Why is the BBC calling Mamdani radical left?

Accurate and impartial or echoing Trump's language?

Yesterday I was rather surprised to hear the BBC’s North America Editor, Sarah Smith, describe New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as a “radical leftwinger” in a voice piece on Radio 4’s 8am news bulletin.

This morning, Radio 4 was at it again. In the bulletin at eight o’clock, the newsreader called Mamdani a radical left. I mentioned it on Blue Sky, and another journalist responded that Emma Barnett had also referred to him as a “radical leftwing Democrat” in her introduction to an interview at 8:20.

I haven’t conducted an exhaustive search, but it appears to me that only BBC Radio 4 is using the term. The website and last night’s Ten O’Clock News on BBC1 were much more measured.

What’s going on here? Is that an accurate reflection of Mamdani’s political stance? Or does it merely imitate Donald Trump’s language? He has called Mamdani a communist, which he clearly isn’t, but Trump has long expressed his desire to destroy the radical left.

According to Collins, the dictionary definition of radical left in American politics is a faction representing extreme left-wing views, often Marxist or Maoist in ideology. That clearly is not the part of the political spectrum Mamdani occupies; he describes himself as a democratic socialist – and many of his political positions would not look out of place in a European democratic socialist manifesto, including rent controls, cheaper childcare, and higher taxes to fund them. That certainly puts him on the left of the Democrats, but it’s hardly Marxist or Maoist.

And even if ‘radical left’ were a clear description of his policy agenda, using that term would still echo Trump’s language, which has been weaponised against the Democrats. On its own, it should raise questions about impartiality. It feels like a descriptor that is already coded as anti-Mamdani before many people in the UK have had a chance to understand and consider who he is and what his election represents.

The BBC should retire it, and aim for less loaded language. Leftwing and leftwinger are more than adequate shorthand descriptions for New York’s new mayor.