Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere July Newsletter (# 39)
1. In June it became official that the British economy was in what is known as a “double-dip recession”. This was, and is, really bad news for everyone in the country and for many of us locally. For instance, it should be noted that unemployment in Latchmere rose yet again in May to 575, which at 7.9% is the highest in the Borough (it is 7.8% in Roehampton). This compares with the average of 5.5% in England & Wales. As for the double-dip recession, I don’t particularly want to claim credit for it, but I have been virtually alone in forecasting this in the Council for the best part of a year. The real calamity is that in these hard times the Council, admittedly hard pushed by the Government, is cutting jobs and services at an increasing rate of knots. Just when is the Government going to make a U-turn on this just as it has with so many other issues recently. It really is time for a Plan B, a plan for economic growth.
2. I went to see the river pageant to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
in Battersea Park but I am afraid it was not, for me, a wild success. As you know it rained and it was almost impossible to see anything. Unfortunately the weather took the gloss off most of the street parties as well – great shame but couldn’t be helped. Did you have better luck or did you go out of London and get away from it all? Here is a picture of many of the audience trying to get a view from atop the mobile loos!
3. For the first time in ears I was not one of the Labour members on the
Finance & Corporate Resources, where the major item under discussion was Elliott School, Putney, where I know a number of Latchmere youngsters have gone. I wouldn’t mention it except for this crucial discussion about Elliott School, where the argument was whether the Council should pay for the very considerable and expensive refurbishment required for the school out of its own reserves or from the receipts for selling much of the school playing fields. The final decision on this matter is to be made, probably in August, but the Council is likely to sell some 40% of the playing fields. Here is a picture of the so-called Ark Academy closing the door on LEA secondary schools in the Borough!
4. The June 14th Big Local meeting in York Gardens was a great success and facilitator, Helen Garforth, will have found it useful in helping to frame a vision for Latchmere before the Big Lottery starts releasing the £1 million it is making available to Latchmere over the next ten years.
5. The 21st July Planning Applications Committee had no Latchmere applications but did have 3 very large and important developments for Battersea. The one of most direct interest to Latchmere was an application for 116 residential units, plus ancillary shopping and some industrial units, rising to some six storeys on York Road. The development would be almost opposite the York Gardens Library, where currently there is a car-show room and a fair amount of parking. (The site is pictured here at the corner of Lombard and York Roads).The Committee unanimously refused the application as being too high and out of scale for the site. However, my own view is that the Tory councillors, who represent the other side of York Road, are being pressurised by local residents into voting against the application but that the Council’s planning policies incline towards it : the end result of such a mess could be that the Secretary of State will grant permission after appeal.
The other two massive applications were for the reconstruction of Covent Garden Market and of the adjacent but now unconnected Market Towers at the end of Nine Elms. These are two really gigantic applications, both of which were approved.
Covent Garden Market will be completely demolished and re-constructed but more intensively. The redevelopment will include, or so it is planned, 2,500 residential units, a 500 bed hotel, a gymnasium and a 2,000 square metre (that’s very large) food super-store. Covent Garden Market is probably the third largest employer in the Borough (after the Council and the NHS) and therefore its future is very important to the Council. So, it was perhaps not surprising that it got support from all councillors and hopefully the end result will be good for us all. But I have a couple of reservations, one about the limited amount of “affordable” housing that will be built there and the other about the size of the retail unit. And it’s not because of my dislike of shopping but because at the same time the very large Sainsbury’s in Wandsworth Road is also being re-developed and I just can’t see that the area needs two megastores right next door to each other. PS Government definitions of affordable housing at least in Battersea require people to have something like £60,000 take-home pay so you can see it is affordable only to people earning more than twice the national average wage!
Market Towers, or as the developers want to call it One Nine Elms Lane is, to my mind, a very different proposition. Here the proposal is to build two giant towers; one of them up to 200 metres high, that is higher than the giant tower currently being built on the other side of Nine Elms Lane and the other slightly lower. These towers would have nearly 500 flats, a hotel and no doubt ancillary shops plus some offices. I voted against this application because there is very little “affordable” housing and that in my view these developments will make no contribution to the housing problems of most Battersea residents.
6. On 26th June, I was at the Housing Committee. Many years ago I was the Chair of the Housing Committee but this was the first I have attended for some time and very interesting, and worrying, it was too. There was masses of boring detail but two new Council policies I want to pick out in particular. The first is about Council-house rents. As from now all new tenancies will be let at 80% market rents and not on the traditional Council base. That means that new tenants will be expected to pay rents about 30-40% higher than their neighbours. Given that at the same time the Government is making draconian cuts to Housing Benefits I think we can see a concerted Conservative Party move to put an end to Council housing.
This slightly alarmist statement is supported by the other policy, which is to end the traditional policy of granting tenancies for “life”. As from now Council tenancies will be granted on a short-term basis, 5 years, and only renewed depending upon whether the tenant passes various tests. These include behaving well, not earning too much, doing what the Council expects you to do in terms of getting a job, etc. OK, so I put that case rather emotively but it is quite something coming from a Tory party that has complained about the “Nanny State” for so long! I just wonder how long it will be before this one becomes another U-turn.
7. On the very next day I was also at the Strategic Planning & Transportation Committee. Funnily enough I was also Chair of this Committee, many years ago, however, there was very little to report of interest unless one happens to live on the streets that were being discussed and as it happens none of these were in Latchmere.
My Programme for July
1. I will be attending the Passenger Transport Liaison on 2nd July. After my many years as a councillor this will be the first time I have ever attended this committee, where all kinds of public transport are discussed including even river passenger traffic.
2. On 7th July I will be attending the Poyntz Road/Knowsley Road Triangle Party from about 8pm on. This street party is, as far as I am concerned, the best in the Borough and I am really looking forward to it.
3. The Council Meeting is on 11th July; I have the Planning Applications Committee on the 18th, where a major application could be the plans for rebuilding Clapham Junction’s Peabody Estate; there is the Latchmere Report Back Meeting on 19th July at York Gardens Library, which is your chance to come and grill me and my fellow councillors, Wendy and Simon, and indeed the Leader of the Council, Ravi Govindia; and that is all followed by the Olympics, for which I was lucky and got quite a few tickets!
Did you know?
That the Falcons used to be Wandsworth Council’s Livingstone Estate. In the early 80s the Council discovered that the 1960s estate was built using a great deal of asbestos and considered spending millions to rip out the asbestos and then re-furbish the estate. But it decided that this was too expensive and so decided instead to sell the estate to private developers.
After getting rid of the blue asbestos and in the course of “re-branding” the private developers decided to name all the blocks on the estate after birds of prey, presumably because of the address on Falcon Road, and hence we have Hawk, Harrier, Peregrine, Eagle, Osprey, Kite, Lanner, Griffon and Kestrel Houses, Courts and Heights. Let’s just talk about one: Peregrine House. The Peregrine is the fastest animal of all reaching 200 mph in its hunting dive; the vast majority of its prey is smaller birds, though the peregrine itself is only the size of a crow. Typically it has lived in cliffs and mountains but in recent times they have moved into cities – there is a pair at Battersea Power Station. Life in high towers obvious
ly seems to be similar enough to cliffs for the Peregrine.
But Peregrine House used to be called Burne-Jones Court, after the painter Edward Burne-Jones, 1833-98. Burne-Jones, who was born in Birmingham, was a major artist of the very British pre-Raphaelite movement along with William Morris, John Ruskin and Dante Rosetti amongst others. They “loved” the middle Ages and were very concerned with design, which is perhaps obvious from a quick glance at the painting on the right.
Why the Council named the Livingstone blocks after artists like Burne-Jones, will be the subject of a later Newsletter.
Clapham Junction, Grant Road entrance to open tomorrow, 11th July
Good news for all those who use the Junction. We are told that the “new” Grant Road station entrance will be opened tomorrow, 11th July. At least one of my several constituents, who live with a ringside seat of CJ, in Sendall or Osprey or Eagle Heights, says that as he looks down on the station that he has his doubts, but we can only hope that the “authorities” know what they are talking about!
OK, so its a slightly dated image but I like it!
Cymbeline at the Barbican, By William Shakespeare
“The fault, dear Brutus, is in the play and not the production or the playing of it” was my thought watching this melodramatic, Japanese rendition of Shakespeare’s late romance. Shakespeare, of course, could not have known of Japanese Kabuki theatre but he could well have been commissioned to write plays for the discipline, with its dramatic and spectacular production values.
This version, part of the Shakespearean Olympiad season, put on at the Barbican theatre was directed by Yukio Ninagawa with the verve and gusto one would expect from the Japanese theatrical tradition. The staging, the music, the sound effects, the lightening flashes and the sets were all spectacular, culminating in the truly mesmeric battle scene. The balletic, slomo battle between Britons and Romans was without question the dramatic highlight of the second act.
But at over three hours this was a marathon and both the director and Shakespeare would have benefited by a bit of ruthless editing. Indeed one criticism one might have made of the production was that it was too true to the original. The complex and bewildering twists and turns of the final scene are lovingly portrayed, even though Shakespeare himself urges the players to get to the point and speed up the action.
It is, to be true, over-written. In the last “outlandish” scene alone, Cymbeline discovers his long lost sons, loses his wife both emotionally and physically, discovers the death of his stepson and re-discovers both his daughter and her husband, and still finds time to forgive the defeated Romans and yet accept Roman victory over Britain and make a just peace. Oscar Wilde may have been laughing at the death of Little Nell; he would have been uncontrollably hysterical both during this scene and when Jupiter descends rather comically on the back of an eagle.
Masanobu Katsumura plays the oafish Cloten with wit and distinction. Shinobu Otake is beguiling as Imogen though perhaps does not handle the last difficult scene with such a sure touch. Hiroshi Abe is handsome and dashing as the heroic Posthumus Leonatus. Shinobu Otake is a vain and self-regarding Iachimo. Ran Ohtori is a magnificently evil Queen and Tatsuro Sagawa a suitably pompous Cymbeline.
However, regardless of the enthusiasm of the players and the distinction of the directing, questions must still be asked about the play. The sur-titles made it intelligible as well as exciting but in the final analysis would this play with its bizarre, byzantine plot be played if it were written by anyone less distinguished than Shakespeare.
Unlike his great works Cymbeline does not speak to all ages, about universal issues, informed by real human emotions but is rather cobbled together as a late and relatively uninspired work. The writing is strained and not very poetic – it is perhaps the only Shakespearean play I have ever seen, which has not left us with a phrase or a quote that is a commonplace in everyday language.
It was great to see this Japanese production as a part of the Olympiad Shakespearean celebration but I don’t believe that I will be dashing off to see an English version just to see what Shakespeare had really intended.
* Tony Belton & Penny Corfield discuss shows that they see together and take it in turns to write reviews.
My Latchmere June Newsletter (# 38)
May highlights
1. The Mayoral Election took place on 3rd May. Congratulations are due 
to Boris Johnson and his local running mate DickTracey, But I doubt that any party was very pleased with the result, with Boris winning by a small margin against Ken, for whom it was undoubtedly one election too far. The Labour party did quite well across the country but perhaps not well enough to be complacent. Apart from Boris, it was a disastrous election for the Tories but not quite as bad as it was for the Lib/Dems. The picture is at the Committee Rooms in Falcon Road.
2. But we can’t let this occasion go by without saying a word about Ken Livingstone. It was an election too far – perhaps two elections too far, but let’s make no mistake he has been a giant of London politics for the best part of 40 years. It is difficult to remember now, just how popular he was for most of those years.
Apart from his roles both as a Lambeth councillor and an MP he has been the London city boss for 13 years, from 1981-86 as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) and as Mayor from 2000-2008. He defeated the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, in 2000 (making him one of the most successful independent candidates ever in British electoral history) and massively outpolled Margaret Thatcher in all the London popularity polls in the late 80s.
But he also has a stream of achievements behind him, which would be the envy of many politicians. He almost invented today’s cosmopolitan London, with his emphasis on the Rainbow Coalition and a 24:7 city life-style. Certainly his espousal of equal opportunities, almost a joke at the beginning of the 80s, has made it standard practice in even the most conservative of establishments. Livingstone transformed London bus services and was the first and only person to reduce rather than enhance the dominance of cars on the London roads, both with lower fares and the congestion charge.
Even his “mistakes” usually had a positive outcome. Too far back for many to remember but he invited the IRA (Irish Republican Army) to talks at what was then County Hall. The right-wing press slaughtered him for talking to, and giving respectability, to terrorists. But Thatcher followed not long after and 10 years later Tony Blair brought a level of accommodation and peace to Northern Ireland – but Ken had blazed the trail. Perhaps his finest single moment was his speech immediately following the dreadful London 7/7 bombings, when he stood up for a multi-cultural, cosmopolitan London which would not be cowed by terrorism and blood.
His opening sentence on the day of the bombing was; “This city is the greatest in the world, because people live side-by-side in harmony – and Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. … We are here because people from around the world come to London; people live in London, to fulfil their dreams and to achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before, because they come to be free”.
If Boris achieves half as much he will be doing well – something I hope he remembers at the opening of the Olympics, which would not be coming to London without Ken’s participation – along with many others.
3. I attended one of the consultation meetings the Council had at York Gardens Library on 22nd and 23rd May, but frankly the Council really does not know how to do these consultations. Very few people attended and that was no great surprise as the Council seemed to think that consultation about a blank sheet of paper was what was required. It contrasted strangely with the Big Local meeting on 24th, which had 24 participants planning a June 14th meeting of which more below. But the real contrast was with the London Citizens South London Assembly held at BAC on 29th May. There were 300/400 people there at an almost evangelical public meeting. There were more Latchmere residents at this meeting than at any I have seen and there were promises of many start-up residents associations. It was also notable for a real grilling given to the Council Leader, Ravi Govindia. He did not come out of it well.
4. The 23rd May Planning Applications Committee had not one application from Latchmere but a couple of days before I went on a site visit to Covent Garden Market, pictured here in neighbouring Queenstown. This is yet another enormous site, 
currently pretty much ignored and out of mind as far as most Battersea residents are concerned, but where gi-normous planning applications are expected in the next few months. The market will be re-built but added into the mix will be several thousand new homes – exciting times coming in Nine Elms Lane.
5. On the same theme I and my councillor colleagues, Wendy Speck and Simon Hogg, were shown the developers plans for the Prince’s Head pub in Falcon Road. This pub has been a source of some controversy with many local residents for many years. A developer now wants to demolish it and build a block of 30/40 small affordable flats, known as pocket concept flats. Whilst in many ways it is sad to see yet another pub go, this particular pub will not be any big loss and on the whole I thought the development looked good. The developers are happy to discuss it with any local residents’ groups.
6. On 27th May, I took part in Wandsworth Heritage Festival by leading a History walk from the Latchmere pub, via the Park, the Latchmere Estate and the Shaftesbury Estate to Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) – there were 15 people – very enjoyable.
My Programme for June
1. The Jubilee, of course, on the 3rd June along with street parties and the like through-out the week.
2. On 14th June the Big Local is having a Vision Day at York Gardens Library, between 3 and 8pm.
3. The Planning Applications Committee is on 21st June and whilst I do not know for certainty what exactly is on the agenda, in the next few months will include applications for Covent Garden and the rebuilding of Clapham Junction’s Peabody Estate.
What do you know?
I am not putting myself on quite the same level as last month’s extract about the Duke of Wellington but I thought I should say that after years and years as the Labour lead on both Wandsworth’s Planning Applications and the Finance and Corporate Resources Committees, I have just become our lead both on the Housing and on the Strategic Planning and Transport Committees. I will continue to sit on the Planning Applications Committee.
In Praise of Ken Livingstone
For those for whom the 1980s are already ancient history, I thought it worthwhile to say a bit about Ken. Last month’s election was one too far – perhaps two elections too far, but let’s make no mistake he has been a giant of London politics for the best part of 40 years. It is difficult to remember now, just how popular he was for most of those years.
Apart from his roles both as a Lambeth councillor and an MP he has been the London city boss for 13 years, from 1981-86 as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) and as Mayor from 2000-2008. He defeated the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, in 2000 (making him one of the most successful independent candidates ever in British electoral history) and massively outpolled Margaret Thatcher in all the London popularity polls in the late 80s.
But he also has a stream of achievements behind him, which would be the envy of many politicians. He almost invented today’s cosmopolitan London, with his emphasis on the Rainbow Coalition and a 24:7 city life-style. Certainly his espousal of equal opportunities, almost a joke at the beginning of the 80s, has made it standard practice in even the most conservative of establishments. Livingstone transformed London bus services and was the first and only person to reduce rather than enhance the dominance of cars on London roads, both with lower fares and the congestion charge.
Even his “mistakes” usually had a positive outcome. Too far back for many to remember but he invited the IRA (Irish Republican Army) to talks at what was then County Hall. The right-wing press slaughtered him for talking to, and giving respectability, to terrorists. But Thatcher followed not long after and 10 years later Tony Blair brought a level of accommodation and peace to Northern Ireland – but Ken had blazed the trail. Perhaps his finest single moment was his speech immediately following the dreadful London 7/7 bombings, when he stood up for a multi-cultural, cosmopolitan London which would not be cowed by terrorism and blood.
His opening sentence on the day of the bombing was; “This city is the greatest in the world, because people live side-by-side in harmony – and Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. … We are here because people from around the world come to London; people live in London, to fulfil their dreams and to achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before, because they come to be free”.
Some had cause to regret his war with Margaret Thatcher, after all I along with perhaps 20,000 others were made redundant as a consequence of it and her consequent abolition of the GLC. But in the end he won and he was right. London needed some form of regional government and although the Mayor and GLA is not the model I would have supported (nor was it the model that he supported in the early Blair years) it is now clearly here to stay, commanding as it does bi-partisan support.
If Boris achieves half as much he will be doing well – something I hope he remembers at the opening of the Olympics, which would not be coming to London without Ken’s participation – along with many others.
Tory emotions – a lament for a Golden Age
It’s curious the way Tories hark back to a golden age of community values and community spirit, when kids could play in the streets and be left to go to school unaccompanied, when neighbours looked out for their elders, when men doffed their caps to ladies passing in the street and when the sun shone all summer through. Curious because surely no political party has done more to destroy that age, if it ever existed, than the Tory party.
OK, so Hitler played his part in breaking up the solidarity of British, and in particular London, working class districts, and no doubt urban planners and both major parties did their best to finish off the job with massive inner city council-led developments. But when I first represented such an area, the community was still recognisably the same as in the immediate post-war world.
Four decades later it is not and the main reason for that, I suggest, is the ruthless pursuit of neo-liberal economic policies first by the Thatcher Government – not in all honesty abated by the Blair/Brown Government but now being disastrously and incompetently pursued by the Coalition.
This is most obvious in the post-industrial north, where whole communities – typically but not exclusively mining and metal bashing towns – have had the heart ripped out of them. But it is also true in inner London. Whole sets of working class communities based on very short travel to work lifestyles have simply been torn apart by CCT or compulsory competitive tendering (where is the old style parkie living in the parkie house? Or the schoolkeeper’s house? Or the caretaker? Or the homehelps and meals on wheels staff? All replaced by minimum wage slaves hired and fired by facilities management companies with no connection or locus in any area at all except the City).
Of course, it is not just CCT. The ruthless pursuit of globalisation, largely in the interest of the political and City/Wall Street elite, has equally played its part. As, of course, has industrial and economic change. But the Tory party with its current neo-liberal economic policies can hardly avoid a fair proportion of the blame!
Call Mr Robeson: A Life – with Songs (2012)
My partner and I decided that we would write reviews of plays that we see. If you are interested this is our review of a play about Paul Robeson, the great American baritone, that we saw at the Warehouse Theatre, Croydon, a couple of weeks back. The review was largely written by Penny Corfield after our discussion. If Robeson is new to you then let me recommend looking him up on YouTube and playing Joe Hill – an American TU ballad.
Written and performed by:
Tayo Aluko
at the Warehouse Theatre, Croydon: 18 May 2012
Paul Robeson
The magnificent power of words – and, especially, of words set to music in song – laid the basis for this mesmerising performance by Tayo Aluko. He deployed his deep baritone and his acting charisma to take the audience through a summary of the life of the great American singer Paul Robeson (1898-1976). True, the audience was predisposed to be appreciative. Yet it would take a veritable heart of stone not to be moved by ‘Ole Man River’, ‘Steal Away’, and ‘Going Home’, sonorously performed close at hand, in the intimate surroundings of Croydon’s threatened Warehouse Theatre.
Tayo Aluko as a young man in Nigeria had never heard of Robeson. Once having got the message, however, he determined that others should share his excitement. Hence his dedication in writing and performing the script as a one-man show. Incidentally, some people in the Croydon audience ventured that Robeson was less likely to have been forgotten in Britain than in his native America. Here he was feted for his music and his internationalism. But, either way, there is scope for all to learn more about this remarkable singer and activist.
Sensitive piano accompaniment came from Michael Conliffe, who wrote the incidental music which linked the scenes together. And the staging was simple but ingenious. Boxes and props were scattered around, allowing Aluko to move from point to point, picking up books, objects and photos to illustrate specific themes at specific times. In sympathy, his acting turned in an instant from happiness to grief, from enthusiasm to brooding, as the different episodes unfolded.
Amusing by-play was generated by the ever-changing names of Robeson’s female companions. In parallel, reference was made to the growing strains within his marriage to Eslanda ‘Essie’ Goode Robeson (1896-1965). She resented his many passionate affairs but, as Robeson’s ambitious business manager, contributed strongly to the advancement of his career. The play’s episodic format was not, however, geared to a close exploration of the sexual and psychological tensions within their marriage. Her disparaging comments in her biography of her husband Paul Robeson, Negro (1930) go unmentioned, as does his angry response. On such personal matters, it is notoriously hard for outsiders to judge. The play does, however, include a late song, in rather uncomfortable tribute from Robeson to his wife’s rock-like character. They split and reconciled several times, but never divorced.
Robeson was a polymath. As a young man, he graduated from Columbia University law-school, whilst playing as a professional in the National Football League. He became a celebrated concert-singer, film star, and stage actor, being the first African American to play Othello, with a white supporting cast, on Broadway. He was a staunch campaigner for human rights within America and an internationalist, aroused to active anti-fascism by the Spanish Civil War. As his career took him around the world, Robeson felt that he was better appreciated outside the USA than he was by his compatriots. For a time he had a house in Hampstead; and, at another time, he lived in Moscow, with his son Pauli. He sought to study his African origins but also to identify the bedrocks of a universal musical language. Above all, Robeson wanted to be accepted as a human being and musician in his own right, not just to be labelled by his ethnicity.
His later years were difficult. During the Cold War years, many Americans viewed Robeson as little more than a ‘godless communist’, although he proclaimed himself not as a communist but a socialist. He was notoriously grilled by the McCarthyite House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) – whence the title of this play: ‘Calling Mr Robeson’. From 1950-57, the State Department blacklisted him, refusing him a passport and the opportunity to travel overseas. Exhausting legal and political challenges followed.
Robeson, who accepted the International Stalin Prize in 1953, also became controversial on the political left and within the American civil rights movement. He feared that he was becoming air-brushed out of history. Despite getting his passport back and launching upon successful comeback tours, he now had a controversial past. Younger activists increasingly ignored his achievements. After a failed suicide bid in Moscow in 1961, Robeson became chronically ill and depressed, on heavy medication. He lived in seclusion with his wife and, after her death, with his son. Throughout, he kept his dignity; and he never rescinded his commitment to socialism and to human rights world-wide.
As indicated in the question-and-answer session at the end, Robeson remains both admired and contentious. The receding tides of history have marooned his uncritical belief in Soviet-style communism. Was he indeed just another of the ‘useful idiots’ (in Stalin’s phrase) who helped to deceive the international community and especially the political Left about the true nature of Stalinism? Should or could Robeson have protested publicly against Soviet communism’s own injustices, about which he was, however reluctantly, becoming aware? The answer is surely yes. Yet this play makes his political journey innerly comprehensible, without necessarily endorsing every step on the way.
Together, Paul Robeson’s life and songs bore witness to his multiple commitments, about which this play invites its audiences to reflect. Those who live quiet lives, their heads below the parapet, may wonder how they would have fared with such a career, in such testing times. And his songs live on: listen to Robeson’s recordings of ‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal’, ‘Joe Hill’, or ‘Going Home’. Magnificent – a voice from history for all times.
Author, performer and singer: Tayo Oluko
Call Mr Robeson was directed by Olusola Oyeleye; and designed by Phil Newman.
For future performances in the USA, Canada, and the UK, consult www.callmrrobeson.com; info@tayoalukoandfiends.com; and Twitter: @CallMrRobeson.
To support the Appeal to save Croydon’s threatened Warehouse Theatre, now in administration, see www.warehousetheatre.co.uk.
The Size of the Public Sector economy
In April, 2011, Cllr Edward Lister, then Leader of Wandsworth Council, said that he welcomed the Coalition Government’s plan to shrink the public sector although he acknowledged that implementing the cuts programme in local government, and in Wandsworth in particular, would be tough. This was slightly odd as he had spent the previous 18 years complaining that successive Governments, Labour and Tory, were not giving the Borough enough money and should be giving it more.
Meanwhile in the Council Chamber Tory Cllr Jim Cousins took every single opportunity to describe the public sector as non-productive. “It is the private sector which creates wealth”, he would say.
The implication from both men’s perspective is that a smaller public sector will result in a more vibrant economy and, presumably, higher standards of living for all.
I have tried to tackle this argument on many occasions, with my favourite example being that of the Thames Barrier, which was built to time and on budget in the 1980s by the Public Health Engineering Department of the GLC (then under the control of that left-wing villain Ken Livingstone) and just before the private sector Channel Tunnel, which opened in 1994 late and 80% over budget.
But I thought I should take a second look at the subject. One thing is undeniable and that is the consistent growth of the public sector in developed societies throughout the twentieth century. Just take a look at the size of the public sector in the USA from 1900-2010:-
A public sector of rather smaller than 5% of the economy in 1900 grows to 35+% by 2010, with three notable and unsurprising spikes as defence spending balloons in 1916-20, 1939-47 and in the early 1950’s (WW1, WW2 and the Korean War). Perhaps not quite so graphically but there is also a near doubling of the size of the public sector, admittedly from a low base, after the election of Roosevelt and his New Deal of 1932.
The twentieth century was, of course, the century of the US imperium. It was also one when the country exploded from a population of 76 million people to very nearly 300 million, with the fastest rising standards of living the world had ever seen. The relationship of this explosive growth seems to go-along with an expansion in the public sector and not the other way round!
Most European countries, with the ironic exception of the ex-eastern block, have a public sector typically 5-10% larger in relative terms than the States. For examle, a similar chart to the one above relating to the Swedish economy reveals a startling similarity, including surprisingly the spikes in the war years – though not the Korean War. All other western European nations follow a similar pattern.
Does their recent relative economic stagnation suggest that there is a relationship and that European countries have gone beyond the optimal level for the size of the public sector? Well not really because in the last decade it has been the Scandinavian countries (and Germany) with the largest public sector budgets that have been the most economically dynamic and it is the Mediterranean countries with their smaller (and relatively dysfunctional) public sectors, which have been doing worst.
Interestingly enough from my analysis the major differences betwen the States and Europe are unsurprisingly the higher percentage spend in the States on defence and the massively higher welfare spend in Europe.
At another level, it seems to me that in almost any country in the world, where I would want to live (apart from micro-states like Monaco or Fiji) the public sector is fairly comparable in relative size to the European and US norms. And this does not seem to me to be very surprising. Mature, complex societies need public works and public infrastructure; they need high standards of public education (a small highly educated elite will not do any more); they need a civic and legal structure carefully regulated and controlled; they need a large public sector, which not only creates wealth but creates the environment for the private sector to create even more wealth.
The flip side of the coin is that almost every country in the world where I would be worried about living has a relatively small public sector. So don’t invite me to Chechnya or ask me to spend an old age in either Russia or China, with their small public sectors (forget the assumptions about communist countries) and scandalous lack of law and order, regulation, public standards and provision for pensioners.
So given the lack of any substantial evidence to justify the Tory diehard position on the scale of the public sector economy just why do they stick so religiously to their current course? Well, it’s the dogma, stupid. The most pragmatic, flexible and some would argue the most successful political party in the western world has morphed into a herd of ideologues – that spells trouble for them!
Client Politics – the Punter is King
Client Politics seems to me to be an excellent description of a new brand of politics, which has grown out of triangulation and the Blairite tendency. Clearly closely related to the commercial version, “The Customer is King”, it can be taken at its extreme as an abnegation of leadership. “Giving the punter what s/he wants”, regardless of how it fits with “our policies”, may seem an extreme version, but it is getting close to a reality.
The most absurd examples of this philosophy occur in the education world, where student choice has led to many courses becoming a hotchpotch of popular subjects without any regard for the totality of the subject – hence endless Henry VIII and Hitler but no Magna Carta and the Black Death, or more and more IT studies and the end of chemistry. The rigour of an intellectual discipline is being lost in favour of a kind of X factor subject selection.
Is it fanciful to say, at least on the left, this comes from a loss of faith in leadership, whether expressed in the Leninist top-down model or in the milder British version of “the man from the ministry knows best”? And clearly leadership is extremely out of vogue. A recent meeting I attended in Battersea was all about “identity politics” and totally opposed to “political politics”. One older member of the left arguing that one could hardly become friends and discuss tactics until one knew each other’s politics whilst the younger community activists argued precisely the opposite, that you could not possibly discuss politics until you had become friends.
No one could argue with the proposition that both Lenin and the “man from the Ministry” got it wrong rather too frequently but now we have an education policy world under Gove, where any group of parents can argue for the establishment of a free school of any kind absolutely in disregard for what might have been “the man from the Ministry’s advice”. The absurd result is that in the Labour Party, which once believed almost entirely in non-sectarian education – see our experience in Northern Ireland – and which in the 70’s argued about the possibility of getting rid of Catholic and C of E schools, now has members arguing that we should not do anything other than welcome with open arms the prospect of having Jewish and Muslim primary schools as neighbours in our inner city.
The appeal is in the immediacy of the punters’ support. Whether the support is still there a few years, or even a few weeks, later is deemed irrelevant. Whether the long-term implications for the community are good or bad, we can justify our decision, because it was what the punters wanted. In the circumstances it is odd that we do not take too much trouble in trying to assess whether the punters are merely a vocal minority or perhaps even a misguided majority.
This is very apparent in the Wandsworth example of the Springfield Hospital development site. This large, undeveloped, NHS site has stood under-used for decades. The NHS, which of course needs the money, has put forward two perfectly acceptable development proposals, but they got their politics wrong. Their last application was submitted at a time when it got caught up in the 2010 General Election. Both major parties, for largely electoral reasons, took part in a vigorous anti-campaign and the Council, assisted by the fact that its Deputy Leader lived opposite the site, decided to reject the application.
The community, or rather the immediate neighbours, knew what it wanted and won the argument – the Council gave the punters their desires. But just what are the odds on a semi-privatised NHS, even more strapped for cash, and/or its developers coming back with a larger, much less neighbour friendly application – fair to middling I guess – and in the meantime we have had an extra few years of decay, fewer desperately needed homes and less money for the health service. So we have total victory for the punters in the short-term but arguably a loss for the wider community (the homeless and patients) and a probable long-term loss.
It is, of course, hard work standing up for one’s core beliefs when one really doesn’t have any. Hence as a working councillor, I hear arguments such as “free/faith/foundation schools are popular with the parents” and therefore we should not oppose them – regardless of our long-held belief that sectarianism should be kept out of schools. It’s an attractive proposition; especially when, over the course of time and government legislation, it seems particularly ostrich like to maintain one’s so-called principled position. A persuasive advocate of client politics would say, after Keynes, “Ah so as the facts change so does your position – and quite right too”.
But surely there has to be a limit to such an argument. Some core beliefs have surely to be really at the core. Client politics is too easy an escape from taking responsibility. Leadership must be receptive to public opinion, but it cannot escape the ultimate responsibility to lead.
Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere May Newsletter (# 37)
April highlights
1. I have to be honest – there weren’t many highlights as they affect anyone else, as I flew off to Cuba on 31st March. Of course I could tell you tons about that but as we all know no one is interested in other people’s holiday stories so I won’t other than to say Havana is great if you love music; the city is spectacular in a bizarre bomb site kind of way; the scenery in general is over-rated though parts are spectacular – see photograph where the insects were venomous!
What happens when Castro dies? Well that is the $64 million dollar question. Difficult to say, but I think that there is a fair bit of respect for Fidel and his Revolution. My own guess is that IF there were an election tomorrow, which of course there won’t be, he would get a respectable vote. May be sufficient even to retain control against an assortment of right and left-wing alternatives and, of course the Social and Christian Democrat alternatives! But that is not the same as saying that the regime will continue without him because I rather think it will not. The young are beginning to show signs of impatience – but what do I know? I was just a semi-casual observer!
2. The Finance and Corporate Resources Committee met on the 19th. There was stacks on the agenda but I’d have to say it was mainly of a house-keeping nature. There was a paper about how the Council is trying to shift everything online, which of course is fine for those of us happy to pay and claim for everything on-line but not so good for the non-IT literate – but you can see why. According to the experts every time we make a face-to-face enquiry it costs the Town Hall £7.40, every time we do it by phone then the cost is £2.90 but email business is done at £0.10P a time – as the Americans would say – “It’s a no-brainer”. There were other papers on office strategy, corporate objectives, emergency planning (What happens here in the event of a 9/11 catastrophe) and housing benefit.
One item that will interest some of you, however, was the sale of the Eltringham School site. Council rules don’t allow me to say exactly the price that the Council got for the site but it was way upwards of any of the speculation that I had heard. That one sale alone resolves most of the Council’s problems with the capital programme for the whole of this year!
3. The 18th April Planning Applications Committee had a couple of interesting applications, one for the partial redevelopment of Craven Cottage, the Fulham FC ground, and another for yet another giant, 500 feet (1870 metre) high development at Vauxhall. Neither of them are in Wa
ndsworth but all Boroughs are asked to comment on important applications close to the Borough boundaries. I wonder what you all think about the mini-Manhattan, which is inexorably taking shape at Vauxhall? I must confess I am not the keenest advocate of tower blocks and hence I have my doubts though I know one or two of you disagree with me. Here is an artist’s impression of what the “Tower” on its own will look like when completed – and there are quite a few more in the pipeline at the same height.
4. Went to see the Duchess of Malfi at the Old Vic on Friday, 27th April. It was written by John Webster, a couple of years after Shakespeare died, and it is a bloody tragedy – and do I mean bloody. I think 12 people got zeroed in the last act. Strange to say, it really is quite difficult to avoid laughing when bodies are collapsing all over the stage in front of you! Indeed there were so many that I am not even sure that I counted the number accurately. It is, however, about a very modern and horrible crime – so-called honour killings. Then, in the early 17th century it was about sexual desire and the class system – nowadays as we know it is frequently about religious intolerance. A stimulating evening!
5. Last month I commented that the Government is cutting back on many forms of housing benefit. I know that policy is not yet as unpopular as I think it will become but canvassing this month for the Mayoral election I came across examples of families, who believe that they will have to move out of Inner London because of their housing benefit cuts. When and if they do, they will be losing social connections, school placements and jobs – comment is hardly necessary.
6. OK, so I mentioned the Mayoral Election but I have always said that I would not use this newsletter as a crude party political campaigning tool – apart from anything else I know most of you reasonably well and all of you are quite capable of making up your own minds who to vote for. But one thing I do hope you do is to make the effort to go to vote – without that minimal effort you lose the right in my book even to complain with credibility.
My Programme for May
1. The Election on 3rd May will clearly keep me out of mischief most of this week – or perhaps that is mischief!
2. May is the big Month of the Year in Council terms. Hence there are Annual Meetings aplenty when we decide who the Mayor is going to be and who is going to run which Committee – except of course it isn’t quite like that at all. We already know that the Mayor is going to be Roehampton’s Adrian Knowles – what happens in May is that he is officially inaugurated as such.
3. The Wayford Street Residents Association AGM is on the 17th but unfortunately that is the evening of the Mayor’s inauguration and none of us councillors will be able to attend.
4. The Planning Applications Committee is on 23rd May.
5. On the 27th May at 11 am I am leading “an Historical Walk” from the Latchmere pub to the Battersea Arts Centre. It is part of the Wandsworth Heritage Festival – I charge £10 for it but I can guarantee that you will learn more about the history of Battersea than you had ever imagined – see below. If you would like to come then do drop me an email and I will give you more details.
What do you know?
The last duel in British history was fought in Battersea Fields, where Battersea Park now is. It was between the serving Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington (Yes, he of Waterloo and shown in the inset rather more reputably defeating Bonaparte) and the Earl of Winchelsea – and it wasn’t about gambling debts or a woman! It was all about the Duke’s plan to remove discrimination from British Catholics. Both were real old Tories and nothing had been further from Wellington’s mind when he took over as PM but the pressure to remove the legal constraints on Catholics taking public position were becoming impossible to maintain.
The year was 1829, and in the end Winchelsea chickened out – or rather did not make any serious attempt to “win” and the Duke fired his pistol into the ground. The public and press were furious and the papers the next day were full of condemnation – politics is perhaps just as lively today but no one has yet challenged me to a duel!
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 