Could Zohran Mamdani's NYC ideas work in London?

Plus: Met officers sacked over Child Q search, pedicabs move closer to crackdown, and a JustEat driver saving stranded Thameslink passengers

Jun 28, 2025

Morning — New York and London have a lot in common: sky-high rents, unaffordable childcare, and a cost-of-living crisis that won’t quit. But one of them might be about to try something different.

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, won the Democratic nomination for New York mayor this week with a bold plan he claims will make the city cheaper to live in — from rent freezes to city-run supermarkets to free buses.

Sir Sadiq Khan has on occasion nodded to some of the same ideas — rent controls, universal schemes — but often in limited form. So how far could London go if it tried to follow Mamdani’s lead? We’ve taken a look after your round-up below.

Plus: Met officers sacked over Child Q search, pedicabs move closer to crackdown, and a JustEat driver saving stranded Thameslink passengers.

What we’ve spied

👮‍♂️ The Met Police has sacked two officers who were involved in the strip search of a Black teenager known as Child Q at a Hackney school in 2020. Trainee DC Kristina Linge and PC Rafal Szmydynski were dismissed by the force this week after a disciplinary panel found they had committed gross misconduct when they strip-searched Child Q, wrongfully suspecting the 15-year-old girl was carrying drugs. The panel found the search was "disproportionate, inappropriate and unnecessary" and made Child Q feel humiliated and degraded. A third officer, PC Victoria Wray, was found by the panel to have committed misconduct and was served a final written warning.

The strip search of Child Q led to protests in Hackney, with hundreds gathering outside the local town hall in March 2022 with placards saying "no to racist police" and "hands off our children". The case was cited by Baroness Casey in her 2023 review into the Met, which found the force was institutionally racist. Casey wrote: "The prevalence of widespread racial disproportionality in intimate searches lends weight to the claim that ‘adultification’, where Black children are treated as adults and as a threat ... is present in the Met". However, according to the Met's statement on the dismissals this week, the disciplinary panel "did not find that the officers were influenced by Child Q’s race, nor that [she was] subject to adultification". But Met commander Kevin Southworth apologised for "the damage this incident caused to the trust and confidence Black communities across London have in our officers."

Worth reading: this piece by BBC London's Sonja Jessup, who's spoken to other teenagers in London about how the case has left them feeling unsafe.

Elsewhere in London policing: the Met has made a big show of stepping up patrols outside Dua Lipa’s Wembley concerts, in the same week an ITV News poll found 57% of women do not feel safe on the streets of London.

🚳 TfL is pushing ahead with its plans to regulate central London's pedicabs following a consultation that found overwhelming support for the crackdown. Over 95% of respondents said they agreed with TfL's plans to require pedicab drivers to pass UK criminal background checks and to introduce new controls on them playing music. 85% said they felt pedicab fares are too expensive — TfL is proposing to regulate fares with a new pricing structure, in the wake of reports of tourists getting massively ripped off. TfL is now developing more detailed proposals, which will go to further consultation later this year. In the meantime, here's our deep dive from last year on life as a London pedicab driver.

Elsewhere in London transport: TfL has announced plans to give the Pontoon Dock DLR station a major, “futuristic” upgrade; Bolt has announced it’s entering London’s e-bike market; and glass-floor cabins are coming to the London cable car.

🔴 Sir Sadiq Khan was among those who called on the government to rethink its changes to welfare cuts, before the U-turn on Friday. The mayor went public with his opposition on Tuesday, as more than 100 MPs threatened to vote against a bill in the Commons next week. Khan told the Guardian: “I have always said that more must be done to support people to go from relying on benefits to getting back into work. It’s vital for a healthy and prosperous London. What we can’t do is take away the vital safety net that so many vulnerable and disabled Londoners rely upon.” He also shared an analysis for the Greater London Authority that found Londoners would lose £820m in total as a result of the proposed changes to Personal Independence Payments and Universal Credit, with 360,000 mostly poor, vulnerable and disabled people facing a reduction in their incomes. Within the Commons, one prominent rebel was Dame Meg Hillier, MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch — she welcomed the government’s changes to the bill on Friday.

🏘️ A 'new town' of 25,000 homes is in the works in west London. Called Old Oak, the mega development will lie across three London boroughs — Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham — and is due to be built within 30 years. The 70-acre site is currently brownfield and is near Old Oak Common Station, which will be connected to HS2. Plans for the development were outlined by Ealing council this week in collaboration with the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, which has been set up by the mayor of London.

🔍 And finally, we leave you with:

Rent freezes, free buses, public supermarkets: Could a New York socialist’s ideas work in London?

Zohran Mamdani speaking on stage at his "A City We Can Afford" rally — Zohran Mamdani, NYC mayoral candidate, at a campaign rally

“New York is too expensive. Zohran will lower costs and make life easier.” So runs one of the campaign taglines of Zohran Mamdani, who this week caused a major upset in the race to be New York's next mayor. A self-described democratic socialist, 33-year-old Mamdani beat former New York governor Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination, despite only polling in the single digits a couple of months ago. He'll now face off against incumbent New York mayor Eric Adams in a full election in November.

Mamdani's success has been credited to his laser focus on cost-of-living issues and the role city government can play, particularly around housing, transport and childcare. Already, voices on the British left, like Owen Jones in the Guardian and James Meadway for Novara Media, are calling for Mamdani to be emulated over here. When it comes to London, the comparison is apt — our city gives New York a run for its money in terms of affordability.

So we thought, while everyone's still basking in the Mamdani afterglow, we'd dig into the details. Could Mamdani's ideas for New York also work in London? Here's how some of his key pledges stack up — taken from his online manifesto.

1. "Freeze the rent"

Mamdani's policy: Immediately freeze rents for all "rent-stabilized apartments" in New York.

Could it work in London? The idea of bringing rent controls to London is more mainstream than ever, but we're a long way off having a system like New York's.

More than two million New Yorkers live in so-called rent-stabilised apartments, around half of the city's households that rent. Though these flats are often owned by a private landlord, they can't set rent arbitrarily — instead, a board appointed by the mayor of New York sets an annual cap on rent rises. In the year to September 2024, this cap was set at a maximum of 3% for a one-year lease. These apartments also come with protections for tenants, so they can't be evicted without cause, and tenants also have the right to renew their lease. However, these flats can be hard to come by, with long-standing tenants often holding onto them for many years.

By contrast, the majority of Londoners in tenancies have a private landlord with rent driven by the market. In the year to November 2024, the average private rent rise in London was 11.6%, the highest on record and vastly outstripping NYC's rent cap. Londoners renting privately also have no right to renew their lease and, until the upcoming national ban comes into force, can be hit with Section 21 'no-fault' eviction notices and chucked out arbitrarily. To be fair, half of New York tenants who don't have a rent-stabilised flat are in a similar position.

Social housing in London, through councils or housing associations, is the closest equivalent to New York's rent-stabilised system, but that covers only a minority of London renters. Like New York, rent increases are capped, but in our case, to the annual inflation rate plus one percent, instead of being set by a city board. That led to some unusually high rent increases in social housing recently, given inflation hit 11%, though in 2022 the government introduced a temporary 7% cap. There is another key difference — social housing in London is means-tested and tied to low income. New York's rent-stabilised apartments are available to anyone who can find one.

One way of putting all this is: in New York, more renters live in regulated rental accommodation, but in London, low-income and vulnerable residents are more likely to be shielded from market rents.

Sir Sadiq Khan has previously backed the introduction of rent controls in London. In 2023, he made a speech calling on the then-Conservative government to "give me the powers to introduce a rent control system for London that would allow me to freeze rents" — very Mamdani. However, in the run-up to the 2024 general election and the Labour landslide, Khan went on record saying he's "not been able to persuade" Sir Keir Starmer to give him rent control powers. Instead, Khan is now pursuing a much smaller-scale scheme: 6,000 new rent-controlled homes by 2030. It's still quite different to NYC's system — Khan's homes will be limited to key workers like teachers and bus drivers, with rents set at 40% of their salaries and rises linked to wage growth.

Rent controls are popular among Londoners. A YouGov poll commissioned by the City Hall Greens in December 2023 found that 69% of Londoners supported rent controls, rising to 82% amongst Londoners who rent. The Greens are now the main voice in the London Assembly calling for city-wide controls, with assembly member Zoë Garbett publishing a report exploring how it could work this February.

2. "City-owned grocery stores"

Mamdani's policy: Set up city-owned supermarkets selling food at cost (no rent, taxes, or profit) to lower grocery prices.

Could it work in London? The idea of publicly-owned supermarkets might sound far-fetched in London — but it’s not without precedent, at least in principle.

Mamdani's plan in New York would see the city step in to directly operate grocery stores, bypassing landlords and profit margins to sell food closer to cost price. These stores would buy in bulk, distribute centrally and focus on under-served areas where private retailers won’t go. Think of it as a public option for food shopping. Other American cities, like Kansas and Atlanta, have already set up their own government-supported stores.

In London, there are some grassroots examples of food sold cheaply without a profit motive. Dozens of community pantries, like those in Lambeth or Barking and Dagenham, offer staple groceries at discounted prices to residents on low incomes. They’re usually run by volunteers and stocked with surplus food from supermarkets, often supported with cash from local borough councils. There are also co-operative buying schemes, like Cooperation Town, headquartered in Kentish Town, where neighbours club together to buy in bulk and save money. But these are small-scale, patchwork efforts — not city-run.

If City Hall were to take on a more direct role, it would be breaking new ground. There’s no existing structure for the mayor of London to operate retail outlets, and no budget earmarked for food purchasing or distribution. Public procurement rules, building leases, staffing, and regulatory hurdles would all need navigating. But supporters might argue: if councils can run leisure centres, public libraries and crematoriums, why not grocery shops?

Food prices have certainly become a flashpoint in London. Polling from the think tank Centre for London has found that the share of Londoners saying food is unaffordable has risen from 13% to 31% since 2020, and food inflation remains stubbornly high, even as overall inflation eases. Mamdani also points out that New York already spends public money subsidising private grocery store operators — London arguably does the same through housing benefits and hardship funds that are often spent just keeping people fed.

So while there’s no blueprint yet for a City Hall supermarket chain, Mamdani’s logic — using public infrastructure to lower living costs, rather than topping up private profit — might resonate in a capital which already has 300 food banks.

3. "Fast, fare free buses"

Mamdani's policy: Make all city bus services permanently fare-free and speed them up with dedicated lanes and signals.

Could it work in London? Buses are already free for some Londoners, but making it universal would require a lot of new funding. When it comes to speed, London buses are faster than those in New York, in part due to better bus infrastructure. But both are considered slow globally.

Buses are generally more expensive in New York than in London. In NYC a standard single fare costs $2.90, about £2.30, versus £1.75 in London after the most recent fare rise. However, in London, there's a daily cap on bus travel of £5.25, compared to no cap in New York. The Big Apple does have its own version of the Hopper fare, with free changes for two hours, which is actually more generous than our one-hour window.

London also wins on fare concessions — bus travel is free for: under 11s, under 18s with Zip Oyster photocards, over 60s with a 60+ Oyster, those of state pension age with a Freedom Pass and disabled Londoners. In New York, you have to hope your kids aren't too tall: free travel is only given to children under 44 inches (about 3ft 8 inches) with up to three per adult. But pupils travel free during school hours. For other groups — the elderly and the disabled — New York's transport authority only offers half-price fares.

Of course, the big impact of making buses free is the forgone fare revenue — and here's where it gets tricky for London. Mamdani recently told a Brooklyn newspaper that universally free buses would cost New York's Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) about $650m (approx £475m) a year. He's proposed tax rises on the wealthy to pay for it (more on that later).

But buses are way more popular in London, with around 6 million bus journeys per day, versus 1.4m per day in New York City. TfL leans far more heavily on fares for its revenue than New York’s MTA, making any move toward free buses a much steeper fiscal challenge. In its most recent accounts, TfL reported generating £1.6bn from bus fares, a far heftier money ask than what's facing Mamdani. With next to no tax-raising powers at City Hall, national government would have to stump up a subsidy. For context, £1.6bn is about the day-to-day spending costs of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and more than we spend per year on things like flood defences in England.

Take this back-of-the-envelope maths with a pinch of salt — we're not even estimating things like e.g. more people taking free buses instead of the Tube, in turn hitting another source of TfL's revenue.

One last thing, on Mamdani’s pledge to speed up buses. TfL's latest performance data shows an average London bus speed of 9.2mph in 2024/25. That compares to the latest figures from the MTA, which show an average speed of 8.2mph in New York. We're miles ahead on bus infrastructure, literally — London has at least 189 miles of bus lanes, versus 163 miles in New York.

But other cities put us to shame — Berlin clocks average bus speeds of 14mph, while in Seoul they run at 21mph. Most chalk it up to London and NYC’s relatively high levels of traffic congestion.

4. "No cost childcare"

Mamdani's policy: Provide free full-time childcare for all children aged six weeks to five years.

Could it work in London? Like New York, London has become a tough place to raise a family financially. But unlike New York, early education policy sits with national government, not City Hall.

Childcare costs are on par across the two cities these days — between $1,500 to $2,000 a month in New York, versus £1,200 to £1,600 a month in London. And there's evidence in both cities that families are being forced to move out over affordability. The enrolment rate across New York City's public school system has been falling year-on-year, and there are now 100,000 fewer primary school-aged children in the city since the pandemic. It's a similar story in London, where some boroughs have been closing schools due to steep drops in the number of pupils. Meanwhile, the charity the Felix Project published a recent survey that found one in four working London parents struggled to afford to feed their families.

There are some childcare subsidies in Britain, but it's national government policy and falls short of the pledge from Mamdani. In England, as of 2024-25, working parents get 15 free hours a week from their child's 9th month and 30 hours for three- to four-year-olds. Many don't think it's enough — just this week, there was a protest outside Hackney town hall over the council's decision to cut local nursery subsidies. Families say the cuts will 'force them to leave' the east London borough.

While Sadiq Khan isn't in charge of schools and nurseries in the same way as the NYC mayor, he's rolled out a few initiatives trying to tackle affordability for families. There is the mayor's free school meal program for all primary pupils, which he estimates saves families "over £500 per child per year". Khan is also exploring setting up 'baby banks' across the capital that could hand out free essentials for families. But financially, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to Mamdani's childcare policy. Speaking of…

5. "Taxes on big corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers"

Mamdani's policy: Finance his policies by raising corporation tax and introducing a flat 2% tax on New Yorkers earning above $1 million.

Could it work in London? On the one hand, the mayor of London lacks many of the tax-raising powers Mamdani would have at his disposal if he becomes NYC mayor. On the other, Mamdani doesn’t actually control the taxes he’s pledged to increase — he’s instead said he’s committed to trying to convince the state government to go along with his plans.

According to a costing document put out by his campaign, Mamdani plans to raise $10bn to pay for his policies. $5bn would come from raising New York state’s corporation tax to 11.5%, while $4bn would come from a 2% income tax on millionaire New Yorkers. Neither of these taxes is controlled by the NYC mayor — it’s up to New York State, and Mamdani will need to get sign-off from the governor and state legislature.

It’s not too dissimilar to the position Sadiq Khan finds himself in with the new Labour government. Khan has long argued that City Hall should have more control over how London raises and spends its money. At present, the mayor’s fiscal powers are limited to setting a small slice of council tax, adjusting business rates in certain zones, and deciding how much drivers pay in the Congestion Charge and ULEZ. There’s no ability to tax income, profits or wealth — even indirectly. Any meaningful redistribution would have to come via national government.

In that sense, Mamdani’s proposals are closer to London’s reality than they first appear: big ideas, pinned on a mayor without the formal powers to make them happen.

That hasn’t stopped Khan trying. In the past few months, he’s voiced his support for a “tourist tax” — a nightly levy on hotel stays and AirBnBs, common in cities like Paris and indeed New York. Labour didn’t include it in their general election manifesto, but chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she’s “open to exploring” local fiscal powers as part of a broader devolution push underway in England at the moment.

More controversial are calls to tax wealth. In November 2023, Khan was pressed on this by Green London Assembly member Zack Polanski, who’s since launched a bid to lead his party nationally. Khan responded that he supported progressive taxation in principle, but was quick to add that decisions about taxing the rich weren’t in his gift. Since then, he's largely avoided the topic.

That said, in May, Khan said he supported allowing London boroughs to charge more than double council tax on second homes and empty investment properties. Essentially, a tax on wealth, though with a specific aim of alleviating London’s housing crisis. “I am not being funny, if you can afford a flat and leave it empty, you can pay double council tax,” he told LBC radio. “I think boroughs should be allowed to charge much, much more. We’re lobbying the Government to give councils more powers to dis-incentivise leaving a property empty.”

Still, it's a long way from Mamdani’s vision of the mayor's office as a redistributive force — taxing the rich to fund universal public services. Unless Whitehall gives City Hall sweeping new powers, the political will to spend may exist in London, but the legal tools don’t — yet.

Angela Phillips

Social housing is needs based which is not the same as being means tested. A tenancy doesn’t rely on remaining on a low income but given the lack of affordability housing it, in practice, tends to be reserved for those on low incomes with high needs. This is much fairer than the New York system but there is far too little to go around.

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