them. And to us, it is it is part of why we are so passionate about paving potholes in our city. Uh because if you are making a New Yorker's life a little smoother, so too you are making their journey to believe in government's ability to deliver for them. And so just as we are delivering on universal child care, just as we are delivering, you know, 2,000 seats of free child care for for families who have 2-year-olds across the city, we have to pave 200,000 potholes. We have to pave 757 lane miles. The distance from New York City to Nashville is what we have to pave in roads at the same time. And all of this creating a greater faith, a greater trust, a greater relevance. uh because often times if you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say that's who did it and it's not enough for us to tell people that's wrong we have to actually explain what's right and how to do it together >> Ash before I come to you and that was extraordinary by the I want to repeat this line because it's really important. He said it towards the start. The smallest concerns are often the most important concerns because that's where you can build the early blocks of trust and faith with the constituent. That's why we're so passionate about paving potholes. This is so so important because often if you talk about fly tipping or litter or antsocial behavior, some people, not entirely irrationally, will say, "Why do you care so much about something which is relatively trivial? We need to focus on bigger things like the climate crisis and socializing elderly care. I agree. But here's the thing. If the state can't keep streets clean, how the hell is it going to rapidly decarbonize our energy systems? >> Ash, >> so I love to see my influence. You know why? Because I texted you that clip earlier this morning >> first thing >> and lo and behold is on Navara live. I love to see it. Um, so I just don't think that there's anyone doing it like Zoran Mani. And I think that what he's able to do is carve out a space which has real integrity but never loses contact with the people whose support he really needs. So he's not embarrassed about holding progressive social views. He's not shy about it. He doesn't hide away from it. But he's not easily distracted. He doesn't get pulled into culture wars issues. and he refuses to allow himself to be disciplined by leftists who are highly online but fundamentally not representative of the kinds of people whose votes that he needs. He's relentlessly focused on the material conditions of workingclass people. And I think that that's his strength. It's both of these things together. It's not being shy about the values that you hold but not being easily distracted. when it comes to the sort of substantive point about things being right-coded. So quality of life I don't think is rightcoded here in a UK context but it has become right coded in the United States because it's sort of seen as a shorthand for uh visible homelessness, visible substance misuse, the state of the streets, feelings of safety, etc., etc. And one of the things that really influenced some of my thinking around this is um a really good friend of mine is a local counselor, local green counselor and in the area uh that he represents. The estates have not only a lot of drug problems, but the impact of those drug problems are being felt by people who also live on the estate. So, you know, he's heard from residents who are, you know, 6 months pregnant, seven months pregnant, and having to step over someone who's passed out in their doorway, right? problems of I'm not just talking about litter and dog mess, you know, human feces, urine, that kind of thing. So, the first thing is that there is a sort of left-wing culture which would say, well, any way in which you try and broach this conversation is going to be punching down on vulnerable people, right? People who have been um, you know, abandoned by the state to, you know, their addictions. The thing is is that one, it's impacting other working-class people, people who are also vulnerable in their own ways, but also two, if you take that line, it means that the only solution to these issues is going to be right-wing ones. Whereas, if you say, actually, all right, we want to improve your quality of life. We want to deal with the fact that it's not nice to live in a state where, you know, you don't feel safe, right? Drug addicts aren't always the most predictable of people. Makes you feel uncomfortable. makes you feel tense, you're having to step over somebody who's passed out while you're pregnant. >> But we're not going to deal with that through saying, "Let's just arrest him. Let's just lock him up. Let's just shift them somewhere else." The solution is going to be what kind of care are we going to provide. So if you avoid issues because you go, "Well, this is rightcoded." You then say, "Well, the only solutions to them are going to be inhumane. They're going to be carceral. They're going to be oppressive. They're going to be right-wing." I don't think that's the same as triangulating necessarily on issues like undocumented migration, right? I don't think it's the same as saying, "Okay, well, that means that we have to start talking about illegal immigrants every 5 minutes because we don't want to see that conversation to the right." Though, I do know that that's what Blue Labor thinks. I think that it's sort of saying that rather than thinking of things like family, safety, um you know, quality of life in the American context, uh inefficiency, waste, rather than rather than thinking of these as being right-wing things, we have to go actually what's the left answer to that? And it has to be credible. It has to be a credible answer. >> Yeah. uh this idea of efficiency. People might think I'm a bit crazy going from the US Democratic Party to Mao, but you know, in in the Little Red Book, he says we need vigilance and we need um what's the word I'm looking for when you're prudent with your money. >> Uh fiscal discipline. >> Uh it's a great word. It doesn't matter. We need to be clever with our money. Basically, Mau talks about this is a particular word that they use. And look, actually postwar socialists and social democrats in Europe were the same. you know, if you're going to build up the the the country and you're going to put working people first, you got to be really really smart with how you allocate resources. And in recent decades, that's been lost as a framing by the left. I think personally because of the of the liberal professional managerial class. I mean, I would say that, but I think it's also somewhat true. Uh, you want efficiency. It's a good thing, right? And I think if you give that over to the right, I think that's very, very damaging. There is efficiency in the public sector. Here's the thing, though. You can probably find five billion, okay? You can't find 55 billion. And so when reforms say we're going to do all this and this and that, and we're going to do it by by finding the waste, that's crap. You know, could you do one or two really good things? Could you extend, you know, paid maternity leave and uh you know, in terms of state backing for it, could you have a few more national bank holidays? Could you uh increase a little bit of money to local authorities from central government and the central government grant? Could you do that? Let's say you're going to spend nationally six, seven billion and find ways probably. Yeah. Yeah. But that's not what reform is saying. I don't think, like you said, that's not triangulation. That's just a sensible empirical politics which is grounded in putting working people first. >> Can I give you just a tiny example of inefficiency? So, um, a play area in my local park is being done up, and that is going to cost £700,000. >> Wow. >> Right. >> Wow. >> A huge amount of money. Not necessarily because you're getting the bells and the whistles, you know, the most topsp spec play area that you can have for kids. It's because play equipment is exported from basically one country in Denmark and that's become hugely more expensive, hugely more inefficient since Brexit. So you've got this massive inefficiency which is we sort of killed off our own industrial base in this country. We became dependent on suppliers from overseas. Then we decided to make it more difficult and expensive to import goods from our closest neighbors. And then we get surprised when things are really expensive because we wanted two things that directly contradict one another. We wanted to nuke our own industrial base and we also wanted to nuke a free trade agreement with our closest neighbors. And then we're surprised when things are slower and more expensive. >> Yeah. I'll say this in the local authority where I live, which is Portsmouth, it's a unit authority. Do you know how much it costs to have a raised zebra crossing? So, not traffic lights, a raised zebra crossing. So, it's kind of like speed bumps meet zebra crossing. >> I don't know you. How much does it cost to get the policeman to lie down? >> Stupid joke. >> This is a shark, ladies and gentlemen. >> Sorry. I'm so sorry. >> No, no. In a good way. One of the funniest people I know. Um, on a ser true on a serious level, how much you think it costs? >> It's outsourced obviously. Colass French company. >> Let's say quarter of a million. Well, that's you. You've undermined as Johnny Warren used to say on big on the big breakfast, you've undermined the stat. Uh £120,000. >> Jesus Christ, that is >> £120,000 for slightly raising the road and painting some sort of, you know, some lines on it and having two lights there. £120,000. And if the leftwing position is no, frugality, some people are saying in the comments, it's frugal. Yes, Ma said frugality and vigilance is what we'll build national restoration on. Um if frugality means saying, hey, you know what? That's That's a little bit too much. Why don't we bring it in house and pay a little bit less? Uh, sign me up. That's not a right-wing talking point.