Tag Archives: new york

The Democratic primary for New York Governor just got interesting

The collision of two of my favourite worlds will keep me well occupied until June 26th when the Democrats choose their candidate for New York Governor.  Yesterday, Cynthia Nixon, who played my favourite character in Sex and the City, Miranda Hobbes, announced her candidacy with a  very effective video.

The Democrats already hold the seat, of course. Andrew Cuomo seeks his third term and won in 2014 with 54% of the vote in the General Election. He is the obvious frontrunner to fight again for the Democrats with, at the moment, a fairly massive lead over all-comers. From the New York Times:

Ms. Nixon, 51, has never before run for elected office and has chosen a huge undertaking for her first bid: seeking to unseat a two-term incumbent (and son of a three-term governor) who is sitting atop more than $30 million in campaign cash. “Our leaders are letting us down,” she says in a video posted on Twitter, talking about the inequities in New York spliced between images of her walking on the streets of New York City and taking the subways. “Something has to change,” she says in the ad. “We want our government to work again, on health care, ending mass incarceration, fixing our broken subway. We are sick of politicians who care more about headlines and power than they do about us. It can’t just be business as usual anymore.”

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Nick Clegg’s speech at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit

Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is representing the UK at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals summit in New York.

Lib Dem blogger Jonathan Calder is also there, with an international group of bloggers put together by Oxfam to report on the summit. You can read his take here.

The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan writes fulsomely about Clegg’s diplomatic experience and linguistic skills here.

Meanwhile, here’s his speech:

Introduction

It is an honour for me to address the General Assembly today for the first time as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
And it is a privilege …

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Daily View 2×2: 27 May 2010

Detail of the art deco crown of the Chrysler Building, New YorkGood morning, and welcome to Daily View on the day which sees New York’s Chrysler Building celebrate its 80th birthday. Completed in 1930, it was the tallest building in the world for all of 11 months, before being replaced by the Empire State Building. After 9/11, it is once again the second tallest building in New York.

Also celebrating birthdays today are the chef Jamie Oliver (who is currently applying for planning permission to build a restaurant in Nottingham I will probably never be able to afford to eat in); West Wing actor Richard Schiff and the Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron. Some have speculated he might be in the running to replace Vince Cable as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats; he tweeted last night that as Vince Cable’s PPS, he got to hear the “Stalin to Mr Bean” gag in rehearsal. Tim is 40 today.

2 Big Stories

Coalition government sets out radical welfare reforms

So says the Guardian headline, anyway, but the article is light on detail if heavy on mood music. A lot of people will be watching anxiously for the detail.

Duncan Smith says he is to propose to the Treasury a radical scheme that includes simplification of the complex benefits system designed to make it financially worthwhile for unemployed people to work, including in part-time jobs.

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Daily View 2×2: 21 January 2010

1920s woman in silk kimono smoking using a cigarette holderGood morning and welcome to Daily View. If you submit a tax return, there are hardly any days left to get on with it.

On this day in 1908, New York City voted to ban women from smoking in public. Two years ago, Black Monday did a number on the world’s stock markets.

In birthdays, we sing a song to Commander in Chief star Geena Davis and Christian Dior, who were born today.

And in deaths, we remember George Orwell – and use him as an excuse to pimp this link – a cartoon that fears that when it comes to dystopias, it was Aldous Huxley who nailed it, rather than George Orwell.

2 Big Stories

Stop the presses!

Men are wearing shorts in the snow in New York.

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Unforseen circumstances

Wall Street bankers in New York are getting much smaller bonuses this year than last year.

That’s a good thing, right?  In view of the financial apocalypse, they deserve less.

Only thing is, New York City and New York State made a lot of money out of taxing those bonuses, and between them they are looking at over $1bn less money to spend on everything that city and state government needed to pay for. 

It’s a tough time for local government cuts.

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  • Katharine Pindar
    David, as our party policy is now for a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) to be brought in gradually by increases in welfare benefits to end deep poverty, and no lo...
  • David Raw
    @ Mike Peters. I would have thought that a universal basic income scheme would increase rather than reduce the problem you refer to, and I don’t see why folk ...
  • David Raw
    @ David Warren. You refer to the 1931 so called National Government but fail to add that the then Liberal Party took part in this, though shortly afterwards it ...
  • David Raw
    @ Steve Trevethan. You state delegating certain powers to the Bank of England creates a plutocracy. It might have escaped you that this was Liberal Democrat pol...
  • Mike Peters
    Interesting article but it fails to discuss an important concept - the idea of ‘the deserving poor’ and the ‘undeserving poor’. Put simply, most people ...