As some readers will know, Danny Blanchflower and I (he, at one time of the Bank of England monetary policy committee) have sometimes referred to ourselves as the Mile End Road economists.
The Mile End Road left the City of London to the east. A mile out, the world was a very different place. It was, amongst other things, where the Peasant's Revolt came to an end.
These days it is, amongst other things, home to Queen Mary , University of London. I was there yesterday taking about the future of water supply in the UK, with others with opinion on this issue.
I took this photo on the walk in:
The old merchant's house contrasts with the modern street.
On the way back towards King's Cross, I went by bus, as I often prefer to do. This was the view:
The divide between the City and the Mile End Road is still massive. The centuries have changed little in that sense. The money focussed world of one is replaced by that of the trader, the street stall, and the multitude of activities supporting the City in which working class people are engaged to let it function.
With the docks nearby, this has always been an area where migrants have been commonplace. The established hierarchies have always been challenged by the constant flux of people and peoples, coming and going.
This is a reminder that we still live in a deeply divided country. Some have the trappings of security and wealth. Others do not. But without the labour of those on the Mile End Road the City could never have functioned. It probably still can't. Not that the City has noticed. It treats the Mile End Road with contempt.
That is the reason for identifying with it.
That is especially true now that Labour has sided with the City and not the Mile End Road, to whom its loyalty should belong.
We live in a dangerous country where there is no major English political party seeking to represent the worker, the dispossessed, the poor, the migrant and those in flux.
There is a vacuum in our politics. Who will fill it?
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An opposition is forming which may make some inroads on July 4 – Faiza Shaheen, Andrew Feinstein, Jeremy Corbyn, candidates running against Wes Streeting and Jess Phillips among others. The Labour establishment by its purge of the Left is initiating a split. At the next election their ability to rely on comfortable and complacent boomers will have been diminished by the Grim Reapers winnowing hand. The next generation ie those currently in their late Fifties and younger will not be so biddable. The ‘broad church’ is over.
I am so fed up of this clap trap. I was born in 1947. I do, of course, blame my parents for that. I am not comfortable and I am not complacent. I have, at various times, been blamed for the ongoing support of the Tories, Brexit, antipathy towards refugees and the rise of the right. I have, indeed, always supported Labour, but this election has me doubting where my vote will go. This, I think, is the first time that I have been villified for my support of Labour but, hey ho, I suppose that it’s populist to support these stereotypes.
I am not really sure what you are saying Mike, if I am honest
“Not all Boomers”
The vaccum will be filled probably by something like Farage II but worse.
In other posts I have referred to LINO & the Tories as traitors with respect to the UK state – as embodied in citizens (no citizens – no state). The last 40 years have seen both parties destroy (intentionally or through ideology/stupidity) state structures designed to support citizens and in so doing, weakening the state. This is the action of traitors.
At some point, a group will pick this up and run with it, the probability is that they won’t be a nice group of peace loving fluffy bunnies – if only because of the feral nature of UK politics.
& thus we arrive at what the blog has mentioned from time to time: the decent into fascism.
Thank you, both.
The feeling from retired civil servants who saw the state being dismantled from the inside is that something like Farage fills the vacuum.
Across la Manche, the le Pen family businesses, perhaps soon to ally, but not merge, look in pole for 2027, but could get in earlier under “cohabitation”.
Ah – the Mile End Road – what memories that evokes whenever you mention it!
During my time as a student in London, I once went to a party given by a former schoolmate at QMC (Queen Mary College, as it was known until a fairly recent name change), missed the last tube home and at around 1am walked all the way from Mile End back to where I was living near Swiss Cottage (just north of the centre of London, about 6 miles as the crow flies, no doubt a fair bit more by whatever route I took). I don’t think anyone in their right mind would risk that these days (though maybe I wasn’t in my right mind then either – but thankfully I came to no harm).
Youth, eh?
Very well observed, Richard. Interest groups used to create political parties to represent them. In the 21st century, political parties have a selection process through which they choose who to represent. You can only really do this easily in an FPTP system. In a well-designed PR system that prioritises the voter over Party (e.g., STV, not a ‘list’ system – lists preference Party), the voter is in charge; and thus the voter does the selection.
Two Political Parties have run away with the Parliament, and are now building selection processes (ID, for example – use your passport to vote, for heaven’s sake) so that they control who is allowed to vote. Party has corrupted our electoral system. This is a major reason for the mess we are in – and two Parties, frankly nobody wants to vote for, but have virtually no choice at all. Hence we now have established TV debates with only two candidates.
We have arrived near the end game. Two votable candidates only for a Party run PM: the Single Transferable Party. It is totally corrupt. You have been robbed blind, and scammed.
“There is a vacuum in our politics. Who will fill it?”
Well there is a vacuum to the extent the electorate want centre politics and Kier Starmer is successfully filling the gap and will form a majority government. Of course this is not what the far left want but you must understand they do not align with who the public want to elect. It is just the way it is.
Very politely, if you think Starmer is centre-ground you are deeply deluded.
Centre ground only if your Overton window has skewed so far right that One Nation Tories are at the left side of it.
The vacuum is for a Democratic Socialist Party, the ‘focus group’ is all those who want the standard of living raised, water nationalised and our water cleansed, want to get the NHS back to its original purpose (and private firms marginalised) – in short, about 70% of the population, it seems. Unfortunately it is near impossible to start it from grassroots.
Militant centrists always disparage the “far left” as either utopian or “loony” whilst not realising their stance on the allegedly free market right is both authoritarian .. and equally utopian.
The suite of policies that is identified as “far left” is never detailed, and how that is somehow different from social democracy, which is basically what Corbyn’s 2019 programme represented.
No major political left of centre group in the UK suggests Marxian state managed economies even as an the aspiration, though trivially regulated free market neoliberalism, of Trussian Thatcherism, is still the dominant ideology of the right.
The oft declared notion that only the centre can ever be elected is the usual militant centrist waffle, and unsupported by any credible evidence.
If this really was the case we’d have had liberal democrat governments for ever.
So wanting the following policies constitutes being far left?
1) A fair voting system where parties get representation according to the preferences of the electorate, along the lines suggested by John Warren in this blog.
2) A substantial redistribution of wealth to reduce the current dangerously high levels of inequality with all it’s dangerous effects on society such as politics being bought by the super rich as Richard has frequently noted.
3) Taking the climate emergency seriously which means declaring it a national/global emergency and spending the resources necessary to decarbonise the UK economy and show the rest of the world that Britian, having begun the process of flooding the atmosphere with carbon, is now prepared to show moral leadership in moving from fossil fuels ASAP.
4) Declaring Brexit a political and economic disaster for the UK (and a triumph for people like Putin and Trump), laying the blame for it at the feet of the liars, xenophobes and ideological cranks who brought it about, and beginning the process of going back into the EU.
5) Reversing the proven disasters of privatisation which we see all around us; water, royal mail, the buses (outside london), the railways, etc.
6) Reversing the backdoor privatisation of the NHS, funding it properly, and treating the staff with respect instead of contempt.
7) Enacting (6) for the rest of the public sector as well, reversing 14 years of vindictive, stupid, dishonest and austerity driven policy from the tories.
8) Building from (6) and (7), recognising that the armed forces have also been run down and in the face of threats from Putin, China (cyberwarfare) and a probable (God help us!) Trump victory in November, substantially increasing defence spending.
9) Taking on the right wing “press” by bringing in Leveson 2 and banning ownership of news media by non-domiciled foriegn owners. For starters.
Is your ‘centrist’ labour party going to do any of the above?
On a point of information, I think the buses in London are run on some sort of franchised basis rather like that of the train operating companies; so, they are privatised. Outside London, in Edinburgh we have Lothian Buses providing generally excellent services throughout the city as well as parts of East Lothian Midlothian and West Lothian. It is the largest municipal bus company in the United Kingdom: the City of Edinburgh Council (through Transport for Edinburgh) owns 91%, Midlothian Council 5%, East Lothian Council 3% and West Lothian Council 1%.
Afraid so, ‘sickofalltaxdodgers’.
And if you try to discuss those with current Labour members, they say “Very nice but the money isn’t there” or they literally whisper “Agreed, but not for this Parliament” or “Wishful thinking, we have to be pragmatic” or similar bollix.
Hence the need for a European-style social democrat party.
With 45 secs only allowed per point, it neither was nor could be, in any sense of the word, a ‘debate’ – more like a PMQ.
Let’s hope Friday is managed better – it can’t be worse.
Friday’s debate where the greens get a look in is the only one I’ll bother watching, if I watch any. It might be interesting if Carla Denyer is able to get a word in edgeways against the gobshites of the right like Farage and Mordaunt.
And it will be Rayner for labour, a damn sight better than Starmer.
On a humourous note, do you think Mordaunt will turn up with that stupid sword?
Richard
I work in the City of London (Bishopsgate) and live you could say not too far from Mile End.
The contrast that you describe and that I experience/witness every day is very very real and the divide, inequality has grown exponentially over the last 3/4 decades.
My commute to and from work is a revelation and paints perfectly the scene that you have outlined above.
I get on the tube in the mornings with ‘the workers, the dispossessed, the poor, the migrants and those in flux’ and we alight at the tube/train/bus stops/stations which serve the City of London where we are all sold/advertised neoliberal opportunities and ideology, where there are shiny offices/workspaces, art galleries, abandoned churches, Michelin star restaurants, food stalls, clean streets, a special police force, private hospitals, gyms, better quality amenities/facilities, homeless/mentally ill people begging/sleeping in the streets.
Then in late afternoon, evening and night we all return to places like Mile End and areas beyond it where there is crime, anti-social behavior, long waiting lists for almost everything, cheap ultra processed food, rubbish, poor quality housing, mental/physical distress, abuse of all kinds, poverty. Here there is misery, despair, disadvantage, deprivation, limited resources and no signs of hope or change.
The politicians of the City of London represent and work hard to drive and enforce the neoliberal view that you mention. They are powerful, wealthy, resourceful and have no qualms whatsoever with free-markets and the so called laissez-faire approach. In fact, they do everything possible to protect/promote neoliberalism. The bank of England is located in the City of London, this speaks volumes in and of itself. Other financial districts in London like Canary Wharf and some other commercial/financial center’s are guided by the City of London’s vast power/wealth and the divide is growing by the day.
With this in mind, I think an actual walkabout filmed for TV/internet with you and Danny striding and walking together throughout the City of London and Mile End in which you both talk/discuss/explore and unpick, the history, politics, economics, balance of power, shifts in policies, and root causes of the dangerous inequality and deep deep division between the City of London and places like Mile End would make for very interesting and revealing TV and/or online streaming series.
I think it would allow you both to bring to light the issues that you strongly believe to an audience that is currently untapped as of yet. Such a series would portray the essence of your’s and Danny’s work including all the themes/topics/subject that you tackle in the Courageous State, The Joy of Tax, Dirty Secrets (as City of London) is a tax haven, Taxing Wealth Report and so on.
I have plenty of suggestions and ideas in this regard which I would love to share with you if you guys think its worth looking into.
Richard
I work in the City of London (Bishopsgate) and live you could say not too far from Mile End.
The contrast that you describe and that I experience/witness every day is very very real and the divide has grown exponentially over the last 3/4 decades.
My commute to and from work is a revelation and paints perfectly the scene that you have outlined above. I get on the tube in the mornings with the workers, the dispossessed, the poor, the migrants and those in flux and we alight at the tube stations which serve the City of London where we are sold opportunities, where there are shiny offices/workspaces, art galleries, abandoned churches, micehlin star restaurants, food stalls, clean streets, a special police force, private hospitals, gyms, better quality amenities/facilities, homeless/mentally ill people begging/sleeping in the streets and then we return late in the day to places like Mile End and areas beyond where there is crime, anti-social behavior, waiting lists, rubbish, poor quality housing, mental/physical distress, poverty. Here there is disadvantage, deprivation, limited resources.
The politicians of the City of London represent and drive the neoliberal view that you mention. They are powerful, wealthy, resourceful and have no qualms whatsoever with free-markets and the so called laissez-faire approach. In fact, they do everything possible to protect neoliberalism. The bank of England is located in the City of London. Other financial districts in London like Canary Wharf and some other commercial/financial districts are guided by the City of London’s vast power/wealth.
I think an actual walkabout with you and Danny throughout the City of London and Mile End in which you both talk/discuss/explore and unpick, the history, politics, economics, balance of power, shifts and dangerous inequality and deep deep division between the City of London and places like Mile End would make for very interesting and revealing TV/online streaming series and would allow you to bring to light to an audience that is untapped as of yet the essence of your’s and Danny’s work including all the themes/topics/subject that you tackle in the Courageous State, The Joy of Tax, Dirty Secrets (as City of London) is a tax haven, Taxing Wealth Report and so on. I have plenty of suggestions and ideas in this regard which I would love to share with you if you guys think its worth looking into.
That would be interesting
But unless wer make it ourselves I am sure that there is no chance of this happening
Gary Stevenson would be the other required participant
Thank you, both.
I echo Eric’s comment and add how the City got their man, Justin Welby, as primate.
@ Eric: I work in the City, too, including as a lobbyist.
@ Richard: Kathleen Tyson is another. She’s on Twitter.
Sounds great, if it could possibly be done – and reach a wide audience.
There is quite a tradition of psycho geography – and/or socio – geography – people recording their walks – and London always has been such a rich territory for this.
(Such as Will Self, Ian Sinclair, Richard Mabey , Robert McFarlane etc ) – and reaches right back to , and sort of merges with the idea of pilgrimage – Chaucer etc.
For what its worth, my own version of Richard’ s Mile End/City journey – when I arrived in town bunking in a spare bedroom off Sloane Square in South Kensington, it was a forty minute walk from the riches of South Ken over the Holland Park hill into what was then the ‘urban jungle’ of Notting Hill – not all that long after the race riots – as a temporary supply teacher at an ungovernable secondary boys school which no longer exists.
Literally two different worlds . Rachman landlordism was rife in Notting Hill, shabby broken down and socially volatile.
30 years later, after what some have called its ‘re gentrification’ Notting Hill was arguably more fashionable than Kensigton.
And some say that Mile End has seen and is seeing considerable gentrification (has it Richard?) – social and geographic change is the essence of London .
But – ‘the more things change,the more they stay the same’. A society and economy with such severe inequality as the UK will always have ultra rich and ultra poor neighbourhoods – not geographically far apart so the poor can travel to service the rich.
But the system is being stretched to breaking point – with fewer and fewer proportion of people not able to afford to live even in ‘poorer’ areas of London . Something has to give – rent controls, interest rate drop or something..
The Mile End Road is not entrified
Hoxton and Shoreditch might be – but Mile End, I don’t think so
And you are – soemthing has to give
Thanks Colonel Smithers. Couldn’t agree more about Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_