So the official Mayoral Campaign has begun. What you’ll read about in the newspapers and see on the telly is the cartoon contest between ‘Not So Red’ Ken Livingstone and ‘Barmy Bouncy Bonkers’ Boris Johnson with a cardboard cameo appearance from ‘Stoner Gay Copper’ Brian Paddick.
This isn’t the real election.
Ken launched his campaign with a warning that this wasn’t Celebrity Big Brother. He’s quite right because Celebrity Big Brother presents voters with a reasonable choice of candidates representing a diversity of race, gender and neuroses. This is possibly why more people vote in Big Brother evictions than in local elections.
This week saw the pitiful sight of Boris and Ken squabbling over how many ‘unaffordable homes’ they wouldn’t build – between the ineffective 50% minimum introduced by home-owner Livingstone and the scrapping of that by multiple home-owner Johnson (Canonbury and Henley at that – two of the most sought after locations in the South East) who merely wants 50,000 “cheaper” homes. What both targets miss is whether these mythical dwellings are “affordable” or “cheaper” they are both still far too expensive for the vast majority of Londoners.
I shall try to track the election on this blog and although I jest a bit I’m saddened by the lack of any kind of viable candidate who aims to speak for Londoners rather than the City, the developers, and the two main parties. This election is being transformed into a phoney war between the Tories and Labour in the tussle for the bigger prize of national power – London as a third world client state over which the super-powers fight.
Where’s Rainbow George when you need him.
5 comments:
Many reasonable points made in this blog. But to correct you on one thing, Boris Johnson wants homes to be desirable as well as 'affordable'. London can stand only so much of Mayor Ken's garden grab for tower block developments.
Why can't all Londoners share in high quality affordable housing?
I'm backing Boris, at least he's honest and reasonable in comparison to Ken and the no-hoper Paddick.
Many thanks for your comments and I concur with you on Ken's "garden grab" and penchant for tower blocks. On the issue of high quality affordable housing the last time such a scheme was embarked upon was by the LCC - many whose estates are highly sought after. I lived in one myself at Angel. Maybe Boris should launch a scheme of high quality municipal housing. Although I think this is unlikely as the people most likely to benefit from his housing plans are the house builders and property developers.
I wonder what Boris means though when he says they will be 'desirable'? Attacks on high density developments are an easy shot to make (given the English hatred of Modernism), but then the alternatives (low density, suburban cul-de-sacs) or low quality, high price 'professional' developments are equally repellant.
Taking this issue as an example, I think you're right John: none of the candidates are up to the job. Both the cul-de-sacs and the Rogers/Foster glass and steel orthodoxy hardly posit a new urbanism. They're just the same business as usual response to the built environment.
On the subject of 'garden grab', Ken isn't the only one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4220044.stm
Maybe Ballard is right, perhaps people like the alienation.
On the subject of candidates speaking for the City, I really liked Johan Hari's recent article:
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1269
Watching the collapse of the banking system with interest, it's clear no viable candidate in any party sees a problem with the current market hegemony (save maybe the Greens). There's a political opportunity there if only they were willing to see it. The world right now looks every bit like the early 20th century where lassez faire ended in the trenches (with us, in Iraq). Given the bail outs the banks require, the political institutions should demand re-regulation and a clipping of City power in return for public cash in order to return stability.
This of course, is unlikely...
You've made some great points there. The issue of density seems to go round and round - I remember reading somewhere that the average Georgian square provided higher density housing than most tower blocks and are more pleasant places to live.
The reaction to the banking crisis is fascinating isn't it - suddenly the free marketeers are looking to the state for a hand-out.
We're at the end of the cycle of neo-liberalism - it's 30 year lifespan coming to a close (welfare capitalism lasting a similar time before it). But where are the alternatives? The Greens will do well to get more votes than the BNP sadly.
Yes, I agree we need a modern equivalent to the victorian terrace. Walkable streets and tightly integrated energy efficient homes.
Absolutely agree with you on the credit crisis. I can recommend John Gray's book on global capitalism. He wrote it ten years ago, but he has a habit of being ahead of his time. This is also worrying.
The lack of an alternative is worrying. It's flypaper for extremism. I hope it will come in the form of cold hard pragmatism to the markets, some redress of the power balance and learning the lessons of the war in Iraq. Likewise climate change will require re-regulation of market on carbon and international co-operation. Perhaps some good can come from it? (probably idealistic)
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