The mayor of New York City is as relevant to your life today as he was last week. And tell me, how relevant was the mayor of New York City to your life last week? Zohran Mamdani’s victory might have triggered waves of excitement on the left in Europe: here we have a socialist who has proven he can win; he will lead a wave of similar candidates in America; that energy will transfer across the Atlantic; and the tidal wave of right wing populism in this continent will be thwarted by a transnational social democrat movement. And this is why Mamdani matters.
You might call it optimistic; I’ll stick with “far-fetched”.
Mamdani is still useful to politics here, however. He has a kind of rakish charm, he knows how to smile (rarer than you might think). His wife is cool. And he is quick: when asked whether a 34-year-old such as he could have the experience to manage the largest city in America, he said with a smirk: “I get older every day”. His message is simple: New York is too expensive for New Yorkers. Whatever the risks associated with having a socialist mayor preside over the financial services capital of the world, Mamdani is likable.
[ Who is Zohran Mamdani?Opens in new window ]
Meanwhile, has Irish politics ever been so wanting for a bit of personality?
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I am sure they are nice people. Sweeties, even. But watching Heather Humphreys and Catherine Connolly drag that presidential election to its inevitable conclusion was like sitting through double maths at 9am on a Monday. Outside of Connolly’s rather outré pronouncements on European defence, the most talked-about thing she did was display some middling football skills. As for Humphreys? Well. Not everyone is made to stand out. The race for the Áras has looked – for some time now – like a halfway house for those who wouldn’t get so far in any other field.
Entering that race with a discernible personality would have been as advantageous as having a jetpack. And that applies to politicians everywhere in Ireland, by the way, not just those with their eyes on the presidency. The top brass of Fine Gael more often than not look and sound like they are giving a presentation for McKinsey. In Fianna Fáil? They more often than not look and sound like they are giving a presentation for McKinsey, just with a rural accent.
Ireland might call itself the land of saints and scholars. And it might indulge in all other forms of patronising self-mythology: we are storytellers with “the gift of the gab” (bleugh); we are loveable rogues and scribes and poets and creatives (please). A glance at the ruling establishment would have anyone coming away fairly believing that we are instead a nation of ringbinders and highlighters.
And is that so bad? There has long been an instinct in the liberal centre of politics to believe that charisma, wit and charm are secondary qualities in a good leader – that normal countries should seek the stable and bland over the big personalities with grand visions. The latter are childish and they corrupt, so goes the argument. While the managerial centrists keep things on the straight and narrow, they know how to balance the books, they are not prone to fits of grandeur and delusion. In fact, when the Conservatives in Britain ditched Boris Johnson and Liz Truss in favour of Rishi Sunak, and when Labour ditched Jeremy Corbyn in favour of Keir Starmer, the common wisdom said this was the start of the country’s return to normalcy.
I am minded to point out, at this juncture, that the return to normalcy looks something like this: Starmer is the most unpopular any British prime minister has ever been. Reform UK is polling consistently ahead of Labour. Nigel Farage is more popular than he has ever been. The Tories are facing extinction. The chancellor Rachel Reeves is about to renege on her central manifesto commitment and will refuse to resign anyway. Were an election held tomorrow, Starmer might not see the inside of No10 ever again. As for Sunak? I believe he is a columnist with the Times of London. It has always been an error to equate boring with stable; to mistake someone uninspiring for a safe pair of hands.
Starmer won the election last year under extenuating circumstances (Tories were so unpopular that the country was willing to vote for anything else). In Ireland, I suspect our leaders are so milquetoast because there are hardly any huge characters challenging them from the other parties. Connolly vs Humphrey was not a battle royale of charisma. But, you know: Barack Obama did beat John McCain, and Donald Trump did beat Hillary Clinton, and Mamdani has just won the New York mayoralty with no experience and no real record to speak of.
And so, this personality void at the heart of Irish politics – with a few exceptions, of course, there are always exceptions – is not just tedious to watch. It will matter politically too. For now, I cannot help but bristle at those who take solace in boring politicians as evidence of a stable system. That sounds like a country compensating for something.
