Politics never stops and it’s easy to move from one thing to another without taking a pause for breath. There are too many people to say thanks to here but it was good to see many of you last week for a drink – and no doubt our paths will cross in one way or another soon.

Crowley writes: 

“On a night of mixed results, Labour got the most votes in London and performed far better than they did in the rest of the country. As a result, the Tories were denied marginal seats, and key councils turned red.

“How did Labour manage such a good result?”

Crowley’s piece hits the nail on the head by saying publicly what most Conservatives would concede privately – that Labour in London performed well on May 6th.

And he taps into a key concern of Boris Johnson’s supporters, the fact that there is too little sense among Londoners of what Boris Johnson is delivering: “…it remains the case that not enough Londoners know about Boris’s achievements, particularly in those crucial suburban areas,” he writes.

Worth a read.

During the general election campaign Labour highlighted the failure of the Tories to give a clear commitment to complete Crossrail. That issue finally broke open when Justine Greening, then the Shadow London Minister, admitted that it was possible that under the Conservatives Crossrail might be cancelled.

The Tories’ deliberately imprecise formulation of ‘support’ for Crossrail – as opposed to any clear statement of intent about the timetable, route and financing – contrasted with Labour’s transparent commitment to the scheme. The Liberal Democrats omitted all reference to it in their London manifesto.

Although most debate focused on whether the scheme would go ahead at all, Ken Livingstone also expressed concern that elements of the scheme would be chopped back, such as individual spurs.  

Yesterday Boris Johnson himself raised doubts over whether the south east London spur to Woolwich and Abbey Wood was under threat.   The Tory Telegraph recently reported that he was unable to guarantee that the south-east London spur will survive.  But even if on this occasion the threat does not turn into reality, the problems inherent in situation will translate across other areas of policy. It’s summed up in Boris Johnson’s remarks to the Assembly about what dangers the new government pose to Crossrail:

“They would try to de-scope. I would be fighting very very hard to protect the project in its entirety. It’s absolutely vital that we mount a Stalingrad-like defence of the London transport settlement.

“It’s fascinating, the degree of ignorance about Crossrail still in the minds of the public and indeed in the minds of many of our important political colleagues.

“The more we can explain why it matters to London, the better.”

The flaw for Boris Johnson in that is obvious. It’s his government. He fought for it to be elected. He campaigned on the streets of London for Labour to lose even though a Labour government was committed to completing Crossrail. In other words he fought for the ability of a party to govern that was likely to act against the interests of London. In the face of Labour criticism of the Tories’ position on Crossrail he tried to paper over the cracks. He’s culpable.

And if anyone in the government is ignorant about the benefits of Crossrail we should ask how it is that the mayor has not made a better case for it to his ‘important political colleagues.’ Perhaps it is connected to the complacency of his administration: when the Evening Standard raised questions over the Tory policy on Crossrail last year Boris Johnson’s office was quick to say that there is no reason to worry. He gave George Osborne cover.

Each time Boris Johnson seeks to present himself as the champion of London against whatever the government does he will face the same problem.

I didn’t have time to post this yesterday, but here’s Tessa Jowell’s comment on the London general election results, where Labour held a succession of seats that were predicted to be going from red to blue.  That’s in addition to the succession of local government victories in London that have seen Labour take back council after council.

Tessa Jowell said:

‘‘From the results that have been declared so far, Labour in London has exceeded expectations. The Tories and Liberal Democrats will be extremely disappointed.

“We have had some fantastic results in London with Sadiq Khan winning Tooting, Andy Slaughter winning Hammersmith, Karen Buck winning Westminster North and Emily Thornberry actually increasing her majority from 484 to 3569 in Islington South. And I am delighted that Margaret Hodge has decisively beaten the BNP’s Nick Griffin in Barking and doubled her majority.

“Just two days ago the Tories were predicting a landslide in London, winning seats like Hayes and Harlington. The Tories will be bitterly disappointed not to have performed better in the capital.

“It is clear that Boris Johnson’s police cuts and hikes in bus fares were very unpopular with Londoners.’’

The Tories had high expectations in many of these seats. Expectations were high that Labour would lose these constituencies, and in many cases it was the Tories themselves who raised them.

* Westminster North

“The Tory candidate for Westminster North has been tipped as part of the new pool of talent from which David Cameron will draw to fill his front benches. Ms Cash – a libel lawyer – has been chosen to contest the key marginal seat in the next election… Ms Cash represents the sort of candidate that Mr Cameron has been desperate to attract to inject a wider range of experience into a future ministerial team.”  Times report of 5th January, 2010, published on Joanne Cash’s website.

“A Eurosceptic with a sharp mind, she has become close to many within Cameron’s inner circle due to her work for Policy Exchange on freedom of expression and public order. Expect rapid progress up the ranks.” The Telegraph, 10th September 2009

* Islington South

“Bridget Fox is the bookies’ favourite to win Islington South.” Islington Tribune, 30^th April 2010

“The Lib Dems seem well on track to relieve Labour of Islington South.” Guardian online, 26^th April 2010

“Bridget is set to win”  Islington Lib Dems, 25^th April 2010

* Hayes and Harlington

“In an interview with the Standard, he departed from the party’s official line of caution by naming a string of London seats where Conservatives think huge Labour majorities have suddenly become vulnerable. ‘They include Hayes & Harlington, where Labour’s John McDonnell had a massive 10,594 or 28 per cent majority in 2005. It would only fall to the Tories on a swing of more than 14 per cent, the sort of seismic shift normally only seen in a landslide. ‘Others claimed to be tottering are Feltham & Heston, where expenses scandal MP Alan Keen has a 19 per cent majority, and Harrow West, where aid minister Gareth Thomas has an 18 per cent majority. “There are lots of seats in London which at the beginning of the campaign I wouldn’t have thought it possible to win but now I think we can,” said Mr Osborne. “Hayes & Harlington was not on our radar at all at the beginning of the campaign.” “The shadow chancellor, also co-ordinator of the campaign, said: “We are fighting for a Conservative majority. I think that’s within our grasp.” George Osborne – Evening Standard – 04.05.10

* Hampstead and Kilburn

‘Eighteen of the capital’s 73 parliamentary seats could change hands, with high-profile Labour casualties expected to include Glenda Jackson…’ Evening Standard, 5th May

Labour’s wins in London against the reported expectations:

Hammersmith

Westminster North

Islington South and Finsbury

Eltham

Feltham and Heston

Tooting

Hampstead and Kilburn

Harrow West

Barking

Some of the initial speakers, including Ken Livingstone, leading members of the London Assembly, MPs such as Jon Cruddas, Diane Abbott and Tessa Jowell, trade unionists, bloggers, writers, London councillors, MEPs, campaigners and activists, are listed here along with an early indication of some of the subjects for discussion.

As Progressive London reports, Ken Livingstone says:

“We are at a key moment in British politics. The global financial crisis led to the worst economic situation since the second world war. There has been massive state intervention to bailout bankers and bank shareholders. Unemployment has risen and private investment has collapsed. Although the Thatcher-Reagan consensus was discredited by the meltdown of the right’s economic model, nonetheless the Tories are using the deterioration in the public finances to openly plan painful attacks on public spending that would do great damage to an economic revival and bring misery to millions.

“We are getting a taste of that in London. Boris Johnson has defended the worst of the bankers, protected drivers of the most polluting cars, but promises yet more painful fare increases this January, on top of last year’s inflation-busting package - and threatens reductions in bus and tube services.

“It is vital that alternatives to the right’s arguments prevail.

“The challenges we face, from recession and global economic crisis to climate change, make progressive policies more relevant than ever. Only progressive political solutions provide a way forward – investment, planning and collective action are the levers that would allow us to climb out of the economic crisis and raise ourselves up to the scale of the environmental catastrophe that has to averted.

“Progressive political forces must seize back the agenda by offering policies that ensure that the majority of people are not made to pay for a crisis they did not create.”

This is the third conference Progressive London will have held – the first last January, and a confernce on the economy during the summer, were both excellent and stimulating events.

Online registration for the event is now open here. Book early to avoid disappointment, as they say.

He said:

“I join with you and everyone who was lucky enough to know Redmond in the profound sense of loss and sadness at his death. How I admired his kindness, his gentle soul and his rigorous mind. You are right that any attempt to sum up his life will be an injustice, so instead an anecdote:

“My first TfL Board strategy session and it was difficult to get a word in as the participants competed for attention. Off to one side sat Redmond, quiet, seemingly deferential and unknown to me. After allowing everyone to talk themselves in circles, he spoke. He spoke in tight, complete sentences; he presented a coherent picture of what the city needed, how the need should be met and when. His presentation was articulate and coherent and greeted with a bemused silence as all recognised that the commentary that preceded it was a waste of time. I thought then, ‘Ah, here is someone to credit, to follow his lead.’ And so I did for the rest of my time in London. I wish I had thanked him.”

More on this here and here.

What’s striking is how many of the selections in the list are of old songs. Admittedly there’s London Calling and Lily Allen’s The Fear, but also chosen are Noel Coward’s London Pride,  A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, The Lambeth Walk, A Foggy Day (In London Town), even Oranges and Lemons.

This got me thinking about an old song whose title I often think about when I’m near Oxford Street, or planning to head that way: Life Begins At Oxford Circus, by Jack Hylton and his orchestra, from 1935.

What a perfect title to sum up the possibility of what London can be. As song titles go it offers a ludicrously hedonistic and frivolous view of life.

For a long time I saw Hylton’s song as a louche anthem of the priveleged classes of the 1930s: arch and ironic. How wrong I was. I recently retrieved the record from where I had it stored, and on listening to it after so many years it’s been transformed from a memorable title, with all the assumptions I built up around, it into something completely different. Starting with a fanfare of sorts it launches straight into its catchy, cheerful tune before finally getting into its short set of lyrics:

Life begins at Oxford Circus
When the busy day is done
We don’t care how much they work us
Just as long as we have fun

Off with your old clothes
On with your best
Just bring your girlfriend to be your guest, and come up West
Life begins at Oxford Circus
When the busy day is done

Jack Hylton

Far from being the signature tune of the cocktail set it’s an invitation to working class Londoners to put their working day behind them, get dressed up, and spend some of their hard-earned cash ‘up West’.  Working is existing, having fun is living. It applies as much today to the thousands of pleasure seekers heading to the West End as it did when it was recorded.

I know relatively little about the song, although from what I can find online it shares its title with a London Palladium revue that included the Crazy Gang, also from 1935,  which seems to bear out my radically altered take on it. My copy of Jack Hylton’s tune is on the BBC’s soundtrack to Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven which appears still to be available and which is stuffed full of songs from the same era. Alternatively you can hear it on YouTube here.

Bob Stanley’s article has also got me thinking about other London songs that I would have on my London playlist – so this is something I may return to (on an irregular basis). If you have any ideas of songs that would be on your playlist let me know.

Healy’s book deserves a much bigger readership than it has had so far and he deserves much more credit for it. His book changes how you think about something going on around you – the subculture of the lives lived by vagrants on the streets of London. It is a subject that most of don’t want to think about. When we do think about it most discussion is about what to do about it, what our policy should be. Few of us have any understanding of what these lives are really like.

Healy’s book is an autobiography of a life whose different stages – his father’s violence towards him, the experience of racism towards Irish immigrants, the way alcohol started to take over his life and why, his time in the army, his escape to Ireland, his slide into life on the streets, his periods in prison and his unexpected emergence as celebrated chess player – are so well described that they do not easily fade away.

Subcultures tell us something about the culture they live within but apart from. The Grass Arena’s strength is that you come away from the book with a sense of the sheer extremity of the subculture of street vagrants he reveals – the violence, squalor, brutality and horrific internal logic of it. His clear, straightforward description of how alcoholism takes control changes how you think about it.

I first came across his book at a reading hosted by the writer Charlotte Raven at the time of its re-publication as a Penguin Modern Classic. Charlotte is a propagandist for the book, quite rightly.  Although I bought a copy at the time of its re-publication I put it to one side and only got round to reading it earlier this year. More fool me, as I am now a convert and cannot recommend it highly enough. In this article for the Guardian Erwin James describes the impact of the book as instant. He’s right.

I doubt that John Healy will read this post, but I wanted to say what a pleasure it was to meet him yesterday – and to urge readers of this blog to buy his book.

This blog said on 1^st August:

In addition to the problem now and for the rest of 2009 as the line experiences regular closures is the nagging question of whether the Jubilee work will be completed in time. From the start one of London Underground’s complaints has been the lack of transparency from the contractors about how the work is proceeding and the causes for the length of time involved. The word is that things are not going well with the upgrade.

This morning the BBC reports that the mayor and LUL have now confirmed there are problems with the works and that they may well run into 2010 – but also raised the spectre of additional closures this year instead. LU is finally putting pressure on Tubelines in the media over the question of whether they can really complete the works this year. The indication is that if Tubelines are able to give further guarantees then the mayor and LU will buckle and allow extra closures this year. It is a woeful picture.

It’s surprising that the mayor has been so quiet on the problems with Tubelines up until this point given the stories swirling around in the industry for many months. His failure to act sooner may well lead to Londoners experiencing more closures on this line in 2009 or an overrun to 2010. Each outcome is a poor result for tube users.

Business leaders have been raising the impact of the planned Jubilee Line closures for some time. The closures hit London’s main centres of economic activity – from the West End to Docklands – and are causing severe disruption of events at Wembley Stadium and the O2. The Jubilee is now affected by closures weekend after weekend. It is inconvenient enough that the works may go on all year – but an over-run or extra days of closures this year would be a severe blow to those who depend on the line.

To be clear, today’s announcement means that, in order to avoid this eventuality, LU may agree more closures this year in order to meet the deadline. This is the meaning of Boris Johnson’s reference to Tubelines’ “hunger” for more Jubilee Line closures. When he says “Before we can consider anymore disruption, we must have confidence they will deliver” he is saying that customers may have to be prepared for more closures than are already planned in 2009.

Despite the impact on business LU has told local politicians that the current economic climate means that there is no justification for allowing Metropolitan Line trains to stop at Jubilee Line stations.

Now the mayor and LUL have gone public with the fact that there are questions over whether the works will over-run into 2010, and hint that more closures than those planned for this year may be on the cards. They are setting it up so that if Tubelines gives them a cast-iron guarantee of meeting the deadline they may green-light extra closures this year. The BBC’s report says that Tubelines are asking for an extra five days.

Today’s events give the impression that the mayor does not have a grip of the situation. The word amongst industry insiders for some time has been that the works were not going well. Why has the mayor only now woken up to the problem? The mayor should have been much more vigorous with Tubelines.

As I have previously raised, if the works over-run there is a question mark over whether London Underground itself may be liable for failing to provide the required level of service on this line by the deadline.

City Hall seems to have had its eye off the ball over the Jubilee Line wo rks. It is not good news for commuters and businesses.

——

[Update note - this post was re-written shortly after it was published in order to expand the material on possible closures this year]