Fighting talk from the new Mayor of New York City.
I found his “immigrants” speech quite inspiring. I think this represents a bit of hope and it seems significant.
I’m sure the eyes of the world are looking at us here on this forum for our reckons – so what do you think?
I’m sure there’ll be someone along soon to tell me I am a naive idiot but I found his speech – and his entire campaign, in fact – uplifting. If he brings the change he promises, many many New Yorkers will be better off for it.
And he’s severely pissed off Trump and his anti-immigration acolytes. That’s a nice cherry on top of the cake.
I predict New York will be bankrupt in two years.
The last time that happened, we got New York Dolls, Television, Blondie, Ramones and Talking Heads. So it might not be all bad.
⬆️
Arf!
But why do you think that? Do you think it will be because of policies that Trump calls ‘socialist’, or do you think that Trump will make it so, by playing with federal funding and projects, as he has already done? I’m not saying that those are the only two possible explanations, by the way. But I am interested in who you think would be to blame for that bankruptcy.
About time there was a successful response against MAGA idiocy. Whether it will be any good for NYC is another matter.
It’s certainly a reaction against Orangey
What form the response will take and
Its Effectiveness remains to be seen.
Here’s hoping it goes well for the Big Apple
Trump will send the troops in
I don’t think that’d work for Trump in NYC. They’re a lot more feisty than Californians. I’m not sure the NYPD would back him up.
They are very feisty in Chicago, that didn’t stop him
The fact that NY doesn’t particularly care for its orange-hued son and voted for ZM in record numbers might even encourage him
I’d like to see UK politicians talk in the way he does about immigration. Saying that not only are immigrants welcome but we need them if we want future economic growth and if we want to arrest the decline of the NHS. If you don’t want that, then be prepared for large increases in income tax. This is exactly the same position we have been in for hundreds of years.
Both sides of my family originate from a necessary move to England from Ireland in the mid 1800s. We have millions of British people who historically came from other places to support the economic growth the UK enjoyed, particularly following the Industrial Revolution.
If cricket remained a sport just played by the English on village greens, we would have missed out on so much. The sport’s general principles of working for the team, good conduct and courtesy survived the arrival of those from Asia, the Caribbean and Australasia. The world is now playing an English game with English rules and by and large nobody minds that at all.
“I’d like to see UK politicians talk in the way he does about immigration.”
The previous leader of the Labour Party did (and still does). The new leader of the Greens does too.
And neither of them will ever be anywhere near the levers of power. But if you’re a genius at convincing people that migration is at the root of all their problems, if you’re a racist, a poundland Trump and you don’t live in your parliamentary constituency, you’re a serious contender for the next PM of the UK. Go figure.
I really tried to get behind Corbyn, but he fluffed Brexit and countless other opportunities to stick the boot in to the Tories. He also seemed humourless. I am assured he has a great SOH but it didn’t seem to show itself.
The Greens essentially believe in ipen borders. Problem is they remain quiet about how you accommodate extra people when you are also essentially committed to zero or even negative growth.
In terms of immigration per se, the problem the UK has not resolved is that a substantial percentage of people coming into the country over past decade or so in particular don’t actually contribute very much. That’s not sustainable.
What do you base “people coming into the country don’t contribute” from? I thought the figures show that the taxes paid by immigrants in work outweighs the cost of dealing with asylum seekers. Most immigrants come to work, not to scrounge.
I think the fact that a lot of them are not being ALLOWED to work and make a contribution, pending long-drawn-out immigration cases, might be a factor here.
They can potentially work if their case has been outstanding for more than a year, albeit only in a job on the list of shortage occupations. Afghans who came to the UK under the resettlement scheme can work at any time. There arent any figures as to how many are actually working.
In truth, many people awaiting the outcome of their asylum
Lum case are from countries where employment rates ( outside of the black economy) appear to be pretty low.
(Replying to LoW)The figures, such as they are, show that there migrants that contribute substantially, both economically and otherwise. But they also demonstrate a couple of other things. Firstly, that many people, including a significant number of recent graduates from overseas stay in the UK,end up in entry level jobs, and are not net contributors. Hence the previous government’s move to increase the income threshold. Secondly, there is a huge variation in economic activity/ inactivity and contributions when comparing migrants from different countries.
This isn’t an argument against immigration. Migrants do bring social and economic benefits, but not all of them. Figures from Neil O Brien and others suggest that the split is crudely 50/50. I think its at least worth considering whether or not its worth being more selective. After all, the leap in immigration over the past decade or so has seemingly done nothing to improve per capita GDP.
NB in the interests of full disclosure I should perhaps say that I paid for an Indian friend to come to the UK as a health worker. She was later joined by husband and children. He immediately got a job as a care home chef. I am more sceptical about the value of bringing someone from elsewhere in the world to work as , say, a Just Eats rider, o to work as a healthcare assistant with an extended family of 4 or 5 that they patently can’t support themselves. So, no, they aren’t scrounging, but they are a significant net cost.
1.2 million legal migrants, 1.2 million legal visas to study etc, 200,000 illegal/asylum seekers in UK 2024. Figures as ever lead to differing interpretations but it seems clear that the majority of immigrants add to rather than subtract from the overall economy.
“The Greens essentially believe in open borders.”
As I understand it, they ideologically believe in a borderless world as something to aspire to and their ideology serves to emphasise respect for the rights and dignity of immigrants, but their current policy is far more pragmatic, supporting the implementation of “a fair and humane system of managed immigration”.
https://migration.greenparty.org.uk/migration-policy/
I am very impressed by the new leader of the Greens and not as impressed by Keir Starmer as I thought I might be when he was elected.
It’s a result that shows how out of touch the Democratic Party is, when they were trying their best not to endorse him throughout his campaign.
He seems to have the right mindset to counter the racist monstering he has received and will no doubt continue to. It will be interesting to to see just how far that will go in the next couple of years.
As a “left-social-democrat/ democratic socialist,” I wish him well…but there are so many ways he could screw up. Please proceed carefully.
The USA’s general racism has much less traction in New York than in a lot of other places over there, due to the city’s huge range of ethnicities and religious beliefs.
He needs to make sure that false claims of antisemitism don’t get to stick though, because that could actually become a factor in NYC.
It’s probably the feelgood story people need right now, and he seems like a nice bloke – certainly ran a good campaign.
I don’t personally think it has much relevance at a national level, no matter how many starry-eyed “this is the playbook” articles will be written off the back of it. It was a local poll in a Trump-hating area with 25% turnout – Mamdani has been elected on barely north of a million votes in a conurbation of 8 million people. Plus, it’s only a Mayoral election.
I don’t believe for a minute he’ll destroy New York or anything like that. As a wild social experiment we had two of the biggest wallopers in the country, at opposite ends of the political spectrum, as successive Mayors of London for the best part of two decades and it didn’t seem to make a great deal of difference to the place.
The good news nationally continues to be the polling numbers.
https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker/?app=core&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23206130566&gbraid=0AAAAA_bYYsQYbeYaBy4ek1_tk0Ovp7jJM
A hell of a lot can change in three years, but it appears likely that the Democrats best hope in 2028 will be to fight on the economy/cost of living. The area they more or less ignored last time round.
They’ll need to find a candidate who wasn’t within a country mile of the Biden administration, ideally one who is capable of doing a couple of star jumps and who they can actually trust to put in front of a microphone under pressure. And they’ll need to do the thing that seems to challenge them most of all – to see the electorate as they actually are, rather than as they wish them to be.
Trying to do some good and failing sometimes is so much better than trying to do greedy, self aggrandising things and failing sometimes isn’t it.
I suspect he is up for the fight with Trump.
Seems to be relishing it.
Has the ability to run rings around Trump, if the momentum lasts.