Archive | July 2015
July 23, 2015  

Getting Thatcher’s children to love the state – or at least trust it!

Alaina said to me, “That’s the difference between you and me. You trust the bureaucracy and I don’t”. I thought nothing of it at the time but it struck a chord. Just why do I so often feel uncomfortable with some of the attitudes of my younger Labour colleagues? And do I really trust governmental bureaucracy? Do I really think that the ‘the man in Whitehall knows best’?

Well, in obvious ways, I do not. For a start I would never think that Whitehall knows better than the Town Hall, and, for a second reason, after many years of experience, whether of cock-ups or stitch-ups, I am not that gullible. But nonetheless there is a clear and distinct difference between my attitude and what I consider to be the cynicism and negativity, at least as regards civic institutions, that many of my younger Labour colleagues feel. Why is there such a difference?

In The Socialist Case in 1937 Douglas Jay, later the Battersea MP, who I got to know quite well in the 1970’s, wrote: ‘in the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.’ For someone born four years later and who benefited from the most balanced, and rationed, diet ever fed to a generation of Brits, this did not, and does not, seem such a strange dictum.

Moreover, growing up being looked after by the NHS, educated by the 1944 Education Act-framed school system, graduating with the benefit of total state support (no fee charges then) and a local authority maintenance grant, I was, with the rest of my generation, a major beneficiary of the state.

It was a state fired in the cauldron of war, a state with the common purpose of defeating Germany and creating a better world. Fired by the collective will of a nation shaped by the greatest existential threat in its history, the public had a belief in a better future and in the state’s ability to be the agent of that better future.

“Homes fit for Heroes” may have been a First World War slogan, but it was equally strongly felt in 1945, by the heroes of WW2. The Beveridge Report, largely written by civil servants, under the chairmanship of William Beveridge, an academic and a civil servant, sold half a million copies in its first week of publication in 1942. It was a publishing sensation. And still to this day, an overwhelming majority of my generation believes that the Welfare State is the greatest achievement of twentieth-century Britain. Unsurprisingly, we tend to trust state mechanisms and state agents.

A later generation shaped, consciously or not, by the Thatcherite revolution mocked Douglas Jay for saying ‘the man in Whitehall knows best’, which was, as Jay often protested, a quote taken out of context. They also mocked the idea that the state could possibly be as effective as the market; they frequently mocked the idealism of their elders; indeed some clearly despise the objectives to which my generation aspired. One of the most astounding, to me, experiences is listening to the younger Tory councillors, apparently genuinely, asking why we should care about inequality, or even worse, ever-widening inequality. They clearly do not come from the same starting point as I do.

Gordon Gekko – Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas’s brilliant fictional creation for the 1987 film Wall Street – may have been a harder, sharper American version of the type but there is a British version too (and there was also Bernard Mandeville, an eighteenth-century Anglo-Dutch model of Gekko). Their attitudes have also, no doubt, been helped by many classic failures of the state from the 1940s East African groundnut scheme to the modern Mid-Staffs Hospital scandal.

Surely it is time to re-discover some of that war-time optimism and reforming zeal. How otherwise do we tackle the destructive tendencies of the unbridled market-place? How else can we fight off the privatised, divided society that Cameron and Osborne are so keen to promote? The Welfare State we have known in the past will not do for the future but it is only the state that can control and civilise the market and it must do that for the good and the welfare of all its citizens.

July 8, 2015  

Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere July Newsletter (# 74)

June highlightsP1000019

  1. On June 4th Penny and I went for a long weekend to the Dorset coast, with the grandchildren (and their parents). If you don’t know it then let me recommend it to you – Dorset is a really beautiful county. We didn’t do anything in particular but visited Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove, the largest swannery in the UK (600 swans), a beautiful garden and spent a day on Weymouth’s great sandy beach. Here is a picture of them at Durdle Door, with from the left Scarlet, Melissa, Penny, Jeremy and Jamie.
  2. On the 9th June there was the Housing and Regeneration Committee, which I am not on this year, but I thought I would mention because the Committee had another long paper about the Winstanley regeneration project. It is very complex and entangled and becomes more confused, not less so every time it is discussed. The new complication is that a planning blight has been put on the area of the Falcon/Grant Road bus-stand, because of the possibility of Crossrail 2 being built. If Crossrail 2 goes ahead there will be a new, large combined tube and railway station – or there might be. This means that nothing can be done at that end of Grant Road until the Government has made up its mind about whether and when Crossrail 2 is built.
  3. The result is that many of the benefits that the Council hoped to gain from high rise developments near to the station will not happen for a decade at least. And so the Council planners have come up with the idea of building higher blocks of flats along the York Road boundary of York Gardens. It is all in a complete state of flux but what has not changed at present is the basic plan for the York Road estate and the closure of Battersea Sports Centre and the consequential installation of an astro-turf pitch in Falcon:Banana Park. I’ll keep you posted on this long-running saga.
  4. I had the Education and Children’s Services Committee on 11th June. I find this a difficult Committee. It is quite clear that the Government has a pretty low opinion of local education authorities and really wants to abolish them, but finds it a bit tricky running all England’s schools from Whitehall (Scotland, Wales and N Ireland are different). But this means that the Education Committee is struggling for a role. However, one interesting thing arose and that was the Borough’s need to find/build a new secondary school by 2019/20. Given the harsh funding environment local government faces, there is little chance of that being a totally state-funded school – Wandsworth will inevitably look for a big sponsor for a new privately funded academy. Where and when remains to be seen.
  5. The Planning Applications Committee was held on June 18th. There was yet another very high block approved in Wandsworth Town Centre, near to the cinema. Unlike many such blocks, this one looked like quite a sensible development. Moreover 63, of the 88 flats to be provided will be, so called, affordable – you still need a salary about twice the national average to be able to afford them. We approved it. There was also a significant development in Cabul Road, Latchmere, backing on to Rowena Crescent. It is an important application but not a huge one and will hardly be noticed outside of those two roads. Local residents will know all about the plans and, if they want to ask about it, then please send me an email and we’ll discuss.
  6. Penny, my partner in the picture above, is organising a conferenceP1000128 in Edinburgh in 2019 and needed to go there to discuss plans. So I joined her from 23rd June to 26th in St. Andrews and the capital. It is the first time I have been to the city for a very long time but, my word, it is a very attractive city. Whilst in St. Andrews we went for a walk around the most famous golf course in the world. You will see it on TV in July hosting the Open. Here is a picture of us on Swilcan Burn Bridge on the 18th hole. I know it is a very cheesy picture but you can’t go there and not get snapped on Swilcan Burn Bridge.
  7. On Sunday 28th June I went to Battersea Park to see the P1000189Formula E race. It was an interesting afternoon, though not particularly for the racing. As others have said, the views of the race were not good – there are just too many trees in the Park to allow a good view of anything more than a couple of hundred yards of race track. The lack of noise didn’t bother me, although it obviously did some of my correspondents. Strange as it seems the fact that over-taking was difficult doesn’t seem to matter that much in motor racing – as far as I can see no one ever over-takes at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.
  8. However, it was a nice friendly atmosphere with plenty of families of all shapes and sizes. The price certainly brought it within range of many local residents and so it was not, as some of my correspondents have claimed, an exclusive occasion for big money sport – let’s face it, it was far cheaper than watching big time soccer, rugby or cricket. Again, it also attracted far bigger crowds than the average week-end in Battersea Park.
  9. I also don’t believe that the week-end did any real long-term damage to the Park or the wildlife in the Park. I would guess that the noise and disturbance of the Fireworks display in November is far more disruptive.
  10. On the other hand, the Park was effectively closed to the public, as a free park, for 4 days and considerably limited for just under three weeks. One of the local residents wrote to me saying, “The intrusive ‘gulag’ fencing and concrete was incredibly disruptive” and she then went on to complain, as many others did, about the helicopter noise, which was obviously intrusive. The Council claims that it did, or will over the next five years, bring in money, which the Council desperately needs given this Government’s cuts in local government grant. But the trouble with this argument is that we don’t know how much money is coming in.
  11. In the next few months I will be one of 60 councillors voting on whether we think the Formula E contract will be extended for five years. I don’t see how the majority party can expect me to vote for the extension unless I know what the financial return might be. However, I would be really interested to hear your views and whatever they are I promise to ensure that they are conveyed to my fellow councillors.
  12. On the 30th June I heard left-wing firebrand Owen Jones speaking at a Battersea Labour Party Meeting. I don’t usually talk about party meetings in this newsletter – usually pretty boring and irrelevant, but you may have seen Owen Jones on programmes like Question Time. Anyway I just thought I’d mention that it was a stunning tour de force, articulate, fast-firing, lively speech, followed by a series of questions and answers. I don’t suppose many of you will have a chance to see and hear him but if you do – Go.

My Programme for July

  1. On 2nd July I had a meeting of the Academies & Free School Commission, of which more next month, and on the 14th the Planning Applications Committee.
  2. On July 2nd I also went to the Grand to see a performance of Gershwin’s Crazy for You performed by Latchmere’s Thames Christian College – again more next month.
  3. On the 8th July, we have the Council Meeting and on 11th I will be at the Councillors’ surgery at Battersea Library.
  4. On 16th July Battersea Society will be having its summer party at St. Mary’s Church on the riverfront. On the next day I am going to visit friends in South Wales and, with any luck, will go up in a glider above the Brecon Beacons mountains – I am looking forward to that.

Did you know?

 Last month’s question about the contestants in the Battersea Park duel of 1828 was obviously too easy for some of you. Yes, it was the Duke of Wellington, the hero of this month’s double anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo – the one that kept the French in their place and made UK top dog (sorry if that is not PC for any French readers – just a joke). His adversary was the P1000200Earl of Winchelsea, who was objecting to Wellington removing legal barriers to Roman Catholics in this country.

So if that was too easy, let me try you out on another couple of Wandsworth duels. In the generation before 1828 another Prime Minister fought a duel in Wandsworth and, what is more, two other “gentlemen” both of whom also became Prime Minister later on, also did so. I will be very impressed if anyone can tell me who the three of them were, who the fourth man was, where the duels took place and what were they about.

Finally this lion lives in Battersea, just outside the Latchmere ward boundary. Does anyone know where he lives?