My Latchmere August Newsletter (#40)
July highlights
1. On July 4th I went to a Labour Party fund raiser at the Fish in a Tie restaurant in Falcon Road, 
where the guest speaker was Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister. As you know I don’t make this newsletter a party political broadcast – far too boring – but I must say that Andy was on great form. He was interested to see the new Clapham Junction Health Centre, as he came to open the centre with me when it was in a couple of mobile caravans in the nearby car park just before the last election. By the way, if you haven’t been there, can I recommend the Fish in a Tie as one of the best, at very reasonable prices, restaurants in our ward.
Another thing Andy s
aw was the newly re-opened entrance to Clapham Junction station. Some of you complained about the length of time the work took but I think everyone will agree that the new entrance (pictured here) is a terrific improvement on what was there previously.
2. Last month I commented that the British economy was now officially in what is known as a “double-dip recession”. Unfortunately with both Government and Council pursuing a crazy deflationary policy there seems little prospect of pulling out of it and indeed I have heard some talk about a “triple-dip recession.” The result in Latchmere was yet another rise of 10 in the ward’s official unemployment numbers, with 330 men and 230 women unemployed.
3. The Planning Applications Committee on 18th July had one application of real local interest and that was the one about the re-development of Clapham Junction’s Peabody Estate at the top of St. John’s Hill. Local residents were very actively opposed to the application, including as it does a 12 storey block and 527 residential units. Their opposition was partly based on the traffic implications on Eckstein, Comyn and Severus Roads, partly on the sheer scale of the application and partly on the size of the 12 storey block. One of the problems about the height of the tallest block is, for me, that it is not only that high but that it is at the top of the hill and will, therefore, dominate everything on the south side of the railway lines. I joined, with senior Tory councillor Maurice Heaster in opposing the application but I am afraid the very many local residents in the public gallery were disappointed.
4. On 19th July we had the Latchmere Report Back Meeting at York Gardens Library, There was a large audience and the normal range of questions about housing, pavements, street cleaning and refuse collection but what made it unusual was the decision by the pressure group London Citizens to make it a “protest” against the Council’s cuts policies. This meant that what is usually a time for the local councillors to be asked and answer questions about the local ward, became a quizzing of Tory Council Leader, Ravi Govindia.
5. I am afraid that I did not attend the Poyntz Road/Knowsley Road Triangle Party on 7th July. I am afraid I chickened out when the heavens opened and rained on what for me is the best street party in the Borough.
My Programme for August
1. Well, to be honest what with personal holidays and the Olympics – I went down to Putney High Street to see the road race pas
s, not the greatest picture but there it is! – it doesn’t add up to much at all, but I will be interested to see exactly what is going to happen to the Borough’s Library services. On 21st August a Council Committee will be considering the next stage in the “contracting out” of the Borough’s boundaries. Anyone who knows me will know what I think about contracting out core services like Libraries but I am rather afraid that it does not look good for our service, which I expect to be contracted out to some multi-national services provider.
2. I am not back from holiday until 11th September and so next month’s newsletter will not be in the first week of the month!
Did you know?
Last month I mentioned that the Falcons used to be Wandsworth Council’s Livingstone Estate and that Peregrine House used to be called Burne-Jones Court, after the painter Edward Burne-Jones. Well to continue the parade, Griffon House, which of course was demolished to make way for the Imperial College student residencies was called Elgar Court.
Sir Edward William Elgar (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was, of course, the famous English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. His best known works are the Enigma Variations, and most notably the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, both regulars at the Promenade Concerts. And for those of you who have forgotten Pomp & Circumstance then here it is on U-Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=moL4MkJ-aLk
One of the most notable features about Elgar, pictured right, was that he was one of the first “classical” composers to take modern recording methods seriously. In a period from 1914-1925 he made several recordings but when in 1925 the microphone was invented he started a recording of all his works and hence has a fair claim to be the first composer to have had all his works recorded in his own lifetime.
Why the Council named the Livingstone blocks after artists like Burne-Jones and Elgar (with more to come), will be the subject of a later Newsletter.
The Punter is King but now dethroned!
In May I wrote a BLOG called “The Punter is King” and in it I included the following two paragraphs:
“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.”
Well, now the Secretary of State has taken the matter into his own hands and granted planning permisson and both the local Labour MP, Sadiq Khan, and the local Tory Council, Wandsworth Borough Council, have joined together in condemning the decision. But what actually is the result? The development is much as Wandsworth Council officers originally recommended, with very much the same conditions applied. As it happens the delay was not perhaps as great as I had feared and it is not the case that a worse scheme has been put forward by an even more cash-strapped NHS.
Does it merely prove that we are all Nimbies (from Nimby or Not In My Back Yard) and that big local planning issues cannot be left to local authorities – sad, if true.
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!
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 