https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/27/london-decline-mamdani-sadiq-khan-new-york/
London’s economy has gone into a sad decline. And as New York prepares to elect a left-wing mayor, perhaps voters there should reflect on London’s lessons — because their city could easily be going the same way.
The depreciation of the British capital’s once powerhouse economy is becoming more obvious every day. The City of London used to be the key financial hub for all of Europe; this year it dropped out of the list of top 20 initial public offering markets in the world, overtaken by Mexico and Oman. Major British companies have shifted their listings to New York, while some newer ones don’t even bother considering London. Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs have decamped for Milan or Dubai, with Nikolay Storonsky, the founder of the wildly popular fintech app Revolut, the latest to join the exodus. House prices, which admittedly had reached eye-watering levels, have started to go into decline, with sales of properties of at least 5 million pounds ($6.67 million) down by about 15 percent over the last year and multimillion-pound price cuts in the ultra-luxury market.
But the main problem is surely this: London has shifted a long way to the left. The Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan is now in his third term as mayor, and has partnered with the Labour government in power nationally to crush the economic life and energy out of the city. Under Khan and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, new ideas get blocked and wealth creation is demonized. Wealthy “non-doms” (residents whose primary homes are outside Britain), who used to be taxed only on their British rather than their worldwide income, now find all of it subject to some of the highest levies in the world. Unsurprisingly, they are fleeing elsewhere. Tourists, who in most of Europe are spared the 20 percent VAT, or sales tax, now must pay it in Britain — deterring the big spenders from Asia and the Gulf who used to flock to London’s high-end stores.
The only reason any Muslim countries have any luxuries or modern amenities at all is oil wealth. Those countries without oil wealth are third world hellholes. London is now a Muslim city and the only oil in the Thames is pollution, not a resource to be sold.
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