This is a cross post by Daniel Jonas
I’m writing this as a politically engaged Jewish Londoner who is also an infrastructure systems nerd.
In mid-April, I was impressed that Sadiq Khan hadn’t put a foot wrong during his campaign, particularly compared to the divisive and racist nonsense being peddled by Zac Goldsmith’s camp. I said, after reading this:
“Good to see there’s someone left in the Labour Party who isn’t irredeemably dreadful and thick and knows how to avoid obvious pratfalls. I thought the “Sadiq defended extremists” stuff was a bit desperate and he seems to be making it clear which side of the fence he comes down on now. As long as he doesn’t get caught in a mosque saying to the uncles “I secretly agree with you” and steers clear of the likes of “Kaboom” Tamimi, he should get a clear run.”
Two weeks ago I was still going to vote for him, but got a nasty knock fromthis very perceptive piece by Jamie Palmer. I said:
“The picture that emerges is not really of a conviction politician, though; more someone who swims with the tide and sticks the boot in whenever it is of the most advantage to him personally.
In many respects this is pretty much the sort of politician I think is best at his job. He is unlikely to go on an ideological crusade about anything — unless it is in his best interests to do so. He’s a cold calculator. He’ll probably be good at the job. I’m not remotely convinced Goldsmith is up to it.
But I couldn’t vote for someone who actually believed that Farrukhan in particular was a decent man. But can I vote for someone who appears to think he can get away with weasel words and has been caught posturing so blatantly as the Blair meeting letter reveals?”
At this point, I had more or less made up my mind, but the clincher was the (no doubt intentional) detonation of the 2009 “Uncle Tom” remark to Press TV, which I regarded as a massive betrayal of Muslim secularists and liberals, some of whom I am proud to call my frends. Not even the attempt by the Shoeless Goon Squad at MPAC-UK to attack him using Israel gave me any comfort, despite the lobbying I got from some of his supporters. So, in the end, I voted for the Womens’ Liberty Party, because it’s about time we took such issues as seriously as they deserve: fair’s fair.
I hardly need to say that since he was duly elected, Sadiq has done all the right things. He wrote about how he was going to give anti-Jewish racism short shrift, went to Holocaust memorials, hugged rabbis and announced that Israel would be on his trade visit list, all in about the first week.
Now, I’m not a political insider — and a cynic would probably say that this is all about his positioning away from the Livingstone-Corbyn-Milne axis of evil and back towards sanity and social democracy; after all, Sadiq’s now a global figure and the leader of the greatest city on the planet. But I’m still reassured as a Jew.
I’m less reassured as a liberal and a secularist, despite this intervention from the ever-perceptive-but-gets-up-people’s-noses Maajid Nawaz after the voting was over (which might even have changed my mind).
The noises he’s made about “big tent” dialogue do not preclude the inclusion of his previous client list, which includes such rank bad hats as CAGE, al-Qaradawi and Farrukhan. I won’t be satisfied on this point until the likes of CAGE, MEND, 5Pillars and the Orangebeardi-al-Deathsquadi uncles of the East London Mosque’s ’71 Club are told in no uncertain terms that their redneck pendu shtick is over and the likes of Inspire and BMSD are no longer being undermined and sidelined. We’ll see.
If I am allowed to ignore religion and cultural cohesion, finally, we get to the stuff that’s really important in London: where are our children going to live? Where, indeed, are anyone’s children other than those of the oligarchs and bankers going to live? What’s going to happen to our transport?
I’ve heard one thing about bus tickets, which I like. I’ve heard more about preventing the extinction of black taxis, which I think flies in the face of commercial reality and technology and, disturbingly, continues the theme of “say what it is politically comfortable to say”. In reality, mobility will be a service in the future. Which actually means new business models will be required. What won’t be required, however, is the “knowledge”. Technology has made this obsolete. We need to look at actually rolling out the sort of stuff that’s being piloted in Greenwich by some of my ex-colleagues.
What I want to see now is the big vision. The vision that says this is not just about ticking his parochial boxes and winning the next election. The thing that reveals principle, character and the ability to stand up to the status quo with new thinking. I really didn’t see much evidence of this in the manifesto. Crossrail 2 is not what I mean by this, as much as I support it.
The first Tube strike will be very revealing. LU has new management in place and major figures have jumped ship to elsewhere in the industry — how this impacts the delivery programme we have yet to learn. Let’s see what happens when they try and launch the Night Tube, projected to be “later this year”. How Sadiq handles this will tell us a great deal, particularly if he caves to the unions.
Similarly, what will happen with property? For too long London has been about skyscrapers and basement extensions. Key workers can neither afford to live in town nor commute into it. Schools are full because the city is stuffed. Rentals and sales are out of control. Some of this, of course, isn’t in Sadiq’s remit — transparency about beneficial owners and indeed the BEPS programme at the OECD are going to have a massive effect on whether hot money from round the world hides in London’s platinum asset classes, but that’s up to the Government. Regeneration, though, is truly dependent upon London rebalancing away from the super-rich — and not requiring the middle class to be super-rich in order to remain in the next generation. I just read John Lanchester’s “Capital” — it lays it out as starkly as Ben Judahrecently has.
Finally, I know everyone says we have the best culture in the world, but that’s just not true for musicians when it comes to places to gig. This won’t be on anyone’s list, but if I had one personal ask, it would be to try and do something to make it easier for bands to play live.
I didn’t vote for Sadiq, but time will tell whether I vote for him next time round. It would be nice if I could actually vote on London, instead of being distracted by communal handbag fights.
