Tuesday:
There's a lot of talk about "anarchy in the UK" about at the moment. But Anarchy means without RULERS not without RULES. As Mr Balloon, Bouncing Boris and even Mr Millipede fly back into the country, what we seem to have is the exact opposite!
Why are there riots in London (and Birmingham and Liverpool)?
Is it the world economy teetering on the brink? Is it the Metropolitan Police being in chaos after the discovery that they were in bed with Mr Murdoch? Is it Captain Clegg being left in charge of the country?
It seems inexplicable to me.
At least with the riots of the Eighties (Brixton and Toxteth, 1981; Broadwater Farm, 1985) and the Nineties (Poll Tax, 1990) you could UNDERSTAND, if not condone, that there was a HISTORY: crushing poverty, callous disregard, racist policing, negligent government, years of build up. How have we got to this level of anger so FAST?
It seems almost impossible NOT to link the chaos on the streets to the chaos overtaking the world economy.
How can we expect ordinary young men and women to continue to soldier on under the yolk of the system when the news portrays the "gods" of our capitalist society chucking money away with abandon at the deeply undramatic news that America may have somewhat overextended her credit and that countries in southern Europe have been overspending for the last several decades.
On the one fluffy foot we hear the "markets" calling for a trillion Euro bailout fund; on the other we the same markets burn up a trillion Euros as the stock exchanges around the planet topple into freefall.
How can we expect people to behave responsibly when they see the world come within hours of total meltdown because the Replutocrats and the Tea Party want to play chicken with the debt ceiling?
(Look "let's not borrow any more" is not an unsound policy, but there's a time and a place, just as it's too late to say "let's not hit the ground" when you've ALREADY jumped off the forty-fourth floor. "Let's not hit the ground" ISN'T AN OPTION; all you've got is "let's not hit the ground YET".)
In a sense, this HAS been building for years.
The first crash, the 2008 global near-annihilation that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers was an inevitable result of many years of party good-times fuelled by cheap borrowing. A global Ponzi Scheme in which MANY were complicit that wiped out huge swathes of the economy when it burst.
The actions (of governments and companies) taken in response to that crash and the deep and long recession that followed have resulted in FOUR YEARS of stagnant and falling living standards in the face of escalating inflation caused – at least in part – by an implicit devaluation when we printed all that money.
Portraying the Coalition's (actually very tiny) rowing back from deficit spending as a massive, savage attack that has fundamentally changed the attitude of government from loving, open-handed generosity to cruel and selfish denial, has poured petrol on a pyre of resentment and stoked a fire of fear and anger.
In fact the coalition's cuts are just one more straw on the camel's back. But are they the straw to break it?
But when you are told day in day out that your poverty is all the fault of "the bankers" or "the Tories" or "the foreigners", seeing them "do it again" is one heck of spark tossed onto that bonfire.
If AVARICE can do so much harm, RAGE and ENVY seem only logical in response.
But they are NOT.
You don't burn your neighbour's house down to protest the behaviour of bankers; you don't steal a plasma telly to register your disapproval of America's credit rating.
It seems, in the end, that these riots are an EXCUSE to go looting. They aren't protesting the GREED of our age; they're another expression of it; they are the outcome of a generation where some people (at the BOTTOM just as at the TOP) are just SPOILED ROTTEN.
BUT
The riots are contained to what can only be described as "places where there are things to nick".
So we could also do with a bit less irrational coverage from the commentariat. Homes and businesses burning are AWFUL but rerunning the footage 24/7 on rolling news makes it seem a LOT WORSE; a storm on Twitter is still only a Twitterstorm.
And, frankly, calls for the ARMY to be sent in are the SILLIEST form of PANIC.
We need to STRENGTHEN communities not INVADE them!
We don't need water cannons or rubber bullets; we need a sense of perspective.
Calls for "leadership" are, I think, overrated. You don't need "leadership" to not go rioting and looting. You don't need "leadership" to not go rubbernecking and getting in the way of the police doing their business.
You need to GROW UP.
This has been (another) huge blow to the High Street. Shops like HMV are already pressed to the wall by online competition and may well just retreat into cyberspace. Shops that can't go onto the web may just disappear altogether. That's few jobs and more empty spaces in the middle of our towns.
So we need to think of ways to reinvent the high street. Free public wi-fi, better access and transport, places to sit, places to go to the loo would all be a start. Government, and local government, can do a lot to make these places attractive again.
And after the high-street shop, young people are the ones who are going to be made to suffer most for these riots. And our young people are the politest hardest working, most long suffering they've ever been. From the unfairness of the minimum wage to the ASBO to those wretched mosquito buzzy things to the stories of binge drinking to the cut in EMA to the misinformation about student tuition fees young people have been made to feel like second class citizens.
So we need to rethink our strategy of focussing money on the old, because frankly, the baby boomers HAD their turn. We should think first about investing in the NEXT generation, not funding the comforts of the LAST.
The extraordinary thing is that these events ARE extraordinary.
London isn't Beirut or Los Angeles. We are one of the safest, cleanest cities anywhere in the history of ever.
We need fewer headless chickens calling for leadership and a bit more Keep Calm and Carry On.
.
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Friday, October 29, 2010
Day 3588: If Hard Labour DO Expel Red Ken, Could they Adopt Bojo as their Candidate?
Thursday:
As Mr Potato Ed's gang continues to splinter in the aftermath of their election defeat, some of them have been calling for mayoral candidate Mr Ken LivingstoneIpresume to be kicked out over allegations that he urged people to vote for ANOTHER Hard Labour exile who ran for mayor after being expelled, Mr Lutfur* Rahman, our new mayor here in Tower Hamlets.
But never fear!
Should the newt-loving one find himself on extended gardening leave courtesy of the Party regulations, here comes Mayor Bojo the Clown, taking up the Red Flag and accusing the Coalition of urban cleansing "Kosovo style".
Look I condemned this sort of language when commentators from the Left (Mr Chris Byrite and Ms Polly Toytown) used it, so I'm not going to shy away from condemning it when populist latinophile and free-market buccaneer Bojo pops up with the same nauseating nonsense from the Right.
On the one fluffy foot, the government is proposing to cut housing benefit which will result in several thousand families, most of them in London, facing straightened circumstances or even having to move home with all of the stress and worry and extended commuting that goes with that. And on the other fluffy foot, Serbian nationalists were MURDERING PEOPLE for having slightly the wrong sort of DNA.
It's easy to forget, what with us OPPOSING the illegal Iraq invasion, that Liberal Democrats were right up front in CALLING for ACTION to intervene in Kosovo because the situation was TOTALLY DIFFERENT, because it was a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY; and it's easy to forget that Liberal Democrat MPs like Mr Ed Dvaey – getting properly ANGRY about this on Questionable Time last night – have a long history of standing up for the rights of oppressed minorities like the exiled Kosovans living in his constituency.
The truth is, of course, that Bojo's "man of the people" act is just another pose cooked up by our wily old bird of a mayor, whose "village idiot" pantomime appears to fool most of the people most of the time. He was playing up for his audience, as he always does, and so OF COURSE he used populist language. In short, he said it because he's a BERK.
He's apologised now, and said that he was quoted "out of context".
Mayor Bojo is quoted as saying:
What the Mayor ACTUALLY said was:
Housing and housing benefits DO need reforming.
There are several things to consider:
In order to function, our cities need people working at ALL levels from senior executive through to cleaning lady and all points IN BETWEEN and all of these people have to have somewhere to live.
There's a kind of IRONY that we've created a system that allows only the VERY RICH and the VERY POOR to live in our city centres. Who was it who was going to look out for the SQUEEZED MIDDLE? No, I've forgotten.
Those houses have to be within a reasonable (by which I mean AFFORDABLE) travelling distance.
There really is an upper limit to how much time people can spend travelling and still have any kind of LIFE for themselves, and besides as travel distance goes UP so does the cost of that travel, especially as we know fares are going to go up above inflation, cancelling out the benefit of living in a cheaper area.
The problem in London is exacerbated by the sheer absolute VASTNESS of the city, which pushes commuting distances further and further out, costing more and more in money AND time! But equally, London has an exceptional (if creaking) transport infrastructure which other cities simply lack, so it's certainly not as simple as saying London is the only "special case".
The MAIN PROBLEM is not the BENEFIT at all but the shortage of HOUSING.
Too few homes for too many people is too much demand and not enough supply which the laws of economics tells us will drive up prices. And guess what, that's EXACTLY what has happened. Add to that too many contractors building highly profitable but wholly inadequate "rabbit hutch" flats (and penthouses) and not enough three or four bedroom family homes AND councils under the Labour government failing to replenish their social housing stock AND a national mindset, encouraged by all previous governments but not least Mr Frown, that your house going up in price is a good thing that makes you richer (as opposed to a really BAD thing that prices you out of the "next rung" of the housing ladder, assuming you can get on the ladder in the first place, making it harder for you to move when you need to, and contributing to the reduction in social mobility), and you can see why we have a PROBLEM. House prices skyrocket, rents follow and so does the Housing Benefit bill.
Not that BUSINESSES haven't got a share of the blame, with too many companies squeezing the last drops of PROFIT out of their employees by paying minimum wage rather than a living wage that reflects cost of living and cost of commuting.
It really should NOT be for government to make it possible for business to make super-profits because they can underpay their workforce. What we end up with is a disguised subsidy whereby big business and landlords cream off the profit paid for from the taxes of workers who are too exhausted to complain because they spend all hours commuting.
It's like something out of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS!
What is truly EXTRAORDINARY is that it is Hard Labour that is DEFENDING this system and the supposedly right-wing Coalition that is trying to reform it!
What we need is a threefold PLAN:
1. Build MORE SOCIAL HOUSING, more than that build more than the housing that is taken out of the system through right to buy or obsolescence so that there is a NET increase. Hard Labour failed to do this for thirteen years; the Coalition are promising to try.
2. Strengthen FAIR RENT procedures and put systems in place to ensure that the landlord and not just the claimant who shoulders a fair share of the reduction in Housing Benefit.
3. Get some binging agreements with businesses that they will "share the proceeds of growth" and agree to pay LIVING WAGES.
I can't promise that NO ONE will get turfed out of their home, but it's actually VERY DIFFICULT for a private landlord to just throw someone out; there are a LOT of protections in the law for tenants, even lodgers living in your own home. (Daddy Richard is starting to have the shakes just remembering this, and he took advice from lawyers and obeyed the law every step of the way.)
But it's not fluffing GENOCIDE, all right?
So cut the demagoguery from Left AND Right and let's instead try and bring some PROPOSALS to the table so you can help us to modify the proposals so that they are, in that overworked phrase, fairer for all.
*and in a RARE example of self-censorship I AVOID using the obvious FUNNY NAME because even I can see that it might be a little inappropriate in context to use the word: "Luftwaffe".
Mr Rahman's policies may be METAPHORICALLY destructive but he's not REALLY going to blow up the East End and in spite of comical intention, even the implication of comparing a person I disagree with to the German war machine might be an eensy-weensy bit hypocritical when complaining that people are comparing the government's housing policy to the Serbian war machine.
.
As Mr Potato Ed's gang continues to splinter in the aftermath of their election defeat, some of them have been calling for mayoral candidate Mr Ken LivingstoneIpresume to be kicked out over allegations that he urged people to vote for ANOTHER Hard Labour exile who ran for mayor after being expelled, Mr Lutfur* Rahman, our new mayor here in Tower Hamlets.
But never fear!
Should the newt-loving one find himself on extended gardening leave courtesy of the Party regulations, here comes Mayor Bojo the Clown, taking up the Red Flag and accusing the Coalition of urban cleansing "Kosovo style".
Look I condemned this sort of language when commentators from the Left (Mr Chris Byrite and Ms Polly Toytown) used it, so I'm not going to shy away from condemning it when populist latinophile and free-market buccaneer Bojo pops up with the same nauseating nonsense from the Right.
On the one fluffy foot, the government is proposing to cut housing benefit which will result in several thousand families, most of them in London, facing straightened circumstances or even having to move home with all of the stress and worry and extended commuting that goes with that. And on the other fluffy foot, Serbian nationalists were MURDERING PEOPLE for having slightly the wrong sort of DNA.
It's easy to forget, what with us OPPOSING the illegal Iraq invasion, that Liberal Democrats were right up front in CALLING for ACTION to intervene in Kosovo because the situation was TOTALLY DIFFERENT, because it was a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY; and it's easy to forget that Liberal Democrat MPs like Mr Ed Dvaey – getting properly ANGRY about this on Questionable Time last night – have a long history of standing up for the rights of oppressed minorities like the exiled Kosovans living in his constituency.
The truth is, of course, that Bojo's "man of the people" act is just another pose cooked up by our wily old bird of a mayor, whose "village idiot" pantomime appears to fool most of the people most of the time. He was playing up for his audience, as he always does, and so OF COURSE he used populist language. In short, he said it because he's a BERK.
He's apologised now, and said that he was quoted "out of context".
Mayor Bojo is quoted as saying:
"the last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs".Obviously this is "out of context" because it omits the START of his sentence.
"I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together," he said.
"On my watch, you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living and have put down roots."
What the Mayor ACTUALLY said was:
"Only a TRAITOROUS NUMBSKULL who was TRYING to STIR UP TROUBLE for Dave, er Mr Balloon would say that the last thing we want to have in our city is…"He concluded with the remarks as quoted before adding:
"Crush the revolting peasants! I myself will drive the first bulldozer! I say, is, is this thing still on? Oh corks!"I'm sure that context makes things MUCH clearer.
Housing and housing benefits DO need reforming.
There are several things to consider:
In order to function, our cities need people working at ALL levels from senior executive through to cleaning lady and all points IN BETWEEN and all of these people have to have somewhere to live.
There's a kind of IRONY that we've created a system that allows only the VERY RICH and the VERY POOR to live in our city centres. Who was it who was going to look out for the SQUEEZED MIDDLE? No, I've forgotten.
Those houses have to be within a reasonable (by which I mean AFFORDABLE) travelling distance.
There really is an upper limit to how much time people can spend travelling and still have any kind of LIFE for themselves, and besides as travel distance goes UP so does the cost of that travel, especially as we know fares are going to go up above inflation, cancelling out the benefit of living in a cheaper area.
The problem in London is exacerbated by the sheer absolute VASTNESS of the city, which pushes commuting distances further and further out, costing more and more in money AND time! But equally, London has an exceptional (if creaking) transport infrastructure which other cities simply lack, so it's certainly not as simple as saying London is the only "special case".
The MAIN PROBLEM is not the BENEFIT at all but the shortage of HOUSING.
Too few homes for too many people is too much demand and not enough supply which the laws of economics tells us will drive up prices. And guess what, that's EXACTLY what has happened. Add to that too many contractors building highly profitable but wholly inadequate "rabbit hutch" flats (and penthouses) and not enough three or four bedroom family homes AND councils under the Labour government failing to replenish their social housing stock AND a national mindset, encouraged by all previous governments but not least Mr Frown, that your house going up in price is a good thing that makes you richer (as opposed to a really BAD thing that prices you out of the "next rung" of the housing ladder, assuming you can get on the ladder in the first place, making it harder for you to move when you need to, and contributing to the reduction in social mobility), and you can see why we have a PROBLEM. House prices skyrocket, rents follow and so does the Housing Benefit bill.
Not that BUSINESSES haven't got a share of the blame, with too many companies squeezing the last drops of PROFIT out of their employees by paying minimum wage rather than a living wage that reflects cost of living and cost of commuting.
It really should NOT be for government to make it possible for business to make super-profits because they can underpay their workforce. What we end up with is a disguised subsidy whereby big business and landlords cream off the profit paid for from the taxes of workers who are too exhausted to complain because they spend all hours commuting.
It's like something out of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS!
What is truly EXTRAORDINARY is that it is Hard Labour that is DEFENDING this system and the supposedly right-wing Coalition that is trying to reform it!
What we need is a threefold PLAN:
1. Build MORE SOCIAL HOUSING, more than that build more than the housing that is taken out of the system through right to buy or obsolescence so that there is a NET increase. Hard Labour failed to do this for thirteen years; the Coalition are promising to try.
2. Strengthen FAIR RENT procedures and put systems in place to ensure that the landlord and not just the claimant who shoulders a fair share of the reduction in Housing Benefit.
3. Get some binging agreements with businesses that they will "share the proceeds of growth" and agree to pay LIVING WAGES.
I can't promise that NO ONE will get turfed out of their home, but it's actually VERY DIFFICULT for a private landlord to just throw someone out; there are a LOT of protections in the law for tenants, even lodgers living in your own home. (Daddy Richard is starting to have the shakes just remembering this, and he took advice from lawyers and obeyed the law every step of the way.)
But it's not fluffing GENOCIDE, all right?
So cut the demagoguery from Left AND Right and let's instead try and bring some PROPOSALS to the table so you can help us to modify the proposals so that they are, in that overworked phrase, fairer for all.
*and in a RARE example of self-censorship I AVOID using the obvious FUNNY NAME because even I can see that it might be a little inappropriate in context to use the word: "Luftwaffe".
Mr Rahman's policies may be METAPHORICALLY destructive but he's not REALLY going to blow up the East End and in spite of comical intention, even the implication of comparing a person I disagree with to the German war machine might be an eensy-weensy bit hypocritical when complaining that people are comparing the government's housing policy to the Serbian war machine.
.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Day 3563: Are Quotas Hurting Women's Chances?
Sunday:
While we were out in Tower Hamlets yesterday, we met up with Helen Duffett. Of course we did. She's everywhere in London, these days, from Romford in the General Election to Westminster and Kentish Town by-elections, to Pizza and Politics in Islington to caseworking in Hornsey and Wood Green, everyone knows Helen and knows she is a popular and tireless campaigner.
So why's she not standing for the London Assembly list, we ask?
Well, if the first two places on the list are DEAD CERTS to be women then the RULES mean that a MAN has to come THIRD.
And the first two places on the list ARE dead certs to be women: there's Ms Caroline Pigeon who is already ON the Assembly, so she's bound to get FIRST place on the list, and then there's Ms Bridget Fox who was terribly, terribly good in Islington and will probably be SECOND on the list…
In fact, if I understand these rules right, it could be even worse because if the highest placed man is NOT Black or Asian or other Minority, then the new rules mean that a Black or Asian or other Minority person has to get the FOURTH place.
In other words even if everyone is telling you you are the at least THIRD best candidate for London (who just happens to be a woman) then the best you can hope to be is FIFTH on the list and we AIN'T going to get FIVE GLA members, are we.
As outcomes go, this to me appears WILFULLY PERVERSE.
We seem to be actively putting off one of our best campaigners from standing by making it impossible for her to win.
And anyway aren't we the party that from Ms Jo Winsome on down says "I'm as good as any white/straight/middle-aged/middle-class man so you can take your patronising affirmative action and stuff it up your quota!"
.
While we were out in Tower Hamlets yesterday, we met up with Helen Duffett. Of course we did. She's everywhere in London, these days, from Romford in the General Election to Westminster and Kentish Town by-elections, to Pizza and Politics in Islington to caseworking in Hornsey and Wood Green, everyone knows Helen and knows she is a popular and tireless campaigner.
So why's she not standing for the London Assembly list, we ask?
Well, if the first two places on the list are DEAD CERTS to be women then the RULES mean that a MAN has to come THIRD.
And the first two places on the list ARE dead certs to be women: there's Ms Caroline Pigeon who is already ON the Assembly, so she's bound to get FIRST place on the list, and then there's Ms Bridget Fox who was terribly, terribly good in Islington and will probably be SECOND on the list…
In fact, if I understand these rules right, it could be even worse because if the highest placed man is NOT Black or Asian or other Minority, then the new rules mean that a Black or Asian or other Minority person has to get the FOURTH place.
In other words even if everyone is telling you you are the at least THIRD best candidate for London (who just happens to be a woman) then the best you can hope to be is FIFTH on the list and we AIN'T going to get FIVE GLA members, are we.
As outcomes go, this to me appears WILFULLY PERVERSE.
We seem to be actively putting off one of our best campaigners from standing by making it impossible for her to win.
And anyway aren't we the party that from Ms Jo Winsome on down says "I'm as good as any white/straight/middle-aged/middle-class man so you can take your patronising affirmative action and stuff it up your quota!"
.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Day 2781: Cities on the Edge of Forever aka Abandon hope all ye who enter Liverpool!
Tuesday:
Oh very fluffy dear. A lot of FUSS has been caused by the new pamphlet from the Policy Exchange.
Opinion has been divided between:
Northern Tuff: "Eee, ow very dare you! Appen our Northern cities r'as fine as any of yon poofy southen uns, by eck if they're not!"
and
Southern Jessie: "Ay say, what jolly poor show, we're too bally overcryded already! We don't want a hale load of oiks coming down ere ryning the hayce prices, dontcha know!"
But if Mr Balloon AND the Minister for Magical Accidents are rubbishing it, it must be doing SOMETHING right!
Mr Prescott, the former Magical Minister, was on the Newsnight Show defending his time spent pouring billions into centrally controlled redevelopment schemes and improvement gimmicks.
"Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! THE TORIES! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah!" he bellowed.
Just for once you wished Ms Waaaark had done her homework, 'cos she could have shot el Prezza down right there: "Mr Leunig ISN'T a Conservatory, you ignorant, prejudiced, half-witted buffoon," she could have said.
"And besides, didn't you 'improve' Hull so magnificently that the people of that fair city… ditched you for the Liberal Democrats?"
Now Mr Balloon has commented.
"Insane," says Mr Balloon.
Though of course, since the City of Liverpool is not a member of the Conservatory Party he cannot comment further.
The way it's being reported is that the report by a "Conservatory" think tank is suggesting that the cities of the North should be abandoned and their citizens moved to the South East where the jobs are.
You would think it said the entire North of England should be raised to the ground and the people led in chains to be paraded in loin-cloths before the Emperor Balloon before being fed to the cat-monsters in the new Olympic Stadium.
Instead, if you READ it, there appear to be two quite reasonable suggestions.
First suggestion: look at the evidence.
For all the money spent by the Magical Minister and his new layers of unaccountable quangocracy, has it actually helped the redevelopment cities to catch up? NOT has it had any effect at all – you cannot deny that there are many beautiful buildings, and many gainfully employed people, and many wonderful artistic projects in the development cities. But on average, wages are STILL lower and there is STILL more poverty there than in the South East where no redevelopment money has been spent. And in fact the gap is getting WORSE.
Second suggestion: stop spending all that money centrally. Simplify the system for allocating it and give it to the local councils to spend how THEY want, or more importantly, how the local people want it spent! If they still WANT the same redevelopment scheme then there's nothing to stop them. Or they could do something else. That seems like a very LIBERAL idea. Cut the state, devolve the power, put people back in charge.
Quite the OPPOSITE of abandoning the Northern Cities, the suggestion is to stop treating them like babies who need nurse-maiding by the Magical Minister in Whitehall and PUT THEM IN CHARGE of sorting themselves out!
Now, the OTHER part of the pamphlet also suggests allowing cities in the South East to expand – London, obviously, along with Oxford and Cambridge all get fingered.
Now it seems to me that this is about OPPORTUNITY and not about some crass "on yer bike" COMPULSION. Looking at the evidence (again): people are ALREADY coming to London from the cities and regions of the United Kingdom.
In free market economic terms, housing is THE barrier to entry in the South-Eastern labour market.
The shortage of decent housing in the South East is the key reason that people remain TRAPPED in poverty. If people who WANT to move are blocked from doing so, then there will be too many people and too few jobs in the North, and the reverse problem in the South.
That drives inflation too – because if there is a shortage of labour in the South then people can demand more pay (if only to cover the higher cost of living) and that means costs go up all over.
This drives up house prices too (AND leads to rip-off builders building smaller and smaller rabbit hutches in the knowledge that some poor sap is still going to be forced into buying).
And the North is left even further behind.
Now, you might quite legitimately argue whether people moving en masse to the South is a good thing or a bad thing. More people and more cities means pushing back the green belt and putting ever greater strain on resources like water and electrical supply, which means more infrastructure to move power and water around the country which means more greenhouse emissions which means melting icecaps and the whole of the South East drowning in the long term anyway, and THEN all the people still in the North can feel smug.
But at least look at the evidence and SEE that it is HAPPENING and then plan accordingly.
Mind you, I'm not going to include that as one of the "reasonable" suggestions… 'cos I’m not sure how you do that without contradicting the whole "return power to local people" bit earlier.
Oh very fluffy dear. A lot of FUSS has been caused by the new pamphlet from the Policy Exchange.
Opinion has been divided between:
Northern Tuff: "Eee, ow very dare you! Appen our Northern cities r'as fine as any of yon poofy southen uns, by eck if they're not!"
and
Southern Jessie: "Ay say, what jolly poor show, we're too bally overcryded already! We don't want a hale load of oiks coming down ere ryning the hayce prices, dontcha know!"
But if Mr Balloon AND the Minister for Magical Accidents are rubbishing it, it must be doing SOMETHING right!
Mr Prescott, the former Magical Minister, was on the Newsnight Show defending his time spent pouring billions into centrally controlled redevelopment schemes and improvement gimmicks.
"Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! THE TORIES! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah!" he bellowed.
Just for once you wished Ms Waaaark had done her homework, 'cos she could have shot el Prezza down right there: "Mr Leunig ISN'T a Conservatory, you ignorant, prejudiced, half-witted buffoon," she could have said.
"And besides, didn't you 'improve' Hull so magnificently that the people of that fair city… ditched you for the Liberal Democrats?"
Now Mr Balloon has commented.
"Insane," says Mr Balloon.
Though of course, since the City of Liverpool is not a member of the Conservatory Party he cannot comment further.
The way it's being reported is that the report by a "Conservatory" think tank is suggesting that the cities of the North should be abandoned and their citizens moved to the South East where the jobs are.
You would think it said the entire North of England should be raised to the ground and the people led in chains to be paraded in loin-cloths before the Emperor Balloon before being fed to the cat-monsters in the new Olympic Stadium.
Instead, if you READ it, there appear to be two quite reasonable suggestions.
First suggestion: look at the evidence.
For all the money spent by the Magical Minister and his new layers of unaccountable quangocracy, has it actually helped the redevelopment cities to catch up? NOT has it had any effect at all – you cannot deny that there are many beautiful buildings, and many gainfully employed people, and many wonderful artistic projects in the development cities. But on average, wages are STILL lower and there is STILL more poverty there than in the South East where no redevelopment money has been spent. And in fact the gap is getting WORSE.
Second suggestion: stop spending all that money centrally. Simplify the system for allocating it and give it to the local councils to spend how THEY want, or more importantly, how the local people want it spent! If they still WANT the same redevelopment scheme then there's nothing to stop them. Or they could do something else. That seems like a very LIBERAL idea. Cut the state, devolve the power, put people back in charge.
Quite the OPPOSITE of abandoning the Northern Cities, the suggestion is to stop treating them like babies who need nurse-maiding by the Magical Minister in Whitehall and PUT THEM IN CHARGE of sorting themselves out!
Now, the OTHER part of the pamphlet also suggests allowing cities in the South East to expand – London, obviously, along with Oxford and Cambridge all get fingered.
Now it seems to me that this is about OPPORTUNITY and not about some crass "on yer bike" COMPULSION. Looking at the evidence (again): people are ALREADY coming to London from the cities and regions of the United Kingdom.
In free market economic terms, housing is THE barrier to entry in the South-Eastern labour market.
The shortage of decent housing in the South East is the key reason that people remain TRAPPED in poverty. If people who WANT to move are blocked from doing so, then there will be too many people and too few jobs in the North, and the reverse problem in the South.
That drives inflation too – because if there is a shortage of labour in the South then people can demand more pay (if only to cover the higher cost of living) and that means costs go up all over.
This drives up house prices too (AND leads to rip-off builders building smaller and smaller rabbit hutches in the knowledge that some poor sap is still going to be forced into buying).
And the North is left even further behind.
Now, you might quite legitimately argue whether people moving en masse to the South is a good thing or a bad thing. More people and more cities means pushing back the green belt and putting ever greater strain on resources like water and electrical supply, which means more infrastructure to move power and water around the country which means more greenhouse emissions which means melting icecaps and the whole of the South East drowning in the long term anyway, and THEN all the people still in the North can feel smug.
But at least look at the evidence and SEE that it is HAPPENING and then plan accordingly.
Mind you, I'm not going to include that as one of the "reasonable" suggestions… 'cos I’m not sure how you do that without contradicting the whole "return power to local people" bit earlier.
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