America's new socialist mayor could show Keir Starmer how to beat Reform

Confused? Welcome to regime change.

Everyone, everywhere, seemingly all at once, wants out of the status quo. This kind of thing happens once every generation or two. It is happening now. The general reluctance for radical change has been replaced by forms of resentment that are widespread in society.

Mamdani won broad support because of his attentiveness to this. Instead of trying to diffuse the anger that fills the public mood (a natural progressive instinct), he set it against New York’s infamous landlords.

Much attention will be paid to his charisma and communications, which are impressive, but it is his policy programme that is fizzing with ideas and gives him distinction.

He promises to lower the cost of everyday expenses such as food, housing and transport by more creatively wielding the powers of the municipal state. The first half of that sentence is unsurprising; the second half is innovative.

Once-taboo policy tools such as price controls and public ownership (including new state-owned grocery stores) are at the heart of his offer to New Yorkers, because markets alone have made the city “too expensive”.

Whether they can be implemented or achieve the desired goals is a question for later: the political fact is that they are bold, imaginative, and a decisive break from the status quo. So, they are popular.

The danger for centre-left parties everywhere is to be seen as defending a failing status quo. Mamdani articulated a clear alternative to it and won the race against a better-endowed establishment legend. His programme points to one way parties like the US Democrats and UK Labour can show what they stand for in the future, not just the recent past, as they reinvent themselves in the contest against the populist radical right.

The current upheaval will eventually give way to a new set of ideas about how the economy works and the correct nature of the relationship between states and markets. That much is clear. Less clear is who will define it.

Mamdani and Trump share a willingness to deploy the interventionist power of the state and an appetite for audacious policy ideas, be they tariffs or price controls. Where they differ is who they are for and who they are against.

Capitalism is being reset, but in favour of whom? That is the contest to come.

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Dr Parth Patel is the associate director for democracy & politics at IPPR.

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