You don't have to be a tourist ... but it helps

Welcome to the London tourist season, our closest peacetime equivalent to an attack by a neutron bomb.

Across entire neighbourhoods it has destroyed all intelligent life, leaving only the buildings intact.

Camden, once quite interesting, now has as much edge as a jam sponge and custard. Bayswater is filled with £150-a-night B&Bs with names such as the Royal International Windsor Hyde Park Towers.

Covent Garden is a moronic caricature of itself.

Every minute of every day, tourists are perpetrating further terrible crimes against the environment: C02, Aberdeen Steak Houses, white socks with sandals. The great homogenising force of international tourism has submerged much of our capital's genuine distinctiveness under could-be-anywhere visitor tat.

Have you noticed, for instance, how every tourist city in Europe (us included) now has a museum of medieval torture implements, a Salvador Dali exhibition and at least one of those big stones leaning over at a slight angle, so that tourists can photograph each other pretending to hold it up? But though this month may be the peak of the horror, the unfortunate fact is that throughout the year our capital seems increasingly to be run for the benefit of visitors.

We've become a city which would rather construct "iconic" buildings for tourists to look at than affordable houses for Londoners to live in.

We'd rather stage showy public spectacles for the visiting crowds than fix the everyday things. Instead A tax perk for of a functioning international airport, we have the Red Bull aerobatic race over the Dome.

Instead of spending £20 million on a proper network of cycle lanes, something that would last decades, we spent it on staging the start of the Tour de France, something that lasted three days. And one of the many excellent reasons for dreading the Olympics is that they are supposed to attract hordes more tourists.

In a world of free movement, there's no stopping the annual migration of the Coach People. But they should at least pay their way.

Ken Livingstone (he's not always wrong) wants a bed tax on hotel bills to fund the Tube, street cleaning and other services used, but not fully paid for, by tourists. London is one of the very few tourist cities without such a tax.

The tourist industry will squeal that it should not be charged, for the new property because it generates wealth. Well, so do lots of other people for whom the Inland Revenue is not quite so forgiving.

Just like the hedge-fund billionaires, the London tourist industry exerts a huge pull on policymakers.

But just like the hedgies, it seems distinctly reluctant to contribute its fair share. Speaking as a representative of that other London that pays more and more tax, it's time all these free-riders bought tickets for the tour bus..