Johnson’s Water Cannon Arrive

The Mayor of London has completed the purchase of three water cannon from the German federal police force. The £218,000 weapons cannot be used unless the Home Secretary approves their use in Great Britain (rather than Northern Ireland). Evidently Mr Johnson is sufficiently confident of securing her blessing that he feels able to spend a lot of Londoners’ money on the purchase.

Mr Johnson is not just buying “any ordinary” water cannon either: the reason German police are selling is that they are phasing out that particular model due to safety concerns. They are currently being sued by a man who lost vision in one eye after being attacked with one of the cannon.

Various newspapers report that, since then, Johnson’s weapons have been used by the German police to demolish windows in buildings ahead of raids. This shows the sheer force that they produce: it’s not like being sprayed with a garden hose. These are military grade weapons, a favourite of brutal dictatorships to disperse protests.

Who’s to say that legitimate protests won’t be the next target of British police? Few would disagree with claims that London’s Metropolitan Police are notoriously heavy-handed. It only takes a few violent people to provoke harsh police retaliation on an entire crowd.

Boris Johnson says that the cannon are a vital ‘asset’ in the event of a repeat of riots like those of 2011. But, to borrow from his exquisite vocabulary, we’ve heard similar “piffle” from our politicians before. The terrorist attacks of 2001 and 2005 prompted a massive expansion of police and state power at the expense of civil liberties. We were assured that British police, who were unarmed since time immemorial, would only carry guns “under exceptional circumstances”. Now, in London (albeit not in the rest of the UK), there’s nothing unusual about seeing police officers carrying formidable firearms on day-to-day patrols. Moreover, in the name of the “War on Terror”, politicians tore up protections against detention without trial; imposed restrictions on our democratic right to protest (in case terrorists attack the free world by demonstrating?); and have even legalised secret courts.

Where does it end?

It doesn’t. When the emergency of Islamist terrorists recedes, it will be rioters, or eco-terrorists. Each threat seems to warrant a further expansion of state power at the expense of hard-won civil liberties. Yet no politician is going to reverse this process: not out of some imagined conspiracy to subjugate the people, but because any reversal will be seen as undermining “security”. Look at the debate on nuclear disarmament and you’ll see what happens to politicians seen as ‘weak’ on security.

The introduction of water cannon to London would be a threat because, soon enough, there will be more than three of them, they won’t just be in London and they won’t just be used for riot dispersal. How many similar precedents do we want to set?

London Homes Are For Londoners

We all know that the British housing market is an absolute joke. It has become so distorted as to lock-in vast proportions of the national wealth in housing that is overvalued and of relatively low quality (British housing is notoriously cramped and energy inefficient by European standards). In the nation’s capital, the situation is even more surreal. Families of even the skilled middle class are being priced out of the city altogether, pushed out by slum landlords, chronic under-supply, amateur landlords, housing speculators, foreign owners and migrant workers with tragically low expectations. The average house price in the city  is £449,500. That’s 18 times the median income.

As I’ve said, there are about half a dozen factors that have rendered London unaffordable for ordinary people. Ultimately, demand will force the city to grow further into the surrounding countryside (who fancies a daily Tube commute to the Square Mile from the suburban London Borough of Sevenoaks?) or a consistent policy response to ease, and even reverse, the capital’s recent population growth. By massive regionalisation of government and key industries, the pressure on a city that represents about 12% of the UK population- but most of its power- could be eased. In the future, London should not have the monopoly on the ambitious, the high fliers and the head offices: regional powerhouses like Manchester, Cardiff and Bristol must become just as important. Even clusters of “New Towns” could between them become economic centres.

But such an aim will take decades to realise, leaving the issue of soaring housing demand in London chasing a limited supply. It is the government’s responsibility to address this, as it can in three ways. It can curtail demand, boost supply or abandon housing to market forces, forcing the poor out of the city (or into ghettoes on its outer edges). The present government has chosen option three, slashing Housing Benefit to accelerate the process. The opposition is calling for a combination of options one and two.

Londoners must be given a real chance to buy or rent [new] homes.

We will stop developers advertising properties overseas first and ensure they are available for the people that really need them.

We will give councils proper powers to tackle ‘buy-to-leave’. We will consult on allowing councils to double the amount of additional council tax they can charge on empty properties, and close loopholes which mean homes are not considered empty if they are furnished with just a single table and chair.

Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party

The principle is 100% sound. Why on earth would we sell homes to millionaires in Malaysia when there aren’t enough to go round for existing Londoners? This is not a debate about immigration: a large number of the new houses built in London are being sold to absentee owners who do not intend to move to the country; they are being purchased as investments. Besides, it is actual immigrants who are suffering the most due to London’s housing shortage. However, my concern with the policy is just that it doesn’t go far enough.

If the aim is to reduce artificial demand for homes caused by speculation, then no half-measures will be effective. Here’s how to end the scandal of houses left empty for profit while others go homeless:

• Hike Capital Gains Tax on houses. If somebody is looking to profit by sitting on an habitable house, they must pay towards the social costs. A standard rate of, say, 95% of the properties’ appreciation should be sufficient.
• Impose a residency test on home ownership. Nobody can own residential property unless they are a UK resident. Immigrants may buy their home, speculators who live elsewhere cannot.
• Multiply Council Tax on spare homes. In particular, it should be prohibitively expensive to own a third house. A second is questionable enough.

Some things are more important than appeasing speculators and fat cats. And I’m afraid that providing everyone with a decent, secure and affordable home is one of them.

Standing Up For Their Jobs

Another strike bringing the London Underground to a near halt. More complaints about the “militant” RMT trade union and its leader, Bob Crow; another two days of gridlock in the capital; and more dark threats from the Conservative Party about another round of union-busting legislation.

However, the 48-hour strike by the RMT and the TSSA that is inconveniencing London is not the run-of-the-mill tube strike over pay. This is about fighting 950 job cuts that threaten to remove vital support for passengers. This is about resisting the creeping automation of London’s public transport and all the consequences that entails. This is about peoples’ livelihoods. For those of you unfamiliar with the dispute, trade union members are opposing plans to close all ticket offices on the Underground and fire the 950 staff who man them between other duties such as assisting disabled people onto trains. Transport for London (TfL), the arm of the city government which owns the Tube, says that only 2% of ticket sales are through the offices- the rest are made through ticket machines and Oyster smartcards.

Faced with that statistic, I too would say that the ticket offices must be an inefficiency. But that’s not true. Who are the 2 percent of customers who use the ticket offices? Tourists who don’t understand the equally complex route network and fares system, the “technology illiterate” who can’t use the ticket machines, including the elderly in particular. So what if it costs £50 million a year to provide an accessible service to these people, and a safe environment in the rest of the stations? If transport is a public service, it should be open to all, even if that means a few unprofitable decisions.

If Boris Johnson is prepared to condemn the RMT members who voted to strike as “bad workers” then he is only showing how skewed his outlook is. The workers who are forgoing two days’ wages and enduring massive unpopularity are not doing it because they fancy a day off. It’s because they value the service they provide, and value their jobs, or their colleagues, enough to fight to protect them. It might not make them soulless, exploitable units of labour, but it makes them exactly the right people defend our public service of transport. They deserve every success.

Thank The Super Rich? You’re Not Getting It, Boris

The airwaves are full of controversial mayors at the moment: the war of words and votes between Toronto’s Mayor and its City Council is being watched with bemusement by the world. Bill de Blasio’s landslide election victory in New York is still sending political shockwaves. And now, the Conservatives’ Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has just endangered his moderate image and the public goodwill that has carried him to City Hall in a Labour heartland.

For in an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, Johnson said that “zillionaires” are a “put upon minority” like the homeless. He proposed automatic knighthoods for this oppressed minority, on the grounds that they keep us all in jobs out of the goodness of their hearts. Here is the best bit of the article:

It is my duty to stick up for every put-upon minority in the city – from the homeless to Irish travellers to ex-gang,members to disgraced former MPs. But there is one minority that I still behold with a benign bewilderment, and that is the very, very rich.

These are the people who put bread on the tables of families who – if the rich didn’t invest in supercars and employ eau de cologne-dabbers – might otherwise find themselves without a breadwinner. We should stop any bashing or moaning or preaching or bitching and simply give thanks for the prodigious sums of money that they are contributing to the tax revenues of this country, and that enable us to look after our sick and our elderly and to build roads, railways and schools.

That’s right: our grandparents are contracting hypothermia, our young have ever fewer prospects, and our workers are watching their wage packets decline… In short, much of the nation faces economic insecurity to varying levels, and where has the money gone? National wealth is growing in most developed countries, but I make an informed point when I say that, in all Anglo-American model economies, you must look up to see where the cash has gone. Our utilitiy and financial services companies have surging profits and our chief executives’ wages and pensions are awarded generous increases every year.

So when Mr Johnson cites the richest 1% paying 30% of all income taxes, we should ask two questions: 1) What percentage of all income do they have? I bet it’s at or above 30%. 2) Whose wealth is it anyhow?

When Mr Johnson’s “zillionaire” pals get to accumulate such obscene levels of wealth, it’s more often than not because they’ve syphoned off the money from the proletariat. The managers and owners of this world are not the producers, and should be aware that their role, though important, is not the central one. Certainly, Johnson is right to say that it isn’t a crime to be super-rich. Provided the money is earned, in the true sense of the word, and one lives up to the responsibilities that come with such privileges. But do we need to feel grateful to the Bob Diamonds of this world?

There are few people who could take such a question seriously or answer it politely if they could.

The Attack On London’s Emergency Services

London: a bustling, vibrant metropolis which over 7,000,000 people call home. With the highest population density of any settlement in Britain, the clear need for decent infrastructure and services to serve Londoners and the institutions that exist within the city has been cause for some emotive debates for centuries. In addition to services such as transport, which virtually all Londoners will interact with on a daily basis, it is essential that we have good emergency services.

In the tragic 7/7 terror attacks, it was London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service which were first on the scene, and they saved many lives because they had the resources and manpower to respond swiftly. More recently, the incident in which a helicopter crashed into a crane and then onto Wandsworth Road (in Vauxhall) would have been a lot worse had firemen from the local Clapham fire station not been so nearby.

Unfortunately, Conservative-led administrations in both Whitehall and City Hall do not recognise the necessity of well-funded emergency services, and are planning dangerous cuts to the headcounts and budgets of NHS, police and fire services.

This is the extent of the planned cuts:

·         All three services’ budgets are being cut by around 20% over the next two years

·         Various police stations will be replaced with part-time ‘contact points’ in supermarkets and coffee shops

·         4,200 police officers

·         560 fewer paramedics

·         The closure of 7 out of 32 A&E departments

·         Closing up to 30 fire stations- including in  Clapham and Kensington

The south inner London boroughs are set to suffer disproportionately due to these cuts. The boroughs have already lost 1 in 5 of their police officers (far above the London average; and will have local hospitals under increased strain with the loss of Lewisham A&E. Not only does this mean that the community will bear a greater burden of redundancies, but it will also be a dangerous place to need emergency assistance. There is no possible way such severe cuts will not delay call-out times, or avoid placing severe strain on courageous workers already doing some of the toughest jobs in existence.

This is why Labour, in collaboration with other London residents, is running the 999SOS campaign. Its aims are very simple: to make the city and central governments rethink their commitment to these dangerous cuts. Whilst it’s true that the Coalition is imposing the bulk of the funding reductions, Boris Johnson is letting Londoners down by failing to follow Labour’s example in local government: to highlight the impact of such cuts and pressure the Treasury to put people first.

We can’t rely on the Mayor to defend our interests. If we are to prevent London becoming a dangerous place to live, we must act ourselves to protect visible and capable emergency services, for the wellbeing of the entire community.

Stop “Pussyfooting” And Admit We Don’t Need Another Airport

So the Mayor of London is trying to ensure that a further airport is inflicted on the south-east of England, and preferably it would be his white elephant “Thames island” airport plan. He seems to be considerably more vocal about his views now that he is not seeking re-election. Here in London, and across the south-east, very few want another airport. The noise pollution and congestion caused by the existing facilities is excessive as it is, and any further addition to it will make residing in some areas intolerable. Multiple studies indicate that those living near airports suffer higher rates of mental health problems, poorer academic achievement, and loss of concentration. Why should we extend this to yet more communities?

Besides the immediate human costs of constructing a new airport, there is the matter of environmental cost. Air travel is about the worst human activity for pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and so it is the first activity that must be curtailed to protect ourselves from climate change. Nobody can seriously expect that the frequency of flights that we have today will be sustainable if we are to meet our emissions reduction targets. Rather than expanding airport capacity, we should  look at reducing it. We cannot afford to continue with this peculiar doublethink on the environment.

That the construction of new airports is seen as politically viable shows how much further the environmentalist movement has to go to convince our leaders that they must take climate change seriously. It cannot be allowed to slip off the agenda.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson: a real possibility

Just three months ago, it looked as if Boris Johnson might have reached the peak of his political career. He was the Conservative incumbant for the London Mayoralty at a time when the Conservative party was rather unpopular; indeed  it was almost as unpopular as it is today. Johnson was eager to deny that he’d seek a position on Tory backbenches at any point after the election, whatever the outcome, and thus seemed to be staking his future on the outcome of the election. Ken Livingstone’s future was also staked on the election, though he didn’t seems to care about that much- if he could have been bothered to avoid controversy he would have been elected. Instead he alienated sufficient numbers from himself personally to bolster the Boris Labour section of the electorate enough to create the quirky result of a Labour-led Assembly while the Conservative scraped re-election with a majority of barely one percent.

The point of this little ultra-recent history lesson is to demonstrate how impressive Johnson’s electoral performance is against a backdrop of widespread Tory defeats. In a round of local elections in which Labour gained in the region of 1,000 seats, he defended what is easily a Labour-leaning city. Needless to say, many Conservatives, particularly at grassroots level, are eager to utilise his incredible electability. Scandals of all kinds seem to bounce off him, and his blatant toff presentation does not handicap him as it ordinarily should.

He may be more of a comedian than a serious politician, but that won’t stop a party eager for power and popularity. He will serve the remaining 46 months of his term as Mayor, but will quietly (well, to the best extent that can be managed) look for a Conservative Association in a cosy safe-seat in the Home Counties that would be desperate to have him as their parliamentary candidate at the 2015 election. It is apparently possible to have the dual role of an MP and Mayor of London, and this will no doubt be done by Johnson.

Whatever the outcome of the next election,  Johnson will be on the Tory front benches within two years. This is where developments become less certain, but the risk to Labour becomes great. Boris combines shrewd populism with a peculiar liberal ideology. He supports tax cuts for the super-rich, and yet likened the Government’s housing benefits cuts to “Kosovo-style social cleansing”, words that sound like they came from Tony Benn or Bob Crow. Few even in the Labour Party would have used such strong language.

The Parliamentary Conservative Party would be likely to offer Johnson leadership should he want it, knowing that he is a unique electoral asset. It is hard to foresee how he would fail to win a General Election, particularly if the Conservatives were starting from Opposition. Therefore, it would be prudent to view Johnson’s assenction to Downing Street as an inevitability.

The solution? The best the Left can do is aim to sort the country out before then, thus offsetting the gentle brand of regression that Johnson will impose. Not brilliant, but alas: Johnson is here to stay.