Are we not Devo?

[Originally posted on Centre for London blog on 18 March 2015 - I realise I should have been cross-posting, not least to keep a record.]

A devolutionary ‘city deal’ was announced in the budget this morning for West Yorkshire, adding to those already in place for Glasgow, Sheffield and Greater Manchester. More are promised, for Cardiff, Aberdeen, Inverness and Cambridge. But like kids covetously eyeing each other’s toys, the other cities are asking, ‘How do we get what Manchester has?’

Manchester (or rather the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which will comprise the leaders of the ten Greater Manchester councils, plus a directly-elected mayor) is setting the standard. It will have devolved powers over transport, housing, policing and crime, skills, international promotion and – following a surprise announcement last month – NHS spending. The Chancellor’s budget added full retention of growth in business rates (other cities get 50 per cent). Other cities deals announced so far have been far more modest in scope, covering skills, specified infrastructure schemes, business support and some international promotion coordination.

And London is lagging too. The Chancellor’s speech alluded to announcements about devolved funding for skills, more planning powers and a London Land Commission, all of which were made last month when the Mayor and Chancellor launched their Long Term Economic Plan for London. But neither the Greater London Authority nor the boroughs have any control over London’s health service.

To be fair, taking on the NHS in London (which employs 200,000 people, more than the construction industry) could be seen as a poisoned chalice (eve a hospital pass), as institutions (most recently Barts Health NHS Trust) teeter on the brink of failure. But the failure to join up health and social care has become one of the NHS’ big problems, with old people whose care has been neglected ending up in A&E, and hospital beds occupied by patients who are ready for discharge, but can’t access social care services to enable them to leave. The short-term incentives are to dump costs between local government and the NHS, but both parties have an interest in tackling a problem that is leading to unnecessary suffering and huge wastes of money. This may mean some tough choices, but the past few years have certainly given London local government the experience it will need in taking tough choices.

So why can’t London look after its own health services? Other cities have been told that they can’t go ‘The Full Manc’ unless they accept a directly-elected Mayor rather the relying on a congress of council leaders (thereby opening a new front in the war of attrition over elected mayors that has been running for the best part of 20 years). But London has plenty of mayors: Boris Johnson as Mayor of (Greater) London, as well as mayors Bullock, Pipe and Wales of Lewisham, Hackney and Newham respectively.

Perhaps the two-tier local government system makes London too complex? London certainly is complicated, sometimes Byzantine, though the Greater London Authority and London councils are working quietly behind the scenes, including on a shared bid for further devolution. And in any case, the governance arrangements proposed for Manchester, which include a Greater Manchester Strategic Health and Social Care Partnership Board, and a Greater Manchester Joint Commissioning Board comprising NHS England, clinical commissioning groups and boroughs, are hardly straightforward.

Perhaps the real problem is one of government, not governance. Perhaps, as they look over the River at St Thomas’s Hospital, MPs consider that handing over the NHS in the capital to London’s elected leaders is a step too far, as is the case with the Met Police. Perhaps, as in Washington DC, some capital city services are seen as too important for local accountability.

This fear of letting go should not be determining public policy in London. But if it is, Londoners may start to wonder whether the presence of Parliament and Government is a boon to the capital, or a millstone.

Socrates and Charlie Hebdo

Culture Secretary Sajid Javid got shot down in twitter-flames this week for referring to Socrates' writings, when defending freedom of speech following the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  The thing is, as any classically-educated fule kno, that Socrates didn't write anything; that was Plato.  Cue lots of sneering. 

Well, fair enough, though the two philosophers are more or less identical for all practical purposes: Plato didn't write anything but dialogues in which Socrates was the speaker, and Socrates' philosophy is only recorded in Plato's writings.

More interesting, to me anyway, was the thought that even if Socrates was executed by the Athenians for his atheistic opinions, and his 'corruption of the young', he was far from being a believer in democracy and free expression (indeed, his association with shady oligarchs may have been one of the factors that led to his downfall).

For example, Socrates would almost certainly have banned Charlie Hebdo.  In his discussion of the just city, The Republic, Socrates presents it as one governed by a paternalistic 'guardian-class' of warrior philosophers.  Later in the book, Socrates expounds his theory of ideals (sometimes 'forms', but I think 'ideals' is less confusing).  Put very simply, everything that we see in the universe takes its identity from its imitation of, or resemblance to, a metaphysical ideal.  A table is a table in as much as it resembles the ideal Table; something is good in that it resembles the ideal Good.

This theory explains why, controversially, Socrates exiles poets (and depending on your reading, other artists) from his Republic.  Their art is an act of mimesis, imitation, but worse than that - it is an imitation of an imitation.  My depiction of a table is a poor copy of a poor copy of the ideal Table.  Socrates also suggests that art, particularly effective art, inflames the passions, and is therefore inappropriate material for his serene and ascetic guardians.  Anyhow, one way or another, the artists have to go, and certainly the publishers of satirical magazines would have had to go with them.

Socrates' conclusion troubled Victorian admirers (who had been happily going along with the rule by warrior philosophers up to that point), and it worried his interlocutors too; Socrates admits uneasiness with his conclusion, and challenges them to find counter-arguments.

I was reminded of this stipulation when listening to a man being interviewed about the prohibtion on images of the Prophet Muhammed last week.  Generally, this prohibiton is understood in terms of the strictures against idolatry found in the Old Testament - we shouldn't confuse workshipping a God with worshipping an (imperfect) image (like the Golden Calf or the Fish-tailed God Dagon, whose followers are so enthusiastically smitten in the Bible).

The interviewee went further, explaining the prohibition in strikingly Platonic (or Socratic) terms: Muhammed was such an excellent, virtuous and handsome man, indeed the ideal Man, that any attempt to portray him is bound to fall short of the reality, and will therefore represent a slander on him.  Plato (or Socrates) could hardly have put it better himself.

To be honest, I'm not sure what this shows.  Perhaps it is a) that if you throw enough classical education at people, some is bound to stick (however imperfectly) even 25 years later; b) that if you follow any metaphysical theory far enough, logic will lead you down some curious cul-de-sacs; c) that those who die because of expressing their views are not necessarily liberals; and d) that irrational prohibitions are not the exclusive preserve of the abrahamic religions, but can be found in 'rational' Greek philosophy too.

Stuck inside of planning, with the new town blues again

I can see the arguments in principle for and against a new generation of new towns or garden cities, as one way to tackle our chronic housing shortage.  But in current circumstances, the discussion seems purely theoretical; I can't see how new towns can ever be built.

For example, just to the north of Brighton, a proposal for a new 'market town' of around 10,000 dwellings has been mooted.  I can see the constraints on land in the South East and the need for bold moves, but I also have some affection for the area proposed, sandwiched between areas of outstanding natural beauty and a national park, and including one of my favourite pubs.  And we need to add the potential impact of a new town on existing communities, to these more sentimental considerations.

In any case, the Mayfield Market Towns proposal appears to have stalled for the moment.  The Planning Inspector has just paused his consideration of Horsham's local plan, arguing that they need to be more ambitious in finding housing sites, but also rejecting the Mayfield proposal.  His arguments against it are twofold: firstly, he does not believe that such a scale of new development is needed at this stage (though he acknowledges that expansion at Gatwick Airport would force a more fundamental rethink), and he doesn't think a scaled down version would be viable.  Secondly, as the Inspector puts it (in a late entry for Understatement of the Year), "the deliverability of the preferred 10,000 dwelling option...within two local authority areas without their support, and in the face of strong opposition from two local MPs, parish councils and local people, including land owners, is also an issue of concern."

This is why I can't see how any new town will become a reality.  Proposing a new 10,000 home development requires top-down planning.  It is not just a matter of responding to known and projected local demand for new homes (which will rarely if ever demand that scale of development on its own), but of considering and redefining what role a particular site might play in the economic future of its region, of the whole country.  This is a matter of creating and redirecting demand, not just responding to it.

And that would probably require pushing a scheme forward in the teeth of local opposition, especially in the areas of South East England where land supply is most constrained.  Local councils have no incentive to do that, and Government's 'localist' planning policy gives little scope for forcing their hand.  Labour's greater enthusiasm for 'a new Generation of Garden Cities and Garden suburbs', as detailed in the Lyons Review, is also tempered by insistence that their designation must be 'locally-led'. Even where local authorities are more supportive, planning processes take years; if there is a row, we are talking generations.

So perhaps all this jostling is a matter of gesture politics (town vs country, preservation vs 'hard-working families' etc).  But it does risk distracting attention from more pressing issues.  If we are not going to be a little more directive and ride a little more rough-shod over local opposition, we are not going to build new towns.  And if we are not going to build new towns, or at least not in the foreseeable future, we need to stop the make-believe, and focus more sharply on how to build more houses in our existing towns and cities.

Sometimes, it's hard to be a liberal

I am typing this post using Firefox, an 'open-source' web browser developed by Mozilla, a non-profit organisation that rose from the ashes of AOL/Netscape.  Like millions of other Firefox users, I use Mozilla products because they are free, well-maintained (by the wisdom of crowds), and gently cock a snook at proprietory behemoths like Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

This morning (yesterday afternoon in California), Brendan Eich was driven to resign as chief executive of Mozilla, because of his opposition to same-sex marriage, and specifically his support of California's Proposition 8.  Obviously, I disagree with his views, and think it's sad that people become so obsessed with preventing other people enjoying equal rights that they throw money at preventing it.  But his views don't make Mr Eich a bad chief executive, nor do they make Firefox a bad product (either in terms of its intrinsic quality, or in terms of its wider social and ethical impact). 

There's an interesting comparison to be drawn between Mr Eich and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.  Mr Bezos' credentials are impeccably liberal.  The $2.5 million he spent campaigning for gay marriage in Washington State dwarves the $1,000 donation made by Mr Eich.  But Mr Bezos heads a business whose huge wharehouses provide minimum-wage employment under Orwellian surveillance, which drives out of business bookshops, record stores and any other retailer it focuses on, and which has been criticised on both sides of the Atlantic for the paltry levels of tax it pays. 


Whatever their chief executives' views, I know who I'd rather do business with.

Just another accident statistic?

The recent spate of horrific cycle accidents in London, many resulting in fatalities, has focused attention on the perils of cycling on London's busy streets. There has been understandable grief, outrage and a rising political temperature as Mayor Boris Johnson is accused of 'blaming the victim'.

What there hasn't been (as far as I have seen) is any assessment of how dangerous cycling is in proportion to the number of cyclists, or compared to other forms of transport on London's roads.  It may seem a callous question to ask, as one cyclist crushed by a lorry is clearly one too many, but I was curious about the relative risk.

After not much digging in the London Datastore, I found some statistics from TfL's Transport Trends survey, which reports on number of journeys taken on different forms of transport each day (strictly speaking 'journey stages' - if I walk to a bus stop, take a bus, then cycle, I have had three journey stages), and the number of accidents and deaths suffered by users of each form of transport each year.  Oddly, the last set of numbers are for 2009 for journeys and 2010 for accidents, but I suspect the ratios did not change dramatically between those two years.

Here are the statistics:

The difference between relative accident rates is pretty stark.  London's cyclists are eight times as likely to be fatally injured as car drivers and passengers, and seven and a half times as likely to be injured.  Cycling isn't as dangerous as riding a motorbike (more than 50 times the risk of driving a car), but it's substantially more dangerous than walking or using other motor vehicles.  It would be interesting to extend The Economist's comparison of USA and Netherlands fatality rates, but I don't have the data. 

Overall, cycling on London's roads is about five times more risky than the norm for fatalities, and 10 times more for injuries.  I'm not sure whether I expected this to be higher or lower; by way of comparison, occupations such as roofers, electricians and farmers have similarly heightened fatality rates.  But it's not encouraging me to get on my bike.

Your city's a sucker?

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It's been a busy week for citittude.  Bruce Katz has been in town, showcasing his latest data on how US cities are leading the economy out of recession.  And Benjamin Barber joined him for a Centre for London debate, arguing that, as nation states flounder, mayors are the most dynamic and pragmatic leaders, and that international alliances of cities are the powerful organisational structure.

Work has irritatingly stopped me attending several of the events but what I've seen from Twitter feeds and blogs suggest an almost evangelical level of excitement; that as the world turns increasingly urban, cities are asserting themselves, seizing power and initiative from the drab and clumsy nation states that hold them back.  We have come a long way from the sixties or even the eighties, when cities were viewed a crime-ridden and corrupt rat holes, best avoided by upright citizens or treated as a problem, a target for initiatives, by well-meaning politicians.

Now, if this is a new religion, I'm a worshipper.  The vitality and variety of London continues to astonish me, and the two mayors I have worked for are far more impressive than the national politicians I have come across.  Similarly, I broadly sign up to the 'Mayoral Manifesto', the programme of policies that pretty well every mayor pushes, whether nominally from the left of the right.  This manifesto (which I will write more about another time) promotes open borders and global capitalism, but is also concerned about housing, about social equity and about climate change.  It embraces minority groups and marginal lifestyles, invests in public transport and public space, but also endorses a tough law and order regime, with low tolerance for anything that could be seen as civic unrest or even dissent.

So, to borrow from Edward Glaeser, cities have triumphed. But there's another side to this story too; one that would caution against too much triumphalism, would whisper warnings against hubris like a Roman senator’s attendant whispering a memento mori.  As cities become more like each other - with the same Mayoral Manifesto, the same coffee franchises and the same bus rapid transit systems - they drift further and further away from their rural hinterlands.  Some would argue, and in the case of London have done so - that this process should be followed through, that cities should be granted proper autonomy, controlling their own tax, welfare and regulatory systems. 

Absent that solution - and modern city states are a pretty motley collection, including Singapore, Hong Kong, the Vatican and Monte Carlo - and cities will continue to have to live with their sprawling green neighbours. Cracks are showing: in England, the tension between London and the rest (including regional cities) is becoming a leitmotif of debate: on house prices, on High Speed 2, on funding for the arts . But in the west (where the vast majority of the population already lives in urban communities), the urban elite has tended to stay in control, though the Tea Party movement in the US and UKIP in the UK can be seen as rural/provincial reactions to metropolitan values. 

In the developing world, where urbanization rates remain below 50 per cent, and urban values are perhaps less widespread, rural champions have been elected and tensions have been more clearly manifested. In Istanbul, the Taksim Square demonstrations brutally repressed by the police were the actions of a beleaguered urban liberal class fighting against destruction of a public space (one of the gravest sins in the urban catechism) by a President elected by a more religious, more conservative hinterland that is even more remote from Istanbul than rural Arkansas is from New York.

Similarly, India's urban, secular Congress Party is perpetually locked in battle with the more sectarian rural politics of the BJP. In Sri Lanka, a recent profile of President Rajapaska argued that the urban elites of Colombo regard their president, elected on a rural buddhist ticket, with embarrassment.

I'm not sure where all this leads us.  Personally, I am clear where my loyalties lie, and I don't think cities should be in the business of kow-towing to rural conservatives.  But even in their moment of greatest triumph, cities should tread softly in proclaiming inherent superiority and denouncing their rural opponents as bigots and hicks.  Those singing hosannas to the greater glory of the urban inside the church should be aware of those outside, many of whom are indifferent or actively hostile to their creed.

Now the Party's over

Party conferences have always been an acquired taste, but this year's (even without the McBride and Farrage sideshows) have seemed particularly remote from reality, alien rituals conducted by an alien species.  But is this just the latest chapter in the slow decline of mass party membership, or is something else at play?

The Guardian's John Harris, former chronicler of BritPop and historian of new Labour, has been worrying for some months at how the Conservative Party has lost touch with mainstream conservatism, continuing to promulgate the neoliberal nostrums of open markets and free trade, deaf to a crescendo of grumbling from its once core vote.  Outside the capital, in 'Alarm Clock Britain' (or whichever new-minted de haut en bas descriptor the narrative-mongers have come up with), Harris finds that open markets and globalisation are not viewed as paragons of efficiency and creators of wealth, but as destroyers of jobs and harbingers of instability.

Harris's argument was echoed in Aditya Chakraborty's analysis of falling party membership (and the takeover of the Conservative Party by financiers), and in the Guardian's reportage from Aldi in Worcester, the front line of this new class war, where shoppers proclaimed themselves either terminally disillusioned with all politics, or tending towards UKIP.

My reading habits are admittedly partial, but I don't think this us just a left argument:  Peter Oborne's broadsides at the metropolitan political class are aiming at the same territory. The politicians at their press conferences look increasingly like medieval clerics debating transubstantiation, while the peasants ponder plague and turnips.  The detachment goes beyond silly shibboleths about who knows the price of a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, a litre of superstrength cider, or whatever 21st Century staple politicians have to pretend that they buy.

Once you start to look for it, you can see this rancorous detachment everywhere.  You can see it in the 'below the lines' comments in newspapers.  These may invite provocateurs, trolls and other people with nothing better to do with their time, but there is a toxic undercurrent of resentment too.  Sometimes expressed through racism or xenophobia, but sometimes simply presenting as a profound hostility to the political class, and an establishment that is seen as interested only in feathering its own nests.

The sense of alienation is polymorphous, and perhaps hard to analyse clearly, but it's harder still to see where it is going.  The crowds are not out on the streets in the UK, and the protests of the Occupy movement never went far beyond St Paul's Churchyard, so will disgruntled citizens flock to marginalised parties of the left and right that diverge from the shared internationalist outlook of the mainstream parties, as Seumas Milne has suggested? Will unrest and violence erupt, maybe targeted at immigarnts and other easy targets as it has been in Greece?  Or is a more profound change underway?  It seems almost absurd to pose the question, but is Disgusted of Droitwich a British manifestation of the discontent that erupted in Taksim and Tahrir?

Writing in the latest LRB, David Runciman argues that the oil shocks and decaying industrial capitalism of the 1970s gave birth to what we now call neoliberalism, though it was years if not decades before the baby was named or its moment of birth identified.  Flip forward 35 years, and ask whether the crisis of the past five years is a blip in the narrative of neoliberalism triumphant, or the beginning of something new.  If the latter, pace Yeats (it is National Poetry Day tomorrow, after all), "what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"