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Mamdani is a young, rising star with no record to defend. By 2028, Sadiq Khan will have been Mayor of London for 12 years and spent a decade in Parliament before that. With his record at City Hall, Khan will need to offer more than the vague promise of ‘hope’, says James Ford

Last week popular culture taught us several important lessons: never cheat on Lily Allen, never trust Alan Carr, and never hire Kim Kardashian as an actress. The week in politics, on the other hand, proved rather more inscrutable. Sure, you can’t trust Labour to keep their promises. You shouldn’t expect David Lammy to be competent or remember to wear a poppy. And, of course Elon Musk is building a robot army. But, one might argue, these are things we probably knew (or should have suspected) already. The truly inscrutable political lesson, however, was how to interpret the election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York.

Mamdani’s win has prompted a ripple of breathless excitement on the political left on both sides of the........

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