If you don’t know the name Bill de Blasio yet, you soon will. With a remarkable 39-point lead (65-24) over his Republican rival Joe Lhota, he is set to be elected today as the first Democrat mayor of New York for more than 20 years on the most left-wing platform of any recent candidate.
From a British perspective, the similarities with Ed Miliband are striking. De Blasio has campaigned on the slogan “One New York, Rising Together” (an echo of Miliband’s “One Nation”), speaking of “a tale of two cities” (Miliband warns of “two nations”) as the rich pull away from the rest:
In so many ways, New York has become a Tale of Two Cities.
Nearly 400,000 millionaires call New York home, while nearly half of our neighbors live at or near the poverty line. Our middle class isn’t just shrinking; it’s in danger of vanishing altogether.
Addressing the crisis of income inequality isn’t a small task. But if we are to thrive as a city, it must be at the very center of our vision for the next four years.
In response, he has pledged to pass a new living wage law, to increases taxes on the top 1% of New Yorkers (those earning over $500,000) to fund universal childcare and after-school programmes, to build or preserve 200,000 affordable homes, and to charge rent to charter schools (the inspiration for Gove’s “free schools”) located within traditional state schools. Again, there is much common ground with Miliband. The Labour leader has promised to expand use of the living wage through “Make Work Pay” contracts, to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020, and to halt the expansion of free schools. He is also likely to pledge to reintroduce the 50p tax rate on the 1.5% earning more than £150,000.
De Blasio said: “During my time in public office, I’ve taken on unscrupulous landlords; protected children who were victims of neglect and abuse; battled the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics; fought to repair broken policing policies; and championed working family issues like paid sick leave and living wage laws.
“As mayor, I will spend every waking moment fighting to bring opportunity to every New Yorker — with a plan to create jobs in all five boroughs; a dramatic expansion of affordable housing and accessible health care; increas-ing taxes on the wealthy to fund early childhood and after-school programs; and building police-community relations that keep everyone safer.
“That’s not simply a plan for tackling the inequality crisis. It’s my solemn commitment to every resident of the city we all love so much.”
Like Miliband, de Blasio has come under constant attack from the Murdoch press (see yesterday’s New York Post cover), which rejoices in highlighting his family’s left-wing background (sound familiar?), and has frequently been dubbed “too liberal” to win. But as his success shows, in this era of collapsing living standards, the old conservative assumptions no longer hold.
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