Begging for Change

Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett professor of planning and regeneration at University College London, wrote this week about ‘the Games’ that “despite the torch-bearing preliminaries across the land, and apart from Olympic and Paralympic events that were scattered around south-east England, this was a London event and a London triumph.”

“This,” he continued, “can only intensify the division, familiar from the daily drip-feed of news items, between London and its wider South East hinterland, and the rest of the national economy. Two recent samples: house prices are falling everywhere, except in London; and the world’s top ten universities include four from the UK – two in London, plus Oxford and Cambridge. As Boris Johnson is fond of saying, London’s global pre-eminence isn’t simply based on the bankers: the city also includes top universities, top hospitals, top TV producers, top theatre, top almost everything in every league.”

Sir Peter’s conclusion? “It doesn’t have to be that way. Berlin is the capital of Germany, but is far from its most successful city. Germany is the land of great provincial cities: larger ones such as Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, and smaller ones like Freiburg. But to achieve that in the UK, you need to rescue the dreaded r-word from the dustbin, and reconstruct the national economy around strong regions, which no British government has dared seriously to contemplate.”

The implication seems to be that if only we had a British government that would “dare” seriously contemplate the demotion of London then all would be well. Indeed it would. London didn’t get where it is today by its own efforts. It got there by using, across ten centuries, the spending power of the taxpayer-funded institutions of a certain unitary state whose capital it happens to be. Those are institutions it has learned how to manipulate to maintain that position.  And having done so, it has gone on to create a climate of public opinion that defers to their role in arbitrating what can and cannot be done locally and regionally.  To hear the great and the good pontificate on a lack of talent in the provinces to trust with decision-making does beg the question of who is qualified to judge talent and why.

The reason why Germany is more to Sir Peter Hall’s liking is that its development was not directed from the capital but by a strong tradition of provincial self-rule. So expecting the British government seriously to contemplate what it has never seriously contemplated before is the triumph of hope over experience. It won’t happen. Power isn’t surrendered; it is taken.

That is why those who call upon the London regime to mend its ways, or who suggest we should work within the Labour Party to put some backbone into its regional policy, are bound to be disappointed. We have no true allies on the inside. The only sure way forward is to build the world we wish to see from the bottom up. Working to strengthen our coherence as a region. Learning from other historic regions and small nations with whom we stand in solidarity. Wishing the London regime as much ill-will as it visits upon us. You don’t have to be a separatist to recognise that nothing succeeds like secession.

Knowing Your Boundaries

“I pay respect to wisdom not to strength.”

The quote is from C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life; the words are those of Loki, the Norse trickster god. In this part-autobiography Lewis described his experiences at Wyvern College, a pseudonym for Malvern College, the boys’ public school in Mercia. School sports were something he always found difficult to explain. “If sport is so popular,” he once enquired, “why is it compulsory?”

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, school. It can be remembered as fun and delight. Or as misery and trauma. Often the difference comes down to the legacy left by individual teachers. To micro-manage outcomes from the centre may meet targets, but it is unlikely to produce well-rounded citizens.

Yet London politicians, hyper-ventilating after a fortnight of Olympic triumphs and vanities, do indeed believe they know best. Britain’s top toffs, Dave and Boris, have been trying to out-run each other on the political playing field. Cameron has promised a führer directive that all primary schools in England (& Cornwall) shall teach competitive sports (excluding only the free schools and academies, which are now way beyond any meaningful accountability for their mis-use of public money). There are two things wrong with this. One is the solution itself and the other is the way the solution is being imposed.

Solution to what? That is the question. Why do schools need to teach competitive sports? Physical activity is good for health, that’s true, Indian dancing more so than boxing. But competition, taken to its extreme where concern for the welfare of others is eliminated, has historically been the root of all evil. The Tories love it because it undermines the co-operative instinct, creating a climate of dehumanising aggression that’s good for a state of permanent war, whether military or economic. The sporting ideal of excellence coupled with respect is routinely abused from that source. Fortunately, co-operation always has its rebels who rise above such nonsense. They can be seen in any school football match, standing idly around the edges of a muddy field, cold and bored, while the biggest boys in the year fight over the ball. Competitive sports have nothing to offer them. It isn’t that they have failed physical education; it’s that physical education has failed them. Pouring public money into school sports might produce Olympic gold in 20 years' time but it will not produce a nation of 50 million Olympians. That the needs of the sporting elite and the needs of most others are radically different is a point that London politicians are happy to ignore. Sport for all is a wonderful idea; elite sport for all is an oxymoron.

As decentralists we are still more passionately involved in the other question: of why Cameron should have the power that he does to decree the curriculum in English community schools. He doesn’t own them. He doesn’t manage them: that’s the job of head teachers and their boards of governors, drawn from the local community to which they are accountable. It isn’t properly the job of the local education authority, unless schools were to agree voluntarily to pool curriculum development. It isn’t the job of the Education Secretary either; indeed, his entire department could be abolished with no ill effects, and many positive ones. And it certainly isn’t the job of the Prime Minister to confuse leadership with arrogant interference in the jobs of others. Use the rhetoric of localism if you really mean it, and if you don’t, then stop imagining we’ll think you a decent bloke for cherry-picking whatever issues play best in the tabloid press.

Raining On Their Parade

After tomorrow, it all kicks off. How much better can it get? Can you contain your excitement? Bought the official Olympic flag to wave (beware of imitations)? Wondered where we’d be without the stern authority of the IOC and the generosity of public-spirited corporate sponsors? Stopped whining, as Boris demands? Faced with a series of jaw-dropping security scandals, the only silence seems to be coming from those who’ve spent their lives arguing that global big business invariably does it better than the democratic sector.

Or maybe you’ve had a giggle at the Teletubbies layout for the opening ceremony, with its scale model of Glastonbury Tor? (Shame then that there’s no real cider or ale on sale in this ‘showcase for Britain’.) Or, better still, maybe you’ve had a chuckle at the idea of intercepting London’s rain so that it falls on Wessex?

Laugh? We could have cried. Greece hosted the 2004 Olympics, and look where they are now.

Nuking Weymouth

According to financial analyst David Malone today, “2012 is going to be the year of unrest and repression.”

A London establishment that has spent the last decade, and more, treading heavily on the world has now invited the world round for a spot of sport. And is getting worried. It might be a very good idea not to be in southern Dorset next summer, in view of some of the scenarios now being modelled.

Of course, nothing at all may happen. But a lot of useful experience in crowd control and the like will have been gained...

England. A.K.A. London?

We do not argue that Wessex is not English but we do argue that there is a debate to be had about the governance of England. A unified England is a centralised England – in many ways still a Norman England – and one that in practice is run largely for London's benefit, not ours.

Take the Olympic Games, to be held in London in 2012, for the third time. No other UK city has ever hosted the games, yet provincial cities elsewhere have (Barcelona being the prime example that is still looked up to).

According to a recent report in the Financial Times (a London newspaper), preparations for the games have delivered a publicly funded bonanza for companies in London and the South East but other areas are deriving meagre benefits. Companies based in London have won more than £2.7 billion of contracts, more than half the total £5.1 billion so far spent by the Olympic Delivery Authority. Looking at the other Prescott zones, we find that South East companies won contracts worth £805 million and those in eastern England £719 million. Companies in the North East and South West won just £9 million each. Distance is not the deciding factor: the North West won £97 million and Scotland £23 million.

The ODA claimed contracts had filtered down to companies outside London through sub-contracts: "Direct ODA contracts are the tip of the iceberg and there are hundreds of sub-contracts going to businesses through the UK-wide supply chains." However, it could not provide any evidence to support this claim, citing confidentiality.

Sure, London council tax payers are footing a slice of the bill. But so are we all. In 2005, when London won the Olympic bid, Seb Coe pledged that the games would "provide a unique opportunity for businesses of all shapes and sizes across the UK, providing essential goods and services for this historic event." Reality seems to differ.