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As a Brit who has been exposed to the blanket coverage of this on social media: Mamdani is going to be like Sadiq Khan. Popular with people in the city, while t

by pjc50 1y ago

As a Brit who has been exposed to the blanket coverage of this on social media: Mamdani is going to be like Sadiq Khan. Popular with people in the city, while those outside run endless weird fantasy "news" scare stories because he's a Muslim.

CommanderData 1y ago
GBnews has been unrelenting and it's frankly worked to turn non-Londoners against London and Khan. It's disgusting they're allowed to vilify him so much without any accountability.
- jpfromlondon 1y ago
  as a proud Londoner I'd like to see him held accountable for his own lies and questionable behaviour.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    .. such as? Compared to previous mayor Boris Johnson?
    - tim333 1y ago
      Yeah likewise interested as a Londoner. The thing that annoys me the most is that by scapegoating Khan they avoid fixing the problems that are the responsibility of others. Like knife crime - the tories cut 1/3 of the police force, crime went up in London but also in the rest of the country but the papers are all lets slag Kahn for it which is jolly fun I guess but doesn't stop the stabbings and phone snatchings in a way that the central government which controls the laws and budgets could do.
tim333 1y ago
I'm a Londoner who voted for Khan. There's a difference in that contrary to all the scapegoat stuff in the right wing press, Khan has had largely sensible middle of of the road policies. And where he has deviated from the average, on air pollution, it's been stuff I'm in favour of - I have desire to get sick/die from that. Mamdani seems like a nice guy but some of his policies seem a bit bonkers - state owned retail outlets and the like.
- rkuykendall-com 1y ago
  Isn't it proposing running like five grocery stores to test? That's not bonkers or radical. Or even expensive. It seems like the type of experiment HN would love.
  - tim333 1y ago
    Ah maybe.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins. These are extremely optimized, large scale businesses. No city government is going to do it for cheaper. Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%. Which means the problem in food deserts is the customers are too poor. Which means the solution is giving poor people money. But that is not a winning political position, so we have all these nonsense proposals.
    - acdha 1y ago
      > Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%. For people who live near one of those stores and can afford to shop competitively. In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere. I live in DC, and we have a Safeway near us which often charged 2-3 TIMES what Costco charged. Once a second market opened in our neighborhood, just like magic the prices at Safeway came down. The corner market was basically never competitive on prices because it’s tiny and carries the small sized products which always work out to a higher cost.
      - rsynnott 1y ago
        > In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere. I'm kind of curious what is different about the US environment that makes this the case. Most large European cities have supermarkets (national chains) all over the place. To the point that it gets a bit silly; I've got about five Tescos in easy walking distance, which have the same prices as other Tescos (one is a Tesco Metro, which is slightly more expensive).

by pjc50 1y ago

CommanderData 1y ago

GBnews has been unrelenting and it's frankly worked to turn non-Londoners against London and Khan. It's disgusting they're allowed to vilify him so much without any accountability.

jpfromlondon 1y ago
as a proud Londoner I'd like to see him held accountable for his own lies and questionable behaviour.
- pjc50 1y ago
  .. such as? Compared to previous mayor Boris Johnson?
  - tim333 1y ago
    Yeah likewise interested as a Londoner. The thing that annoys me the most is that by scapegoating Khan they avoid fixing the problems that are the responsibility of others. Like knife crime - the tories cut 1/3 of the police force, crime went up in London but also in the rest of the country but the papers are all lets slag Kahn for it which is jolly fun I guess but doesn't stop the stabbings and phone snatchings in a way that the central government which controls the laws and budgets could do.

tim333 1y ago

I'm a Londoner who voted for Khan. There's a difference in that contrary to all the scapegoat stuff in the right wing press, Khan has had largely sensible middle of of the road policies. And where he has deviated from the average, on air pollution, it's been stuff I'm in favour of - I have desire to get sick/die from that. Mamdani seems like a nice guy but some of his policies seem a bit bonkers - state owned retail outlets and the like.

rkuykendall-com 1y ago
Isn't it proposing running like five grocery stores to test? That's not bonkers or radical. Or even expensive. It seems like the type of experiment HN would love.
- tim333 1y ago
  Ah maybe.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins. These are extremely optimized, large scale businesses. No city government is going to do it for cheaper. Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%. Which means the problem in food deserts is the customers are too poor. Which means the solution is giving poor people money. But that is not a winning political position, so we have all these nonsense proposals.
  - acdha 1y ago
    > Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%. For people who live near one of those stores and can afford to shop competitively. In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere. I live in DC, and we have a Safeway near us which often charged 2-3 TIMES what Costco charged. Once a second market opened in our neighborhood, just like magic the prices at Safeway came down. The corner market was basically never competitive on prices because it’s tiny and carries the small sized products which always work out to a higher cost.
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      > In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere. I'm kind of curious what is different about the US environment that makes this the case. Most large European cities have supermarkets (national chains) all over the place. To the point that it gets a bit silly; I've got about five Tescos in easy walking distance, which have the same prices as other Tescos (one is a Tesco Metro, which is slightly more expensive).