Politics
‘We told you so’: Key New York lawmaker calls for more AI rules
AI BILLS BILLS BILLS: One of the architects of New York’s pioneering legislation to put guardrails around artificial intelligence says ominous warnings from industry leaders prove states need to act aggressively.
“I’m very rarely one to say, ‘I told you so’ or ‘We told you so,’ But this is exactly … the things we had warned about,” said Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who sponsored the RAISE Act.
The law is slated to take effect in January, requires the largest AI companies to report safety incidents to the state and establishes penalties for violations. New York lawmakers passed that bill last year, despite pushback from industry lobbyists. But now leading AI executives are ramping up warnings about the risks of their technology.
“These are the exact same concerns that we were flagging: biological weapons, nuclear weapons, catastrophic harms,” Gounardes said in an interview with Playbook. “Not only were we right, but some of the very same people that were telling us that we were wrong are now the ones saying that we need to be doing these things.”
President Donald Trump has dismissed AI safety concerns as a “HOAX” and Congress appears unlikely to act on the issue anytime soon.
So lawmakers in New York and other states are weighing how they can respond. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated the idea of a special session devoted to the issue, but New York’s Legislature isn’t slated to return to Albany until January.
Gounardes said he’s had an increasing amount of engagement with AI safety advocates, industry experts and others in recent weeks.
He’s focused on two bills he’s sponsoring — one requiring third-party safety audits, similar to a measure enacted in Illinois, and another strengthening safety reporting requirements.
“They’re good bills, they’re important bills, they should pass as is. But I think we can go further,” Gounardes said.
There’s a clear appetite among other key policymakers to pass more measures to bolster protections for New Yorkers.
Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters Tuesday she’ll be looking for additional action the state can take to reduce AI safety risks.
State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, chair of the Internet and Technology committee, said she plans to push for a “rights-based” framework and focus on potentially high risk uses of AI. Her bills for next year include a data privacy measure and the New York AI Act, which seeks to address concerns about algorithmic bias in employment, courts, finance and other contexts.
That measure also includes whistleblower protections for employees of AI companies. New York Attorney General Letitia James today urged AI workers to report safety risks or violations of current state laws, offering an anonymous tip line.
Gonzalez also has a bill pending on Hochul’s desk that would regulate AI chatbots and assign liability to companies who develop them.
“There are so many bills, and together, if we were to pass all of these that track out liability, we would be able to actually start fighting these companies, not just through slowing their development … but also mitigating more in court and having a foundation to claim damages,” she said. — Marie J. French
From the Capitol
MERGER WATCH: The state Public Health and Health Planning Council voted today to approve a merger between NYC Health + Hospitals and Maimonides Health, a private hospital in Brooklyn.
“We all need to get behind this and make it work,” PHHPC member Ann Monroe said during today’s meeting.
The merger was set into motion last year, after Hochul awarded $2.2 billion from the state-funded Safety Net Transformation Program to facilitate the deal. Maimonides has for years relied on substantial state support to keep its doors open, and state health officials expressed optimism that the combination would stabilize the hospital’s finances.
The transaction was expected to close by April 1, but a judge ruled earlier this year that NYC Health + Hospitals and Maimonides first needed to obtain PHHPC’s approval.
Read the full story from POLITICO Pro’s Maya Kaufman
FROM CITY HALL
PENSION PADDING: Several top officials from former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration are raking in inflated NYPD pensions that should be lowered, a report from New York City’s corruption watchdog recommended Thursday.
The Department of Investigation report revolves around the use of so-called 821 waivers under the Adams administration.
The waivers allow NYPD employees to be “on loan” to other agencies, including the mayor’s office, so they can maintain a police title that comes with pension benefits while working in another capacity.
In its report, DOI found the NYPD documented the waivers in an inconsistent way during Adams’ tenure, resulting in the city’s Police Pension Fund awarding overly large retirement benefits to former cops who served in top roles under Adams. But the watchdog agency determined the NYPD wasn’t squarely to blame for this, given that the pension fund also seemingly ignored 821 restrictions “in a manner inconsistent with the law.”
The DOI findings come after a string of corruption scandals roiled the Adams administration and the NYPD. Adams himself faced federal corruption charges in 2024 before President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice stepped in to spare the former mayor from prosecution.
The DOI’s latest findings don’t allege criminal wrongdoing, but the report lays out a number of recommendations for how the NYPD and the pension fund can prevent similar missteps. It also calls for all the allegedly inflated retirement benefits to be recalculated so the former cops in question aren’t getting taxpayer-funded benefits that are overly generous.
Among the former NYPD cops who netted padded pensions are Kaz Daughtry, who served as Adams’ deputy mayor for public safety; Louis Molina, Adams’ commissioner of correction and citywide administrative services; and Juanita Holmes, Adams’ probation commissioner.
“NYPD officials were treated inconsistently and some received a higher pension than they would otherwise have been eligible for, with taxpayers footing the bill,” Department of Investigation Commissioner Nadia Shihata said. “Those pensions should be recalculated and adjusted properly.”
Read the full story from Chris Sommerfeldt in POLITICO.
PREDICTED PROTESTS: NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said today she expects “multiple protests every day” next week as the city hosts the United Nations General Assembly.
No credible security threats have been identified, she noted, though the department will remain on high alert.
“The NYPD, as you know, handles thousands of protests and demonstrations each year, and there is no organization better trained to facilitate First Amendment activity,” Tisch said at a press conference with Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “Every year around the UN General Assembly time, we do see an uptick in the amount of protest activity, and this year I do not expect to be any different.”
The NYPD did not provide specific details on the number of protest permits filed or the exact number of demonstrations expected.
Some of the largest and most tumultuous protests are expected to take place ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Sept. 24.
Despite his strident anti-Israel rhetoric, Mamdani plans to skip next week’s protests, Chris Sommerfeldt first reported yesterday. When asked why he’s staying away, Mamdani cited a desire to focus on New Yorkers’ day-to-day transportation concerns during the assembly, which will cause significant traffic disruptions and road closures in Midtown.
Mamdani will not skip the UN proceedings altogether, though. He said he’s in the process of setting up meetings with foreign officials in town for the assembly, but did not elaborate on which ones. His press team did not immediately share any further details either. — Molly Reinmann
IN OTHER NEWS
— POINTING FINGERS: Some City Council members blamed Mamdani for a crime spike in the Bronx. (New York Post)
— SURVEILLANCE AND MURDER: Federal prosecutors accused five men of being part of a Kremlin-orchestrated network that planned to assassinate Russian dissidents and others in the United States and abroad. (The New York Times)
— DATA CENTER DIVIDE: Despite hesitating on the issue himself, Rep. Mike Lawler launched a seven-figure ad campaign attacking his Democratic challenger, Cait Conley, for her position on data centers. (New York Focus)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Democratic consultants are privately encouraging their battleground candidates to avoid talking about AI regulations out of fear that powerful tech groups will unleash a tidal wave of spending against them ahead of November.
That guidance came from strategists in three separate top-tier House races, according to people involved in those races, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. And it follows a surge in AI panic on Capitol Hill as industry leaders warn about existential threats posed by their rapidly developing technology.
Voters are increasingly worried about AI: About two-thirds of Americans say there’s a risk advanced AI could destroy humanity in a new POLITICO Poll. President Donald Trump has called that concern a “hoax,” leaving an opening for Democrats to seize on the issue. But they still are grappling with how hard to go after big tech.
Senior Democrats and candidates are worried that if they go too hard in criticizing AI, industry-affiliated super PACs could drop millions more dollars against them, according to interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers and strategists. They are especially worried about a slate of competitive races, including Reps. Don Davis in North Carolina, Marcy Kaptur in Ohio, Henry Cuellar in Texas and a handful of South Texas and Pennsylvania races, getting hit with even more spending on topics like AI.
The party is already struggling to keep up in the outside spending battle as Trump and his allies including Elon Musk, a major AI investor, flood the airwaves, though Musk’s spending isn’t primarily driven by AI concerns.
“We do need to be able to make sure that we’re regulating [AI] and addressing those real fears,” said one senior Democratic strategist working on Senate campaigns, who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss strategy. But “we don’t want AI money coming in.”
“Like any industry, there should be a conversation about guardrails,” said Cuellar, who is trying to hold onto a GOP-leaning South Texas seat. “But, every member needs to make their own decision based on their district and beliefs.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the former Progressive Caucus chair, said she was also worried that pro-AI groups will start targeting key Democrats.
“You know, these AI groups — they come out and they say that they’re concerned, that they want regulation. But then they spend huge amounts of money on defeating anybody who wants legislative regulation,” Jayapal said in an interview.
With AI regulation on congressional Democrats’ agenda if they take power next year, Jayapal said AI groups will be “spending for candidates that they can count on to just allow them to write the bill.”
Some top Democratic candidates and their campaigns are quietly trying to avoid crossing any red lines for tech super PACs — even as it’s unclear exactly what those lines would be, after Musk and two of the biggest AI CEOs called for more regulation on the technology last week.
Democrats are especially wary of Leading the Future, a pro-AI industry super PAC that spent over $25 million in primary races this year and is backed by investors and executives of OpenAI. The rival super PAC network, Public First Action, pushes for AI regulation and is funded by OpenAI’s chief competitor, Anthropic.
Asked by POLITICO, Leading the Future declined to name a specific policy on AI it opposes.
“The only people that have both threatened and carried out spending and intimidation tactics against Democratic members of Congress over their positions on AI are Public First and other groups funded by Anthropic and effective altruists,” said Leading the Future spokesperson Josh Vlasto. “Our agenda is and has always been Congress passing a strong and smart national regulation which has broad and building support in Congress and across the country.”
On Wednesday, Leading the Future launched its first round of ads in the general election through its Republican PAC. The group is spending $2 million to boost GOP Senate candidates Julia Letlow in Louisiana, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina and Sen. Mike Rounds in South Dakota — four Republicans in marginally competitive races that are unlikely to determine Senate control.
The two AI groups have been at odds. They spent in different primary races and went up against each other in the primary for retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat, where state Assemblymember Alex Bores’ AI-centered campaign ignited a spending war. A person familiar with Leading the Future’s strategy, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, told POLITICO in June that the group was unlikely to target another candidate this year with the kind of multi-million dollar negative ad deluge it dumped on Bores, and a person close to the group said that hasn’t changed. Democrats believe the groups could battle against each other again in key races.
Brad Carson, the co-founder of Public First Action, said the network will “absolutely” get involved in the general election.
Public First Action uses two “litmus tests” to weigh whether or not to jump into races, Carson said. If someone seeking office shows “strong support for export controls and strong opposition to the preemption of state laws regarding AI, absent a federal framework,” then they are a prime candidate to receive the group’s support.
And if a candidate were to hold the opposite position — opposition to export controls and support for the preemption of state laws — his group would be inclined to jump in and spend against them.
“It’s really about finding the people who want to step out and be heroes for you,” Carson said.
On Wednesday, Anthropic’s policy chief Sarah Heck said at POLITICO’s Decoded summit that the United States “needs to stay in the lead on AI” over China, arguing “you can’t do safety from second place.” She agreed AI firms can’t be left on their own to ensure safety within their own companies, but declined to endorse bipartisan legislation for external regulation.
Some Democrats want to go hard on regulating AI in spite of the risk of antagonizing pro-industry groups.
Abdul El-Sayed, Democrats’ Senate nominee in Michigan, previously called for a regulatory crackdown on AI and is now advocating for a “full pause at the frontier of research.” He told POLITICO in an interview on Wednesday that he’d “rather be on the truth than dodge [AI industry] money.”
Still, El-Sayed hasn’t committed to running ads on the issue. Battleground Democratic Reps. Susie Lee (Nev.) and Greg Landsman (Ohio) also told POLITICO they weren’t planning ads on AI safeguards, even as they advocate for more regulations. It’s a sign that even as voters concerns’ rise about the technology, it’s not yet become a top issue for the November election.
Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping that the AI super PACs might come in and help boost them in other states — like Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has been aggressive in criticizing the industry, or Texas, where the GOP nominee, Attorney General Ken Paxton, has been slightly behind in most recent polls.“We could use the help in some races like that,” said one GOP senator, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the internal conversations.
Robert Hayward, Lord Hayward, is a member of the House of Lords.
The story of equal rights in Britain is usually told through landmark votes, famous campaigners and great changes in the law. Political progress also depends on people who work more quietly. Those who shape arguments, persuade their own side and make once-unthinkable positions gradually seem the norm. My friend Paul Barnes, who died recently, was one of those people.
Paul played an integral part in an extraordinary period of Conservative history. He was involved from the beginning of the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality, TORCHE, which succeeded the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality in 1992, and served as its chairman from 1993 until 1997.
The name was important. Paul was not arguing for tolerance or special treatment, but for equality.
At the time, this was far from an easy case to make within the Conservative Party of the early 1990s. Gay men still faced a higher age of consent and gay people could not serve openly in the Armed Forces. Section 28 remained on the statute book and same-sex relationships had no legal recognition. Adoption by gay couples and equal marriage seemed remote ambitions.
Paul was exceptionally well equipped for the task at hand. A gifted public affairs professional, he understood that political change depends not simply on having the better argument, but on judgement, timing, relationships and an instinct for how people can be persuaded. He knew how institutions worked and, crucially, how to frame an argument in a way that allowed people to change their minds.
The case he made for equality was therefore rooted firmly in Conservative principles: individual liberty, privacy, personal responsibility and equality before the law. He was not asking Conservatives to abandon their beliefs, but to apply them consistently.
That approach mattered during the parliamentary battle over the age of consent in 1994.
Parliament reduced the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18, while rejecting equality at 16. Paul and TORCHE continued to argue for the principle that eventually prevailed. He took a similar approach to the exclusion of gay people from the Armed Forces, challenging the contradiction of decriminalising homosexuality within the services while continuing to dismiss gay personnel.
Lobbying, briefing, conversation and persuasion – these will examples of the painstaking political work which was required. Paul understood that changing minds often meant continuing to talk to people with whom you profoundly disagreed.
His contribution was, of course, part of a much larger movement. Many other organisations and campaigners played decisive roles in transforming Britain, and Paul would never have claimed otherwise. Movements need people working from within institutions as well as pressure from outside them, and Paul was particularly skilled at that form of advocacy.
He was persuasive without being hectoring, determined without becoming doctrinaire, and political without allowing politics to consume every relationship. He was also warm, funny, loyal and immensely good company. Those qualities were not incidental to his effectiveness, but were a part of it.
The Britain in which Paul died is profoundly different from the one in which he began campaigning. People serve openly in the Armed Forces, Section 28 is gone, the age of consent is equal and same-sex couples marry and raise families with protections earlier generations could scarcely have imagined. For me, one of the happiest parts of Paul’s story is that he lived to enjoy the freedoms he had spent so many years campaigning for, not least in marrying his wonderful husband, Carlos, whom he adored.
To younger people, those freedoms may seem entirely ordinary. I hope they do, because making equality ordinary was the point.
Paul helped make that happen. Britain is a freer country because people like him were prepared to make difficult arguments before they became easy ones. His recent death is a great loss to those of us who knew and loved him, and I shall miss him enormously.
NEW YORK — Vice President JD Vance will hit a key hurdle in his fence-mending effort with Jewish Republicans on Thursday when he hosts a popular conservative radio host at the White House.
77 WABC host Sid Rosenberg, a longtime friend and ardent ally of President Donald Trump, has publicly attacked Vance for maintaining a friendship with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality accused of invoking antisemitic tropes in criticizing Israel.
Rosenberg, who’s known for making inflammatory remarks, has also taken aim at Vance for what he sees as the vice president’s lack of commitment to a “strong” U.S. alliance with Israel.
In an interview Wednesday with POLITICO, Rosenberg said he plans to grill Vance in person about both Carlson and U.S. aid for Israel at a meeting he described as coming at Vance’s request. And while he said the main purpose of Thursday’s meeting is to get to know Vance, he noted that he’ll raise his concerns to the vice president in the context of his most pressing political priority: His likely 2028 run for president.
“If he really wants to win in ‘28, he has no choice but to, at the very least, distance himself from [Carlson] if not completely disavow him,” Rosenberg said, adding that he believes the vice president “has pissed off the Jews and many Trump supporters.”
Describing distrust of Vance in right-leaning Jewish communities as “a big problem,” Rosenberg said he’ll ask the vice president to commit to steering clear of Carlson and continue significant U.S. support for Israel if elected president.
“I hope I can get some of those commitments. Do I think I can get it? I don’t know,” Rosenberg said. He added that he expects to meet with Trump in the Oval Office after his sit-down with Vance.
As the front-runner for the Republican Party’s 2028 presidential nomination, Vance’s tense relationship with Israel’s supporters in the GOP could become a serious liability. Major Republican donors have already said they would be reluctant to financially boost Vance’s presidential run because of his views on Israel, a sharp departure from how Trump has held a commanding grip in that realm, thanks in large part to his alliance with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In that light, Vance’s meeting with Rosenberg — who has known Trump since at least 2018 — takes on outsize significance. It also comes after Vance extended an olive branch earlier this month at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership summit in Las Vegas, where he voiced concern about antisemitic hate crimes and said working with Israel is “in the best interest of the United States.” Vance touched on Carlson at that summit as well, acknowledging that “people in this room may disagree” with things he’s said, but the vice president avoided discussing his relationship with him.
Just days after that appearance, however, Vance ignited criticism from pro-Israel Republicans again by saying in a speech that the U.S. cannot allow its Middle East policy approach to be “subservient to the State of Israel.”
Asked about Rosenberg’s comments ahead of their White House meeting, a Vance spokesperson said Wednesday that the vice president would be meeting with the radio host after they didn’t meet in Las Vegas.
“The Vice President was unfortunately not able to meet with him in Las Vegas during the RJC Leadership Summit, and of course wanted to make time to meet with him in Washington,” the spokesperson said.
Rosenberg, a former sports commentator who now runs his own political radio show “Sid & Friends in the Morning” in New York City, confirmed Vance’s team asked for Thursday’s meeting. And despite his concerns about Vance’s Israel posture, he called the vice president an “affable” and “smart” person who’s “capable of the job.”
Still, Rosenberg made clear he doesn’t view Vance as the strongest Republican contender for president in 2028.
“He’s not my first choice. I’m a Marco guy,” Rosenberg said, referring to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s also rumored as a possible 2028 candidate. “If it turns out Marco doesn’t run, and JD wins the primary, in the end, if JD is the last man standing, I will support him.”
Rosenberg’s influence remains mostly limited to the relatively small world of Republican politics in deep-blue New York. Still, his friendship with Trump has elevated him as a voice on the right, even as he’s attracted his share of controversy.
In March, Rosenberg called Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, an “America hating, Jew hating, Radical Islam cockroach” while voicing displeasure with Trump’s surprisingly cordial interactions with Mamdani. After drawing intense pushback from voices across the aisle, Rosenberg apologized to Mamdani for the harsh remark, saying it was a “bit over the top” and admitting it’s “not nice to call somebody a bug.”
Rosenberg also came under intense fire earlier this year for calling Mamdani “a terrorist” — and apologized for that remark too. But he later retracted that apology, saying he was “exactly right” to use the term.
With additional reporting by Alex Gangitano
Politics
Politics Home | UK Diplomats Sought To Reassure US Over Tech Policy Before Burnham Became PM
2 min read
British diplomats sought to reassure Trump officials Andy Burnham wouldn’t target US tech firms days before he became Prime Minister, PoliticsHome can reveal.
According to sources familiar with the discussions, British officials said at a meeting in July Burnham would not launch a “clamp down” on social media in tech, with Burnham focused on economic growth.
The diplomats said Burnham was aware of the British reliance on US tech firms for growth, as seen in the UK’s response to the Defence Investment Plan. British Ambassador to the US Christian Turner sought to reassure US diplomats that any changes from recent legislation would likely not happen quickly, with the Online Safety Act taking nearly a decade from concept to implementation.
In spite of the meeting, earlier this week PoliticsHome reported that British officials were hauled in to the US embassy on Monday and dressed down over the Online Safety Act, along with their plans to ban under-16s from social media and prioritise public broadcasters’ prominence online.
At the earlier meeting in July, it is understood Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers warned the UK against overregulating AI, saying chatbots would become “lobotomized” if overregulated, and that users would assume they were government propaganda.
The officials said that anti-tech big tech politicians were “not on the same page” as Burnham, comparing him to vice-president JD Vance due to his focus on marginalised communities.
A UK government source told PoliticsHome that the major risks from AI crossed borders, and therefore engaging with international partners was of the upmost importance.
Separately, the UK’s Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Collins also held talks with the US Office for Science and Technology Policy about reviving the UK’s Tech Prosperity Deal with the US.
When the deal was initially signed in September last year, Sir Keir Starmer highlighted the deal as “a generational step change in our relationship with the US” during Donald Trump’s state visit. However, the deal was ultimately suspended by Washington months later, with officials saying the UK had made insufficient progress in lowering trade barriers.
As of yet, publicly, no progress has been made in restarting the deal, but privately PoliticsHome understands discussions are ongoing. A UK government source said that the UK would continue to engage on issues like the Tech Prosperity Deal in the near future.
A UK government spokesperson said: “As close allies, UK and US officials meet regularly to discuss shared priorities. We are committed to ensuring that our trade and security continues to deliver real benefits for hardworking people on both sides of the Atlantic.”
The US State Department was contacted for comment.
Politics
Politics Home | Lib Dem MP Warns Her Party Is “Struggling For Relevance” In Call For “Insurgent” Liberalism
Roz Savage was elected as the Liberal Democrat MP for South Cotswolds in 2024 (Credit: Andrew Matthews/PA Images/Alamy)
6 min read
A Liberal Democrat MP has warned her party is “struggling for relevance” and failing to paint a “coherent picture of the country we are trying to create”.
In a new essay shared exclusively with PoliticsHome, South Cotswolds MP Roz Savage argued that liberals must “rediscover” their “insurgent spirit”, rather than being “the polite custodians of a system that leaves people feeling powerless”.
The essay, Liberalism Alive, has been published just days before the Lib Dem conference in Brighton this weekend, where members will debate a new strategy document aimed at expanding the party’s support in a fractured political landscape.
While Savage does not directly name party leader Ed Davey or call for a change of leadership, her warning comes as pressure has grown on Davey to articulate a more distinct political offer to voters.
A Lib Dem spokesperson insisted the party is a “serious national force” which is “fighting to change politics so that we can change our country”.
In a recent sit-down interview with The House magazine, Davey said local election results showed that the party was “expanding” across the country under his leadership and in “its strongest position in over a century”. He also defended his use of stunts, saying: “I don’t think we’d have as many MPs, frankly, as we do if we hadn’t done the visuals that we did last election.”
In her essay, published by the progressive think tank Compass, Savage said liberalism should not be pitched to voters as “a comfortable midpoint between left and right” and that her party should avoid being seen as “nicer technocrats with slightly better policies”.
Instead, she argued, liberals should seek to answer more fundamental questions about how to create a society in which people can “flourish”.
The MP wrote: “If liberalism’s historic mission is to challenge concentrations of power and expand people’s practical freedom, we also have to ask how well we have lived up to it. Because if liberalism has so much to offer this moment, we have to address the elephant in the room: why are we as a party struggling for relevance at precisely the moment when so many people feel powerless?
“We cannot blame the populists, the media or an electorate that has somehow failed to appreciate our wisdom. We need to take a long hard look at ourselves too.”
According to Savage, the Lib Dems have not successfully woven their policy offering into a compelling narrative for the public.
“Ask people what Britain would look and feel like after ten years of Liberal Democrat government and many would struggle to answer,” she wrote.
“That is not because our individual policies are not good. Many are remarkably popular. The problem is that they do not add up, in the public imagination, to a coherent picture of the country we are trying to create.
“We have sometimes made a virtue of being reasonable, practical and evidence-led. Those are qualities I value, but competence is not a destination.
“Politics also requires imagination: the ability to help people see a different future and believe that it might actually be possible. But that vision also needs coherence. Voters need to know, with crystal clarity, what we stand for and who we stand with.”
The essay sets out Savage’s vision for how liberalism can offer fresh answers to “a country in urgent need of a new direction”.
The MP argued that devolution should form a key component of that new direction, but she said devolution must go “beyond politicians”.
“Moving power from politicians in Westminster to politicians in a town hall is not, by itself, empowering citizens,” she wrote. “It may simply change the postcode of the people making the decisions. Genuine devolution must go further.
“Councils should themselves devolve: to neighbourhoods, parishes, community organisations, schools, cooperatives, community land trusts, and sometimes directly to randomly selected citizens asked to deliberate on particularly difficult questions.”
Savage also warned that AI and the growing influence of the world’s big tech firms could represent the “next concentration of power” away from citizens.
“Technology could liberate enormous amounts of human capacity,” the MP wrote. “It could transform medicine, education and scientific discovery. It could remove drudgery from working life.
“Or it could hand a handful of already powerful corporations unprecedented influence over how the rest of us live, work and think. Left to drift, that is exactly what will happen. That is simply what concentrated power does when nobody chooses otherwise. It is a choice, and perhaps only for a short while longer will it remain ours to make.”
Liberals have struggled, Savage added, in a world where the benefits and costs of globalisation were “distributed unevenly”.
She wrote: “Populists are very good at telling people that their power has been taken away. Where they go wrong is telling them who took it: the migrant, the minority, the civil servant, the judge, the international court, whichever convenient enemy fits the story.
“Liberals need a better answer. We should say: yes, too much power has been taken away from you. But look upwards, not sideways.
“Look at an economy in which wealth and ownership have become increasingly concentrated. Look at monopolies and corporations more powerful than many governments. Look at decisions sucked upwards from communities into Whitehall. Look at political systems in which millions of votes barely affect the outcome. Look at technology companies acquiring unprecedented power over information, work and public discourse.
“The answer is not to find another group with even less power and blame them. It is to redistribute power again.
“That requires liberalism to rediscover its insurgent spirit. We should not be the polite custodians of a system that leaves people feeling powerless.”
A Lib Dem spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “Roz is right that the two old parties have left people feeling powerless after decades of failure and neglect. Everything feels so much harder than it used to be because our country is being held back by a failed political system.
“With record numbers of MPs and more councils led than the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats are a serious national force. At all levels of government, we are fighting to change politics so that we can change our country. Liberal Democrats are leading from the front on the big issues facing people across our country right now – from the cost of living crisis to the barriers holding our world-class businesses back.“
That sound you hear in the distance is the roar of the Waitrose mums. Piddington, a tiny, well-to-do village in Oxfordshire, has voted to secede from the United Kingdom over government plans to stick 1,256 male illegal migrants on a nearby military base. When and if they arrive, the newcomers will dwarf the 350-strong Piddington population by four to one. Long the preserve of the working classes, opposition to asylum policy is now reaching into the ‘centrist’ Home Counties. And all it took was for them to be personally affected by it.
The vote is purely symbolic, of course. The rebels of Piddington aren’t about to erect border posts or seize the post office. Not yet, at least. But what a signal it sends. The newly dubbed Principality of Piddington represents a broadening of the public agitation against the small-boats crisis, and it will be emulated elsewhere. Rebel leader Tim McNally, chairman of Piddington parish council, has said hundreds of councillors from across the country, keen to resist the imposition of asylum accommodation on their own areas, have been in contact with him to discuss the Piddington ‘blueprint’.
That Piddingtonians fought back through the ballot box is telling. Asylum policy has become an affront to democracy, national and local. The potential repurposing of Bicester barracks was announced over the heads of residents and their representatives, via Crown-estate powers that blindsided the council. McNally says the village was given just 10 days to respond to a 1,000-page planning document for the site. In its desperation to close migrant hotels and force richer areas to take their ‘fair share’, Labour is succeeding only in spreading public fury with the asylum system more evenly across the country and the income brackets.
You might say that voters in places like Piddington, represented by a Lib Dem MP, are finally being confronted with the consequences of their own ‘liberal’ worldview. Then again, one of the underappreciated things about borderless Britain is that practically everyone opposes it. According to one survey, 73 per cent of the public are concerned about illegal migration, and they’re increasingly open to tougher measures on asylum seekers: another poll found that 57 per cent think illegal entrants should be detained upon arrival.
One can easily imagine Piddington residents, not too long ago, gathered round the Aga and tutting at the ‘far-right thugs’ protesting outside of migrant hotels. Even now, in the voxpops from the area, you can detect a desire not to be lumped in with ‘that lot’. Naturally, the mainstream-media coverage of Piddington has been infuriatingly more sympathetic than that of last summer’s uprising in affluent but geezerish Epping, in Essex, home of the east London working-class-done-good.
Some will say the Piddington revolt is just NIMBYism, the default setting of rural Lib Dem land. Many of the residents’ arguments have tended to stress the sheer impracticality of the situation, putting so many migrants on the doorstep of such a small place, rather than the injustice and risk created by the entire system. But others have been essentially identical from those heard from anti-asylum activists elsewhere. The safety of women and children has been front and centre, with a Women of Piddington video going viral and a letter sent to all female MPs, of which only four bothered to respond. The language might be a little more euphemistic, the accents a little more proper, but clearly Piddington’s women do not want the harassment and sexual assault that inevitably follows inviting in hundreds of young men from less-than-feminist countries. (The government still pretends this isn’t happening, even as it issues leaflets to migrants informing them that rape, child abuse and FGM just aren’t cricket in Blighty.)
So long as our leaders believe that their obligations to men who have broken into the country trump the democratic wishes and safety of citizens, the asylum crisis will continue. But Piddington’s declaration of independence remains a stunning rebuke to a government whose latest genius solution is to spread the problem out a little more evenly. The British people’s revolt against open-borders lunacy is growing. The aggy working classes led the way, and the irked middle classes might finally be catching up. The Waitrose mums. The Stone Island dads. The Pink Ladies in Epping. The Ladies of Piddington. If they ever got themselves together, they might just save Britain.
The post Britain’s unexploded debt bomb: explained appeared first on spiked.
JACOB’S LADDER: Otsego County Democratic Chair Caitlin Ogden is launching a bid for the top spot in the state party — the first time its current chair, Jay Jacobs, has had a challenger during his lengthy tenure.
Jacobs, who also serves as Nassau County’s Democratic chair, has led the state party under the past three governors, with stints from 2009 to 2012 and 2019 through the present.
But those stints have unfolded despite years of grumbling from the party’s progressive flank.
“I came in as Otsego County chair about five years ago, and I’ve heard since then that Jay Jacobs has helped the party get by. And he definitely has,” Ogden said. “But I think the political landscape is shifting radically, and it’s time for a new leader to guide the party through the next phase and really deliver on Gov. Hochul’s vision of statewide, year-round party organizing.”
The friendly footing toward Gov. Kathy Hochul is a bit of a shift for Ogden. She was a top supporter of Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado’s challenge to the governor.
But expanding on Hochul’s efforts to use the party to help candidates up and down the ballot is now the focus of Ogden’s message as she attempts to win over party members. The Democratic Party has indisputably played a larger role organizing campaigns across the state in recent years, though numerous local officials have characterized this as a slapdash operation that emerges only in the run-up to congressional contests.
Ogden said that in 2022 she “had been expecting there to be a coordinated campaign structure because I had been told there would be.”
“There was not in any capacity — there was no organizational help from Albany or the state party,” she said. “We never got any literature for any of our Albany candidates; we finally got 40 signs for Kathy Hochul in the middle of October.”
The party apparatus has since been more helpful, Ogden said. But it’s still absent more often than not. It played no role as Democrats in her county had one of its best nights in history last November and has been quiet so far in the county that’s at the heart of Rep. Josh Riley’s battleground district.
“We don’t even have staff hired yet, at least to my knowledge,” she said. “And it’s so late in the game.”
“Is it something that would be helpful?” Jacobs said in response to Ogden’s call for a more regular statewide effort. “Of course.”
“But the big question is ‘where do you get the money?’ We raise millions now: This coordinated campaign is going to run through between $6 and $8 million. And that’s not easy to raise, so speculating that you’ll be able to fund not only election year coordinated campaigns, but also ongoing coordinated campaigns year-round every year, I don’t think is reasonable.”
Jacobs highlighted several accomplishments at the state party, such as a grant program that’s given $1 million to county committees and “allowing resolutions to come to the floor, where before they were always tabled to not allow for debate.” He also acknowledged that while 2022 was a “tough year” for the party, it did “very well” in 2024.
The party’s elected committee members select the chair. But historically, they’ve just gone along with whomever’s picked by the governor — a potential obstacle to the pro-Delgado Ogden, but one she thinks can be overcome.
“The conversation has been happening for a really long time now … about whether or not our leadership is on the right path,” she said.
Jacobs has faced calls for his ouster after the 2021, 2022 and 2025 elections, and easily survived a vote of no confidence six years ago. There were rumors last fall that his tenure was at an end after he declined to endorse then-mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, but Hochul said he was “doing a great job” and the party stuck with him.
“Since I’ve been the chair for ten years over two different tenures, I have heard repeatedly that I’m on the way out,” Jacobs said. “The only thing is, it’s never come from me.”
“It’s not that I need it for my livelihood — I like being involved in the Democratic Party and I find this a worthwhile endeavor. So as long as that remains, I’m happy to continue.”
The state Democratic Party will decide on Oct. 1 whether Jacobs stays on or not. — Bill Mahoney
FROM CITY HALL
ZO ON BIBI IN NYC: Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke publicly for the first time today on his plans to skip the protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Jewish head of state will be in New York City next week for the United Nations General Assembly.
“I have made very clear about my views, my thoughts, my assessments,” Mamdani said when asked why he’ll sit out. “When it comes to the UN General Assembly, my focus is ensuring that our city remains prepared to host representatives from across the world, to keep New Yorkers safe, and also to ensure that we’re able to both address the global conversation and the very local concerns New Yorkers have about traffic and their ability to get from point A to point B over the course of the next week.”
Mamdani’s nod to quotidian anxieties like gridlock is a far cry from his typically strident anti-Israel rhetoric and long history of pro-Palestinian activism. As recently as July, he was publicly railing against Netanyahu and entertaining the idea of having the NYPD arrest him on a controversial war crimes warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The war, launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis, has left more than 73,000 Palestinians dead.
Mamdani ultimately walked back his calls, saying in a social media video that his administration does not have the “independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.” Still, he has continued to condemn Netanyahu, whom he called the “architect of a horrific genocide.” And he has appeared to call New Yorkers to action, saying that, “while we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon.”
The mayor faced accusations that he was stoking antisemitism by continuing to talk about arresting Netanyahu despite knowing he lacked the power to do so.
The mayor took a more measured tone today when answering questions about whether he would encourage critics of Israel to protest Netanyahu’s visit to the city.
“To New Yorkers — I’ve never encouraged them to protest, but I always told them they have the right to do so, and we respect that right, and this city is proud of the first amendment,” Mamdani said.
Regardless, sizable protests are expected ahead of and during Netanyahu’s Sept. 24 speech at the UN. The mayor said he has been in close contact with the NYPD and there are no expected security threats. — Molly Reinmann
SEWER SOCIALISM: Mamdani’s administration plans to install 17 free public bathrooms across the five boroughs — part of a one-year, $4 million pilot project with the modular public toilet company Throne Labs.
Each of the modular bathrooms will be climate controlled, have a toilet, a sink and a baby changing station, and will close at 10 p.m. To enter, New Yorkers can scan a QR code, use an app, send a text message, or use a physical tap card.
“These 17 formerly bathroomless locations will soon become New York City’s number one place to go number two — or number one, you don’t need to tell me,” the mayor joked today.
The pilot program is set to place five toilets in the Bronx, four in Brooklyn, three in Queens, four in Manhattan and one in Staten Island.
The initiative builds on a January announcement from Mamdani and is an attempt to solve an enduring problem that’s bedeviled city officials for decades: How to construct a simple public restroom without taking years and spending millions of dollars.
Former Council Member David Greenfield once highlighted a public restroom renovation in his district that — bogged down by municipal procurement and construction requirements — took nearly a decade and cost $2 million.
The commodes announced by Mamdani today, by contrast, are projected to come out to under $250,000 per bathroom, inclusive of maintenance, for the year-long pilot.
“We are essentially wasting taxpayer money,” Greenfield said at the time. “You can build a complete house in six months for $1 million.” — Molly Reinmann and Joe Anuta
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
EYES ON AI: Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan and former city Comptroller Brad Lander are among the signatories on a pledge to refuse cash from the big-money, pro-AI political group Leading the Future.
Lander, who’s all but certain to serve in Congress next year after winning the June primary in a safe-blue district, said he’s “determined to pass strong safeguards into law and make sure the American people have a true say in the future of AI.”
Ryan accused the “Big Tech oligarchs behind Leading the Future” of only caring “about their profits.” — an argument he made during the primary for NY-12. In that race to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler, Ryan backed state Assemblymember Alex Bores, one of Leading the Future’s biggest targets. Bores finished in second place.
The public condemnations from Ryan and Lander come amid heightened concerns about the existential threat potentially posed by AI. New York politicians have urged the federal government to do more to address the rapidly developing technology, and Hochul vowed that the state will fill the void in the absence of action from Washington.
Leading the Future, which is backed by leaders at OpenAI and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has pushed back against criticism that it’s anti-regulation. It previously stated that it supports “passing a national regulatory framework for AI.” — Madison Fernandez
IN OTHER NEWS
— GRACIE GATHERING: Students and teachers from two of New York City’s elite Orthodox Jewish schools will demonstrate Friday outside Gracie Mansion. (Jewish Currents)
— FLOWERY PLANS: City officials are weighing plans to put rain gardens on top of bus stops after a prototype went up in Brooklyn. (Gothamist)
— PROPERTY PAYOUT: New York City is spending $60 million to settle a 2019 lawsuit alleging a city-instituted program illegally stripped dozens of homeowners of their equity. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
2 min read
Exclusive: The British ambassador requested help from the Trump White House on dealing with the radical right in the UK, PoliticsHome understands.
Days before Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, the British Ambassador to the US, Christian Turner, met with State Department officials to discuss Burnham’s plans for power.
According to sources familiar, British officials asked State Department Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers about how to combat the radical right, highlighting her recent speeches at the Jordan Peterson-founded Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.
Under Secretary Rogers urged Turner and the British officials to be more transparent and honest in their work, and said that doing so would help to rebuild trust.
Another proposal raised by Under Secretary Rogers was the now-abandoned Rwanda scheme, to process asylum seekers overseas. Rogers praised the plans in the context of plans to combat the radical right, though no suggestion to revive the plan was made.
The Rwanda deal cost the taxpayer £700m yet only removed four people, all of whom volunteered to leave.
Separately, PoliticsHome also understands that Rogers highlighted how the radical right had taken an interest in independent MP Rupert Lowe’s survivor-led rape gang inquiry, which he had funded via crowdsourcing. She was concerned with how he was conducting it, and called on British officials to publish government transcripts and materials related to prominent grooming gang cases, in order to lessen Lowe’s political impact. Lowe was not characterised as a member of the radical right himself during the discussion.
The Trump official also highlighted the cost of paying for transcripts of historic cases, noting that it cost Open Justice (now known as the Centre for Justice Policy) large amounts of money to release transcripts, and suggested the British government agreed to release the transcripts for free.
The government has launched an independent inquiry into grooming gangs, with legal powers to hold institutions to account.
Lowe told PoliticsHome: “The country has been undermined by a philosophy which empowers the minority (often unsound) at the expense of the majority, which is Orwellian. I would be surprised if Sarah Rogers has a view on our Independent Rape Gang Enquiry crowd-funded by over 20,000 concerned people. It was done in order to expose systemic evil, and not for political gain.”
An FCDO spokesperson said: “As close allies, UK and US officials meet regularly to discuss shared priorities.
“We are committed to ensuring that our trade and security continues to deliver real benefits for hardworking people on both sides of the Atlantic.”
The State Department was contacted for comment.
Joël Reland reflects on what it would mean in practice for Canada to become an associate member of the EU, as well as the lessons for the UK in thinking about its own future EU relationship.
At first sight, Ursula von der Leyen’s announcement that she is “opening the door for Canada to being the first associate member of the European Union” seems like a geopolitical earthquake.
Faced with the diminishing reliability of the US a trade and security partner, Canada is transplanting its political centre of gravity from North America to Europe, while the notoriously inflexible EU suddenly appears open to ‘concentric circles’ of membership which have for decades been discussed but never acted upon.
And within the UK, it has immediately been picked up on, both as evidence of the kind of closer EU relationship it could have got were it not so fixated on a hard Brexit, and as a new potential path back towards the bloc.
Yet, for now, the reality remains more prosaic. We simply do not know what associate membership means exactly. Von der Leyen’s ambition to ‘to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible’ is deliciously vague: it implies some limit on the extent of possible cooperation, but does not tell us where that limit lies.
Von der Leyen envisions replacing the existing EU-Canada Trade Agreement (CETA) with an ‘Alliance for the Future to create a common prosperity and economic security space’. Areas of focus will include AI, tech, quantum, defence industry, critical minerals, batteries and the Arctic.
But the nature of that cooperation – and the balance of Canada’s rights, obligations and institutional integration – remains undefined. Will Canada de facto join the EU single market in some or all of those areas, signing up to EU rules in exchange for frictionless trade and integrated supply chains, and some chance to influence EU policy formation? Or will it amount to a looser partnership based on coordinating policy approaches (e.g. on AI safety) and conducting joint initiatives (e.g. on critical minerals procurement)?
Not even the EU seems to know the answer, as illustrated by two Financial Times headlines from Wednesday morning. One stated Ursula von der Leyen backs Canada’s ‘associate membership’ bid while the other announced EU rebuffs Mark Carney’s ‘unique alliance’ with Canada.
The latter piece highlighted that many member states are opposed to Canada receiving enhanced access to the single market – and that ten countries are yet to even ratify CETA (agreed in 2017) due to concerns about the proliferation of Canadian agricultural goods within the EU market.
This tells us that, while the EU is waking up, as Fabian Zuleeg puts it, to ‘a very different geopolitical context’ that needs ‘ambitious mechanisms for bringing like-minded democracies together’, some old habits die hard – namely the sanctity of the single market.
Any deep Canadian integration into the EU market would take some very heavy work to negotiate a defined set of treaty-bound rights and obligations, and so it seems more likely that – at least in the short term – cooperation will focus on more vaguely-constructed alliances for ‘prosperity’ and ‘security’.
This offers some salutary lessons for the UK in thinking about its own future EU relationship.
First, Canada’s model of associate membership could set some important precedents for the UK. After all, CETA is the EU trade deal which most closely resembles the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. In principle, the new models of cooperation open to Canada, with its level of economic and political integration into the EU, are also up for grabs for the UK.
Second, that model of membership is not likely to create a shortcut back into the single market. At least to begin with, the focus seems likely to be on looser cooperation and initiatives rather than a structured set of rights and obligations à la Norway or Switzerland.
Third, this may well appeal to the Burnham government. As I have argued previously, Burnham seems less interested than Starmer in greater legal alignment with the EU single market, and more interested in the kinds of softer-touch economic security cooperation which may well form the bedrock of the new EU-Canada association.
But fourth, and finally, none of this means UK associate membership is now there for the taking. While the UK might resemble Canada legally, it does not do so politically. Canada carries a lot less baggage than the UK. It did not initiate a dramatic divorce a decade ago, before starting to plead for special access to the single market from outside, while Mark Carney is the poster boy of the emerging ‘middle powers’ movement. Burnham would not have been afforded the same ovation that Carney received in Brussels this week.
And then there is the economics. It is easier to open your market up to more distant economies where trade flows are simpler to monitor and with which you do not directly compete so often. The UK exports five times more in goods to the EU than Canada and is a direct competitor for investment in advanced tech and AI. Canada also has more to offer than the UK in terms of critical minerals supplies and access to the Arctic.
We may come to look back on von der Leyen’s address today as a major tectonic shift in the history of the EU and its approach to third countries. But, for the UK to harness that shift to its advantage, it is going to have to do a lot of work to both think about what UK ‘associate membership’ could look like, and to convince the EU that it is is an idea worth bringing to the table.
By Joël Reland, Senior Researcher, UK in a Changing Europe.
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