Those of you who are kind enough to read this and don’t live
in London, or even in the UK, please don’t switch off. This really isn't a
piece intended to inflate parochial politics that directly affects 10% of the
population of our sceptred isle. It’s actually the opposite, why we need to
have a serious look at the London Mayor, the whole concept, and the
personalities we need to make the changes we want to see – not just for the ‘good’
of London, but for the whole of the UK.
Under Boris Johnson, it’s become quite clear what he means
by a ‘good’ result. The greater the financial success of the City of London (success
defined on his peculiar terms, of course), the more multinationals attracted to
London, the more ways to traverse London (and get to it) irrespective of fare
price, the higher the property prices, the more un-unionised the workforce and
the more hyped the rhetoric about the ‘greatest city on earth’.
It is clear that Boris Johnson’s ‘goods’ have been bad for
ordinary Londoners. The cost of living crisis here is plain to see every day,
homelessness is on the rise, communities torn apart by economic division, and
jobs that increasingly do not pay their way. This is as true for middle-class
professionals, dragged into unpaid internships, paying sky-high rent only to
move every six months, as it is for working class communities being moved across
the country as a result of benefit changes and a lack of affordable housing.
But what does the next Labour candidate need to do in order
to meaningfully affect these negative trends? They need to shift the debate –
shift it from being the best for London alone, and talk about the best for
Britain. We need a mayor as interested in Barnsley and Birmingham as Beijing
and Brasilia.
Many of my friends, myself included, went ‘home’ for
Christmas; Boris Johnson’s London bubble, and the continued centralisation of commerce
here means that opportunities for employment near the places we grew up are
limited – and careers are increasingly cut short by demands from employers to
move south. Even friends who've bought homes have done it with life savings
from parents scraped together in Scunthorpe, not the wages earned in London. If
ever there was a human expression of how Johnson's London attempts to suck the successes
of other cities (their education systems, public health and their communities),
this Christmas spelled it out as clear as day.
Talking to my neighbours back in London about £2.50 pints,
and the cost of a loaf, let alone property prices produces bewilderment and
envy. I'm pretty angry. Again, the agenda to give London the second most powerful
elected official to run it, out of step with the regions, has heightened the
centralising trend experienced here and in most Western countries since the
nineteenth century.
A London mayor who can create jobs and opportunities outside
the M25 would relieve the pressure on the cost of living here and reinvigorate
communities there. A pledge from companies moving to London to create jobs in
the regions too, as part of making Britain their base, would make a small
difference. Viewing the importance of investment in communities away from the
capital as a way of relieving housing pressure and improving the quality of
everyone’s lives, would be a blessing. The active resettlement of business
sectors outside of the capital, if it came with formal links to City Hall,
effective transport networks and more pro-active involvement of national
institutions than one might normally expect (from universities to government
departments) could be a real boon. The advantages given to a company who moves
to Wigan, but gets meetings with the London civil service, the Treasury, as
well as a decent transport connexion would make a statement, compared to
London-locked competitors.
The moving of cultural institutions would help too – not
only the financial subsidy, but the loaning of important art collections and
theatrical talent has already borne fruit on the small scale. Whether it be the
new Tate in Margate, or the clear benefits of commercial touring theatre,
London needs to do more institutionally to spread its capital outside the
capital.
The conversation about the Arts shows a particularly
unpleasant side to the London-centric debate. The Arts Council England demands
independent financial success (whether from commerce or philanthropy) from
companies who receive public funds. Regional institutions find this
increasingly hard to do, as former partners in the capital find access to
investment banks, the West End and wealthy donors much easier than those outside the M25. The result will be more public subsidy for the capital on the condition of
breeding further financial success. There is a great tragedy watching the Arts
Council offer money to touring companies based in London in order to visit the former
producing houses that their funding rationale has shut blindly.
A London mayor lobbying for a complete rethink of all local
government structure – including in London, which is riddled with duplication
and is disposed to centralisation – would make a big statement. Despite much of
what should be done is outside of the remit of a mayor, both Ken and Boris have
shown the power that their lobbying can have. And a powerful politician
prepared to alter their own terms of reference could be a real game-changer.
The Labour Party is setting the debate in Westminster and in
the newspapers around the cost of living crisis – a real success for the
movement, and so for working people. How we’re going to remedy it is what
voters are clamouring for. To build on the impressive start made by pledges to
freeze bills, making London truly the capital of the UK, rather than a Grand
Duchy is key to a sustainable answer.
