After last Monday’s lengthy post on British politics, I promised I would talk about other matters more. Today I endeavour to do just that, though whether I can keep it up is another matter entirely. Warning: I’ve tried to write more briefly, but yet again I’ve totally failed.
As with last week’s post, I wanted to analyse just one piece in today’s Best of the Week. It comes from Rod Liddle, who I rarely agree with, particularly on Brexit. But today he presents an acerbic critique of London. https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/if-youre-not-tired-of-london-youre-tired-of-life/ This was shortly followed by a critique of the green belt- the countryside surrounding London. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/welcome-to-the-green-belt-a-safe-space-for-lily-livered-londoners/
First, a bit of context. Over the past twenty years, London has expanded in size considerably. The financial deregulation of the late Eighties led to an increase in the number of well-paid jobs in the city, particularly in the otherwise deprived East End. Not only has this attracted migrants from less fortunate parts of Britain, it has also attracted people from all around the world. While London has long been a favourable destination for migrants, this trend has accelerated considerably in recent years. For the first time ever, the UK 2011 census found that the proportion of Londoners who identify as ‘White British’ was actually less than half. (Whites are still about 60% due to EU migration.)
The cause of such a profound demographic transformation is not just immigrants moving into London, it is British people choosing to leave. Very often, ex-Londoners will say things like, ‘I want better schools for my children,’ or ‘I like the countryside,’ or ‘London has become too expensive.’ Now those things are certainly true, but they aren’t entirely true. For instance, contrary to popular belief, London’s schools are actually amongst the best in the country, even for poor people. The city’s crime rate has declined, as has its levels of poverty. So economic factors alone cannot explain British Londoners choosing to leave the city in such large numbers.
For social conservatives like Liddle, London’s economic situation is part of the problem, but it is not the only problem. Liddle’s critique of London’s economy is that it is too unequal, even if the city as a whole is wealthy. He accurately points out that there are a large number of people working for very low wages, faced with high housing costs and long hours. Even in wealthy Kensington and Chelsea, the poverty rate actually exceeds the national average. On the other hand, you have a privileged upper-middle class who benefit from the city’s abundance of cheap labour, allowing them to hire nannies and workmen for a pittance. Moreover, there is a cruel racial dimension to this inequality, much like in America. The wealthy who benefit from inequality are mostly white, except for a few Arab oligarchs. The poor who work for them are mostly black or Asian. The Grenfell Tower fire was only a recent example of how London’s non-whites are often neglected.
But although Liddle sympathises with the plight of London’s ethnic minorities, he is also critical of the city’s multiculturalism, and of the politicians that allow them to migrate there in such large numbers. Liberal policymakers are responsible for homegrown terrorism, politically correct councils and ethnic segregation. None of these problems may affect those rich enough to isolate themselves from them, but for ordinary middle class people, they make life worse. The left is meant to be in favour of curbing excess wealth. Yet by supporting mass immigration, it has made inequality worse.
Which brings us on to the green belt. For Liddle, the green belt is for those honest enough to admit that London’s PC zealotry, vast inequality and social division have got totally out of hand. But they still want the economic benefits of living in the capital- having their cake and eating it. He views this as unsustainable, leading to an ever-larger urban sprawl where London will relentlessly expand. Much like with his views on the EU, he believes people should leave it properly, not pretend there is anything to salvage from it,
I most disagree with Liddle on all of this. His assessment of London as an economically unequal and socially segregated city is indisputable. What he fails to mention is that this is true of nearly all globalised cities. New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin- are all exactly the same. It is in the nature of large cities to be divided. Their economic clout and cultural amenities attract the wealthy, while the abundance of low-paying jobs and availability of public transport attract the poor. It is the middle class, who are too rich to quality for social housing but too poor to live in the nice neighbourhoods, that find themselves pushed out.
More importantly, Liddle fails to make the comprehensive case for economic equality and cultural homogeneity as inherent virtues. London may be an economically unequal city, but it is also by far the most socially mobile place in Britain, according to both the government and the Sutton Trust. London’s poor have a much greater chance of becoming rich, partly because the education system is so much better. Surely, social mobility is more important than equality, particularly compared to rural areas where everyone is equally poor. Equally, London’s inequality in close proximity may be preferable to other countries, where rich and poor live in totally different areas.
Liddle may not say so explicitly in these articles, but he doesn’t approve of multiculturalism, not just mass immigration’s effects on inequality and security. He would rather live in a town that is mostly white British, in a similar way to how many black people would rather live in a town with a higher black population. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting that, as long as you are honest enough to admit that that is what you want, which Liddle isn’t. But London’s multiculturalism isn’t making it unliveable. People of different backgrounds are actually more likely to get on in London, compared with other British cities with a higher white population, particularly those in the North. On the whole, I can imagine that living in a city of contrasts is actually very exciting, even if it poses its challenges.
Finally, the green belt, where I have lived for my whole life before going to university. Liddle seems to believe that it is full of middle class ex-Londoners, who are very politically correct, liberal and unfriendly. Actually, the opposite is the case. Many green belt inhabitants left London for the same reasons as why Liddle disapproves of it: they don’t like economic inequality and multiculturalism. The green belt is far more conservative than London, with a lot of it supporting Leave in the EU referendum. The desire for London’s economic benefits is more one of necessity than choice; many people don’t like working in London but can’t find as good a job elsewhere. While urban sprawl is an issue, the green belt actually has amongst the lowest rates of house building in the country. I also strongly disapprove of referring to the green belt as a homogenous entity. It is divided between distinctly average New Towns like Crawley (where I lived) and Harlow, working class multicultural towns like Slough and Luton, middle class towns like Guildford and Tunbridge Wells, and upper class towns like Beaconsfield and Esher.
