'So De Blasio, having won the Democratic primary, swept to victory with every demographic of voters. It turned out that New Yorkers – black, white, Hispanic middle, class or poor – were ready to hear a message about the unacceptable inequality in the city and the need for the rich to pay their share. And he won by a landslide.
'Rightwing Democrats and the Republicans are already prophesying Armageddon. The platform De Blasio ran on was contrary to every piece of accepted political wisdom of both the Democratic political elite in America and its Labour equivalent on this side of the Atlantic. But the right wing of the Labour party has prided itself on learning from the Democrats, since the earliest days of Tony Blair and New Labour. Will they be so keen to learn from Bill de Blasio?'
Diane Abbot, Labour Party member
of Parliament for Hackney North and
Stoke Newington, East London, UK
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