467. The Mamdani Method Explained: Could It Shock Britain?

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3:00Welcome to The Rest of Politics. I'm Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. So Rory, we're going to talk about Zoran Mandani. The whole world, it seems to me, has been talking about Zoran Mandani. We haven't talked about it much. We're going to cover the aftermath of the Czech Republic elections, because they're very, very interesting to what's happening over in that part of Europe, alongside Slovakia and Hungary. And we're going to talk about, I don't think we can say our friend, but now that he's Donald Trump's friend, we're going to talk about al-Sharrah, the president of Syria, meeting Trump in the White House.

3:36But very briefly, we should tell listeners in case, and viewers, if they missed it, we did a live yesterday on the BBC turmoil. The only really big development since we did it is the fact that, hey, presto, what a surprise, Donald Trump has decided he's going to sue the BBC for$1 billion. What do you make of that? It is pretty amazing. And it's pretty shocking, obviously, Trump normalises everything so that we just get accustomed to it. But there's never been an American president trying to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. It's kind of unimaginable. It is true, of course, it's not unheard of for politicians to sue news organizations in the UK.

4:16Famously, we had conservative politicians saying they were taking on what was the sword of justice and the shield of truth as Jonathan Akin went out to try to unsuccessfully sue a newspaper. But this feels a really horrible combination of trying to intimidate what, as we pointed out in our live show, and people understood, I thought it was quite an interesting 45 minutes. We've done a deep dive in the BBC, so do look at that in the feed, but is the most trusted media organisation in the US, as you pointed out, after the Weather Channel and worldwide the most trusted organisation, so important in the modern world.

4:51And there he is trying to go after it for a billion dollars, which is part of a pattern of his extortion of money from media organisations all the way across the United States. And really interesting that he is now so determined to make sure he's not just intimidating the American media, but he's intimidating media worldwide. As you say, people can listen to that. And I think we had a fair bit to say. And is there anything you wish you'd said, looking back on it, anything that you felt we were unfair on or didn't quite get right on the BBC? I feel like I've got Dan, one of my fellow swimmers at the Lido this morning, said, you were way too soft on the BBC.

5:28And it started this big debate going on inside the change room. And it was really interesting, actually, because you had people there who were absolutely adamant the BBC is pro-Israel. And then you had another group of people absolutely adamant the BBC is anti-Israel and its left wing and its right wing. And, you know, it was a sort of interesting microcosm of the point you made yesterday. It's just a kind of political football. I thought that one of the best things I heard yesterday was Chris Patton, who we interviewed on Leading a while back, former chairman of the BBC Trust, former Tory cabinet minister.

6:00and he was he just made the point you know let's just cut to the chase who do you believe more the bbc or donald trump what sort of media do you want the bbc or fox news now some people do want fox news the only thing maybe i would have said but i was trying not to be too harsh to too many people i think they do have a very weak chairman i think this guy samir shah is very weak partly he should have been out there much more rapidly should have been up there much more clearly and And I still think we haven't quite got it and the BBC hasn't got it, but really the new DG needs to define what it means to be objective and impartial and why that doesn't mean that you have to have a sort of 50-50 balance of every view.

6:43What in a kind of post-truth social media age it means to try to tell the truth, what fact-checking means, what impartiality means, and put that right at the core of news. I mean, I'd almost use this panorama incident as the pivot. Say, I'm profoundly ashamed of it. We should never have spliced it like that. That's not the kind of organization we are. This is the kind of organization we're going to be in. Just make them the absolute global gold standard on showing how you do news. It's going to be hard, though, because I've been getting calls this morning from media in Australia, in Canada, in Europe.

7:20This is a big story around the world because the BBC has a global reputation. And the journalist I was talking to in Australia was saying the Murdoch paper is absolutely gunning for the BBC there as well now, and also any other kind of independent media. so i think and i also think the point i made yesterday maybe i would have made it a bit stronger i think the labor government has got to be on the side of bbc values and bbc centrality to national life otherwise they're making a big mistake be interesting to see whether they couldn't actually put a bit more investment back into the bbc world service yeah reconfirm that actually part of the point of the license fee yes it's great the entertainment stuff they do it's fantastic how successful they are with Strictly and Match of the Day, but that actually it's very sad what happened to Hard Talk, what happened to Newsnight, that people are not standing up for the news.

8:07Now, let's get to the news then, rather than us talking around the news. Zoran Mamdani, who managed to get over a million votes, 50.4 % of the vote, nearest runner Andrew Cuomo, who people thought a few months ago was the obvious candidate in the shoe-in, the former governor of New York, only got 41.6 % of the vote. First Muslim mayor of New York City, first person of South Asian descent to lead the city, first mayor born in Africa, he's born in Uganda, youngest mayor in over a century, he's only 34, and he's going to take over on the 1st of January 2026. Over to you. Okay, New York is a very important city in the world.

8:44But so is London, so is Berlin, so is Istanbul. There's something about America that attracts more attention. There's something about Trump's America that attracts even more. But I think the reason people have got so excited about this guy on both sides, you know, progressive left thinking, you know, alas, somebody who gives us hope, the right saying this guy's a really dangerous lunatic communist, that's a sort of Trump script. But I think there are a few points I'd make. The first is never underestimate charisma. The guy has got a smile to die for. He really does. But I tell you what, I read this piece by a guy called Waleed Shahid, who is an organizer for the Democrats.

9:30And Mamdani had over 100 ,000 volunteers. 100 ,000. That's real motivation. But let me just read you this that this guy wrote. And if there are any Labour politicians listening, just listen to this. Where others narrate decline, Mamdani sees a place worth fixing. That is what Democrats too often miss. Politics built around fear or opposition cannot inspire, it can only react and manage. What's needed is a politics that treats people not as victims of crisis, but as co-authors of what can be repaired and rebuilt. Well, just very quickly on that, I mean, I think this is the theme we keep coming back to, which is maybe the big theme of the age is the sense that we're victims, that we're powerless, that things are done to us.

10:20And it's not an accident that that awful Brexit slogan was take back control. The whole fight of the last 10 years has been about what you could purposely call agency. You know, how do we show agency? How do we show we're not ignored? That's one of the reasons why I got obsessed in my latest book about the idea of local democracy. How do you actually get people involved, citizens' assemblies, local democracies, steering their own things, but give people a sense as citizens that they're not having things done to them, but they're doing them. Sorry, back to you. Yeah. Well, I'll just read the end of this thing.

10:55It says, for Mamdani, conflict isn't a distraction from governing. It's the entry point for persuasion. The goal is not to perform anger, but to focus it, to remind people that politics can still change the price of the things that govern their days. And so I think if you look at the way that he campaigned. And okay, it's easy to say he's good looking, he's young and all that stuff, but he had a lot of stuff thrown at him. I mean, when you've got the president of America coming at you day after day, this guy's a lunatic, this guy's a communist. And the other thing, we talk a lot about communication.

11:29His communication skills are truly off the scale. He always pivots to a central point that he wants to make, whether it's affordability, whether it's I'm on the side of the people, whatever the point is, whatever comes at him. So I was watching this interview he did on Fox News, enemy territory. And the questioner was coming at him in a very sort of sneery way. You know, you're a bit young, you haven't done much with your life. You know, Donald Trump says this. The minute he mentioned Trump, the minute the interviewer mentioned Trump, Mamdani just, he'd obviously planned it. He turned to the camera, he looked directly at the camera.

12:00You mentioned Donald Trump. I guess he's watching because he watches Fox News. And I'm going to talk directly to him now. And he just went straight He said, Mr. Trump, the President Trump, I'm not like Eric Adams. You're not going to be able to sort of, you know, discuss how corrupt I am because I'm not corrupt. I'm not Cuomo. I'm not going to phone you and say, can you help with this? Can you help with that? I'm going to represent the people in New York. OK. And then he pivoted back. He said, sorry, what were you saying? And so he's very, very skilled at that. I watched a video he did this morning on the way, just walking down the street and somebody stopped him.

12:35and they just had a chat and he's just got this charm or what have you. Now, all that being said, Cuomo's dad, probably the most thing he's most known for, is this wonderful cliche. It's true. You know, we campaign in poetry and we govern in prose. So Mamdani has campaigned in poetry. The prose is going to be tough because the promises he's made, which Trump calls communist, which I think I would call social democratic, but they're going to be very difficult to bring about because of the power structures. Yeah, yeah. Well, so I think this prose stuff, I was talking to somebody from New York City politics who'd been right in the centre of these mayor offices yesterday.

13:16And he was reminding me that the budget of New York City under the control of the mayor is$90 billion. He's responsible for something like 40 ,000 policemen, hundreds of thousands of city employees, all the schools, obviously the transport system. I mean, it's very, very different to being mayor of London. Yeah, but just on that, he clearly wants to put taxes up on particularly wealthy people. He doesn't have the power to do tax increases without the approval of the state legislature. And there's an interesting thing going on there, of course, because there's another election coming down the track on that.

13:56So he's got to use the sort of soft power and his politics and what have you. And just on transport, free buses are a big part of his campaign. He can't do that alone either, because ultimately, the body in charge, the MTA, the Metropolitan Transport Authority, they control prices, and they've been a bit iffy about this. So again, he's going to have to build consensus, keep people behind him and try to make the changes that he wants. One thing there then is, is he going to be able to do a Macron, which is to be elected as an individual and then build a sort of party to take over the state legislature to get that through?

14:31Secondly, it's a position which certainly under Mike Bloomberg became a sort of definitional CEO position, not a sort of representative position. I felt very much when I was trying to run to be mayor of London and I'd go to New York, I was just astonished by the difference in scale and just how much direct power New Yorkers. With all that you've said, I agree, there's many things in the way, but New Yorkers expect the mayor to be the CEO of the city delivering. I remember campaigning in London, a big audience, and I said to people, how many people think transport isn't working, police isn't working, lots of hands go up.

15:11And then I'd say, how many people think that's Sadiq Khan's fault? Very few hands go up. Because basically, the view was, he doesn't really have much power over these things. That's not the view in New York. They really do see this as a position that should be running things. And there, I guess, the critique would be, this guy's whatever he is, 34 years old. He's somebody from this very distinguished kind of academic media family. His mother, you know, made Salaam Bombay, monsoon wedding. His father's this very famous post-colonial academic. And the Democrat business community in New York is very worried.

15:44And they're worried, of course, because they think, and I'd love you to sort of maybe we can transition to this, they think Mamdani is on his way to be the second most famous person in the world, because he is going to be the absolute center now of the fight with Trump. Trump wants the fight, Mamdani wants the fight. It's ideal for both of them. They've got these two sort of supervillains. And it's very possible that New York will be the frontline on this, the most dramatic thing you've ever seen. You'll have the NYPD up against the deployment of federal forces in New York. You'll have communists against fascists, right?

16:20And if you're a central, if you're a Democrat who's trying to build a progressive centrist message, you're really worried because you're really worried that it's like Corbyn has taken over the Labour Party and that it's going to be very difficult to rebuild the narrative of a sort of liberal, progressive, centrist Democrats if your champion is Mamdani? Well, the one thing that all of us should agree about Trump is that he's got pretty unique political instincts. And there is a sense that he sort of wanted Mamdani to win, although he was sort of saying, I'd rather have a, what was he said about Cuomo, I'd rather have a bad Democrat than a communist.

16:58And Mamdani is so far from being a communist, it's absurd, but of course, that's the politics that we're in. But I think there is something in that. And the question of how both of them play it, at the moment, I think Mamdani is playing it better, but that's maybe because he's the new kid on the block. I don't know that it will get to that because Trump has got so many other fires that he's setting off and so many fights that he's fighting. But it's an interesting thought. Just on your point, by the way, about the power. so he can mamdani as the mayor he can appoint and remove the commissioners of 40 more than 40 city agencies the police being the most obvious but also the department of finance cultural affairs small business services he appoints judges to criminal court family court and sometimes the civil court he oversees more than 200 boards he's automatically a member of organizations as very of the board of the American Museum of Natural History, the 9-11 Memorial Organization, NY Public Library, et cetera.

18:00So yeah, I think it's more powerful. It's bigger than the mayor of London. But I think that, I guess it's worth just speculating as to why he has excited so much. And I think that if there's one thing that I think it's about, at a time when, and this relates partly to what we're saying about the BBC, and it relates to the strategy that the Labour government has been pursuing here, is there is a sense that if you're going to sort of play the populist game, the grievances are all over there on the right. Okay. And what Mamdani has said, with a big smile, is actually a lot of the grievances are over here.

18:40And they're the people I'm going to care for. And so I think that's what's maybe excited progressive politics around the world so much about him. Stepping back though, if we look at the time we've been doing this show. We've been through the most unbelievable change in the world because Mamdani, who you and I are very sympathetic to and are tempted to celebrate, would have been an almost inconceivable figure in the past. I mean, the idea, just to start with, that Eric Adams couldn't win a second term is sort of inconceivable. I mean, somebody was joking to me yesterday that Bill de Blasio, basically, the story was that he'd basically wake up in the morning, smoke a joint, get in his car, go to the gym, do some gentle stretching, come back, snooze in the office, start a bit of work in the afternoon.

19:30He won a second term, right? It's impossible, basically, not to win a second term as an incumbent in New York. And yet, Eric Adams did it. And again, if you were to say to people, any expert in American politics four or five years ago that a completely unknown 34-year-old from the far left of the Democratic Party would be able to defeat Andrew Cuomo with all the money that Cuomo had behind him. So it's part of your bigger story of a world of politics, a world of social media, a world of TikTok, a world of Trump-infused politics, which is changing all the basic assumptions and therefore means that if we look at European politics or British politics and try to imagine what might happen at the next election, there's a good chance we're well off the mark.

20:18There's a good chance that we're not seeing our own versions of the Mamdani's emerging on the left as well as on the right. Well, I guess the most obvious person that you'd suggest it might be would be Zach Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party, who, you know, largely through social media, largely through communicating in a very similar way, is, yeah, he's getting traction. There's no doubt about that. And traction that would have been unimaginable before. I mean, we've never had a Green Party at this sort of level in the polls. We've never had a sort of five-party system emerging like this in Britain.

20:53I mean, things are changing very fast. And I'll tell you the other thing I think that sort of links the two of them. I mean, I saw Zach Polanski wrote a very interesting piece about how they're all attacking his teeth at the moment, whereas nobody's going to attack Mamdani's teeth. He's got perfect. He's got very good American teeth. But what they both do is they communicate very clear messages and they keep coming back to them. But they do it in a way that sort of feels more authentic than people who are standing up saying, this is my message and here it is, I'm delivering it to you. And, you know, and I think we're going to, I know we're going to talk in question time about 16, 17-year-olds and this report that Peter Hyman and his colleague have written about teenagers and what teenagers think.

21:39But the fact is that, you know, young people, we're giving the vote now to 16 and 17-year-olds. And the way that they consume media and politics is so far removed from the way that politics is being presented to them, other than by Farage on one side and Polanski on the other. The mainstream parties have got to catch up with that. So there's a little counter narrative in the US, maybe as my final point, which is people will also follow that at the same time, we've had governor elections in Virginia and in New Jersey. And in both cases, significant victories for the Democratic Party, not from Mandani figures, but from women with law enforcement CIA backgrounds who very much are running purple, very much kind of old fashioned centrists.

22:28In Virginia, they flipped a Republican governor to a Democrat. And in New Jersey, where Trump performed pretty well, it's a decisive Democratic victory. So that's something that is giving a bit of confidence back to that side of the Democratic Party. But it's also been shaken because we are recording just after the news has come that the Senate, the Democrats in the Senate have broken. Eight of them defected to the Republican side. Schumer lost control of his Senate caucus and And eight Democrats voted with the Republicans to basically stop the government shutdown. Government's been shut down for 44 days.

23:02Civil servants have been furloughed. Food programs were about to freeze. And eight senators who are either stepping down or are not up for re-election went over to the Republican side. And that's really troubling because Schumer was trying to hold the Democratic Party together. they had a very clear message, which is we're not going to vote for this unless Trump gives us a concession. And that concession has got to be on healthcare. He's got to show some flexibility in healthcare. He didn't give it. And it was from Trump's point of view, I'm afraid, the Democrats that blinked first. That's the way the New York Times is presenting its huge recriminations within the Democratic Party.

23:41So it's a strange week, a week where there are three different messages. Message of an ex-CIA governor, an ex-CIA officer taking Virginia back to the Democrats as a governor, a populist who's slightly scaring the business community and needs to do a lot of work to reassure them, winning in New York with Zora Mamdani, and then this splitting apart of the old governing senators in the Democratic Party. Yeah, but it just underlines that one, that america is this vast and very varied country it's hard to imagine mamdani fighting the same fight in some of the kind of you know the in virginia yeah exactly but i'll tell you the one thing about him this thing about inspiring and motivating at one point in the campaign back in march he had to put a freeze on donations because they'd already reached the legal limit for the time period there and so he was and these were largely in you know pretty small donations just just sense of people want to be part of part of something different and part of part of the change that it feels that he represents and your point about the the business community i'll just tell our listeners of you as you were there but you and i did an event for the mooch and his and one of his big speaking he organizes these big conferences for his crypto friends and you and i spoke and And let me set it up for you.

25:03So it was all going very well. Everyone was absolutely loving me and Alistair. And finally, I made my final comments and Alistair was going to finish the whole thing. And traditionally, we finish with a rousing thing that gets an absolute round of applause. And so there was a woman at the front who'd been sitting, eating out of our hands and loving and nodding. So at the end, I said, I'll tell you what gives me hope. And I hope this doesn't upset you. What gives me hope that a young guy, 34, with a beautiful smile can come along and he could shake up American politics. He can frighten Donald Trump and he can make rich people think, you know what, they should pay their taxes.

25:41and this woman suddenly went oh my god and and we left we left to almost thunderous applause thunderous applause desultory disappointed confused no no no they were fine though if the moot was happy he said that we got them fired up anyway i suspect you're right we'll be talking about trump a lot in the future that's for sure but i think we'll be talking about mumdani My thing that I'm going to be interested in is whether he tries to play some of the games that he's played in Portland and elsewhere on crime and security. Because NYPD, the New York Police Department, is unlike any other police department in the United States.

26:20It is basically its own paramilitary organization. I was talking to someone in NYPD yesterday and he was explaining that it's the only police force in the US which when the Secret Service turns up, they ask NYPD before they arrive. Generally, the Secret Service turns up the president. They just, if you're lucky, they tell you probably 10 minutes before he arrives, may not tell you at all. They just push you out of the way. NYPD, they coordinate unbelievably carefully. They're very, very deferential towards them. So it's going to be really interesting if Trump tries to pick a fight with NYPD. Right, let's take a break and then come back and talk about Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine and Al-Shara.

26:59That is about populism. That's about Syria. That's about a former al-Qaeda terrorist taking over. And there's a lot here that actually strangely connects to Mamdani.