Afternoon:
14°c
We columnists aren't supposed to look on the bright side. It's drilled into us at columnist school that if we ever say anything positive, our editors will send us back to the Melton Mowbray Times, even if we never came from there in the first place.
But this week, everything is quite grim enough without my help. (As well as the financial horrors, did you notice the biologist Richard Dawkins pronouncing that human evolution was at an end? Truly, in all respects, it seems that the only way is down.)
So today I thought I'd branch out into the land of optimism. That's not the same thing as denial, by the way. The next few years will unquestionably be awful. Thousands of people will lose their jobs and businesses.
Taxes will almost certainly go up for everyone else, and a great deal of public money that should have gone to police officers, nurses and teachers will have to be diverted into propping up what a colleague memorably mispronounced as “a wunch of bankers”. And that, of course, is the best we can hope for. The worst hardly bears thinking about.
But it was reading in the Sunday papers about the possible demise of the estate agents Foxtons that made me start thinking — you know what, this crisis might have something going for it after all.
I don't want to be too heartless about the Foxtons staff whose jobs are at risk. I dare say many, even most, of them are honest and committed to fair dealing. But there were years of accusations of various forms of sharp practice, including removing rival agents' name boards and erecting their own, even on properties which were not actually for sale.
Foxtons was the estate-agent equivalent of those derivative traders for whom we all now feel such admiration. Its overpricing helped drive the cost of London housing up to near-impossible levels. But for years, it just sailed through every scandal and exposé, kept going by sellers' greed. Now, as with the City, some form of justice, however rough, may finally be at hand.
Foxtons' difficulties symbolise one of the biggest silver linings of the crisis: house prices are coming down. Yes, of course this will hurt the economy, and some recent buyers (especially those who used Foxtons) will land in negative equity.
But most homeowners will still have made money. Their profits will merely be less than they once were. And thousands of Londoners on average incomes might now actually be able to live in London. Thousands more will see slightly less hideous proportions of their salaries eaten up by their houses. Homes will once again be for living in, not for making money out of.
The fall of the property market means the chop for dozens of ugly and cynical developments which would have disfigured London. It's over-and-out for the Walkie Talkie. The Cheese Grater is looking flaky. The Helter Skelter is on the slide.
What other silver linings are there? Well, Gordon Brown's leadership of the Labour Party is safe — which means there is likely to be a change of government in 2010, on balance probably a good thing. (Some say the meltdown will be the making of Gordon; I suspect it will expose him even more definitively as second-rate.)
Over the past week, the European Union has suffered yet another blow as all the nations of Europe have done their own thing on the crisis — a further useful reminder that the European superstate remains a pipedream. Barack Obama is more likely to win the US presidency.
Most importantly, a restoration of sanity in property values — so central to the British psyche — could also be matched by a wider reappraisal of what matters, a wider return to sanity, in life more generally.
For there is one crisis more serious even than the economic one — climate change. Even if, God forbid, we are heading for another Great Depression, it is unlikely actually to kill many people. Climate change, unless checked, risks the lives of millions.
And what is bad for the economy is (crudely, and with some caveats) good for the environment. Just as the property crash has in a few weeks done more towards achieving that political totem “affordable housing” than 10 years of government initiatives, so the wider slowdown will do more to reduce consumption, reduce carbon and help the planet than any amount of ministerial eco-blather.
In the longer term, the downturn could mark the beginning of the end for the turbo-growth, aggressive, consumption-led society we have become, where many Londoners spend too much of their time working at jobs they don't really enjoy in order to pay for things they don't really need.
The prime specimens of those Londoners are to be found, of course, in the City. I have a feeling that at least some of the bankers who lose their jobs will end up happier as a result. Is sitting in front of rows of figures for 16 hours a day really a fulfilling occupation for a human being?
I'm not suggesting everyone should move to Cornwall and open a bed-and-breakfast. I wouldn't want to. I enjoy my job and my life in London.
But thousands have already given up the turbo-lifestyle of their own accord. British beach holidays have become more fashionable than Dubai bling; bicycles cooler than BMWs.
Now a larger proportion of the nation may be forced to explore the joys of downshifting — and you know what, some of us might find we like it.
Reader views (6)
"As well as the financial horrors, did you notice the biologist Richard Dawkins pronouncing that human evolution was at an end?"
No I didn't. I notice Steve Jones did though.
Did you know it's not hard to actually do some research and get your facts right?
- C Knox, London
Perhaps Mr Gilligan would like to come and spend a week on work experience at the Melton Times, should he wish to broaden his outlook. We've got a spare week in December. He could spend his time writing nibs and vox pops and making the tea. The only weapon of mass destruction in our office is the kettle.
From all at the Melton Times (Newspaper Society's Community Newspaper of the Year)
- Ben Truslove, Melton Mowbray
When did Gordon Brown reach the dizzy heights of second rate?
- C Adams, pont l abbé france.
How do you work out that the turbo-charged lifestyle is coming to an end when Stansted and City of London Airport have both just been given permission to hugely expand?
- Judith C, London
There used to be a theory proposed by Friedman that if we had very rich people like Billionaires wealth would trickle down to all levels of society. Thatcher and Reagan used it as a justification for their belief that greed was good. Now that the experiment may be ending is there any evidence of Billionaires wealth trickling down to normal membrs of the public rather than overpaid footballing prima donnas. Surely the only way trickle down would have worked would hae been if the very rich had paid tax rather than avoiding it.
- Tommy Cockles, Brentford
sorry, who are you and what have you done with the real andrew gilligan - but indeed many things you say are the positives that may come out of this.
And goodbye to Foxtons - not a moment too soon.
- Jc, se1
