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'If we work hard we can make London safer, fairer, cleaner'
Boris Johnson05.01.09
NEVER has a year been so written off before it even got going. Never has humanity tiptoed into January with such trepidation - and you don't need me to belabour the bad news.
It promises to be a hell of a 2009, a year of jolts to the financial security and self-esteem of millions of people, shaken by economic events far beyond their control. The challenge is how to survive and to emerge in better shape, and to do that we need to perform a psychological trick - a mental transformation that will help us succeed.
We politicians can't just sit like slack-jawed victims of some tsunami or asteroidal impact. We can't just blame Gordon Brown for 10 years of profligacy. That milk is spilt.
We have to recognise that this downturn is a big, brute fact and that we must therefore learn recessionomics -- and by that I mean how to make the facts of the recession fit our agenda for London.
What we want is simple: a cleaner, greener, safer city, where you can get from A to B as cheaply and as conveniently as possible, where Londoners can afford to live, and which remains one of the best places on earth to come and invest.
Yes? Well, in spite of the recession -and sometimes because of it - there are things we can do to help. We in the GLA can freeze our share of the council tax by cutting waste at City Hall, and we can cut pointless taxes like the £25 charge on family vehicles, and we can extend free travel for older people and those on income support.
We can use the fall in house prices to invest our £5 billion housing budget, helping people to avoid the agony and waste of repossession by taking temporary equity stakes in their property; and above all we should be exploiting the colossal opportunity presented by the fall of the pound.
We can boost tourism and boost exports, by pointing out that sterling-denominated assets currently represent outstanding value, and that Paris fashions are currently far cheaper here than in Paris. At every stage as the recession unfolds, we need to see the opportunity behind the disaster.
For a generation now it has been difficult to attract the brightest graduates - especially scientists - to teach in our state schools.
Given the choice between earning gigabucks or inspiring a love of physics in disadvantaged kids, they have gone for the City, with bad results for education and for social justice. Well, if those City jobs are now dwindling, is it not time to divert those brilliant mathematical minds to our schools and the vast and growing challenge of educational inequality?
Which brings us to the issue that bulked so large in Londoners' concerns before the recession took hold - the knives and the gangs and the continuing problem of too many ill-disciplined kids and not enough adults with the courage or charisma to lead them.
If there are more talented adults with time on their hands, let's mobilise them to help with the network of voluntary groups - understaffed and under-resourced - that are trying to offer young people the discipline and opportunities they need. And if there are some bankers out there who are still embarrassed by the size of their bonuses, then I propose that they palliate their guilt by giving to the Mayor's Fund for London to help deprived children in London.
If we work hard, we can use the facts of this recession to make this city safer, and fairer, and less lonely; and we can clean it up, too. We must not let the green agenda wither in the economic cold, not least since the environment represents a fantastic commercial opportunity.
London should become the world leader in carbon trading and in developing new technologies. If 38 per cent of our greenhouse gases are produced by domestic properties, then we should be training and unleashing armies of retrofitters - and saving occupiers a fortune in their bills. We should be using cheap land and low rents to pioneer low-carbon technology, and if - as I believe - our species is nearing the end of its love-affair with the fossil-fuelled internal combustion engine, then London should be leading the way in using and developing the vehicles of the future.
That is why it is time for a new bus for London which, apart from anything else, will lead to significant reductions in noise and air pollution; and now is the time to step up the pace of investment in transport projects that will make this city more pleasant and convenient to live in. That is why we are pressing ahead fast with a bike hire scheme and a new and distinctive network of cycle highways. That is why we are right to expedite Crossrail, which will expand London's transport capacity by 10 per cent. Take that together with the Tube upgrades, the East London line extension, the North London line improvements, the 50 per cent expansion of the DLR, including the extensions to Woolwich Arsenal and Stratford, and you have the biggest programme of investment in London transport for 50 years.
Recession or not, this will be remembered as a new Victorian Age, when we made capital investments that not only helped to deliver thousands of jobs in the downturn but which boosted competitiveness for generations to come.
London's financial-service industry will recover, but it is a mistake to think that all our eggs are in that one basket. We have a world-beating creative and cultural sector, a manufacturing industry that - amazingly - still has at least two independent cycle manufacturers, a constellation of world-class higher education and medical-research establishments; and that is before we have even mentioned the prospects of the new Olympic city we should be creating at Stratford, complete with an international Olympic university.
There is no gold under the streets of London, no oil or coal; yet London was the greatest city on earth in 1800. It was the greatest city on earth in 1900 and in spite of the shocks of the 20th century it remained one of the world's greatest centres at the turn of the Millennium.
That was a tribute to this city's astonishing ability to adapt, and to the advantages we retain today. London is unique in its openness to talent, its energy, tolerance, humour.
We retain the time zone that makes it as easy to talk to Beijing as to New York on the same day; we remain the originators of the global language of business.
If London plays to its fundamental strengths, it can come through this recession stronger than before.
Reader views (13)
cp, I could have understood your argument if Boris had investigated other funding streams for the transport projects he cancelled in south london, but he didnt! Instead he moved the £19m allocated for the last of the development work on the Cross River Tram to fund the cost of scrapping bendy buses and designing a new routemaster. Neither of these policies will reduce congestion! There are 38 tube stations south of the river compared to 200 in north london and now I am paying more on the bus each day to fund improvements in other parts of the city, despite previous promises to the contrary!
Boris told the South London Press during his election campaign that he backed the CRT all the way......that didnt last long did it! No wnder politicians have a bad name!
- Phil, North Peckham, South London
It appears Boris dont seem to know whether he is coming or going as the East London Transit which he burned in his multi-billion bonfire at the beginning of November has arisen from the grave and below is his comment from the TFL Website press release:-
A dramatic improvement
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: 'A huge amount of money has been earmarked to improve transport links in east London and the extra dosh the Government has said we can use to extend the East London Transit is fabulous news for people living or working in the area.
'It will be key to opening up the area to new housing and business developments.
'Transport for London's engineers are all ready to get cracking on a scheme that will dramatically improve services for thousands of local people.'
Funny how engineers are ready for a project that his supporters (Especially Andrew Gilligan) had been cancelled! Perhaps he should now be known as Boris "Karloff" Johnson as projects arise from grave.
Wonder what Jaqueline of Hampstead and all his supporters make of this?
With £1.5 Billion of funding for transport after Manchester rejected the c-charge who knows what will be next to arise from the grave?
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
"and we can cut pointless taxes like the £25 charge on family vehicles"
Har har, so the guy going up Holland Park Avenue in the three litre two seater Porsche on his own is driving a family vehicle a Boris?!
- Prj45, London
Boris is the right guy but it is true that he could do so much more had the Crash Gordon state government not sucked London dry from its tax revenue. Crash Gordon's recession now means he will have no more tax base and Crash will lose the next elections.
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London
Gee Boris, maybe you are right, but not with this Govt in charge.
- Hugh, Middx
Under Ken the precept would probably have increased not by 2% (if only!)... between 2000 and 2008 the precept increased steadily year on year, in total by 147%, when inflation over the period was 21%. This averages out at almost 19% per year (16% above inflation)!! (Bow Group).
Ken would have increased the transport fares anyway, if not in 2009 then in 2010, there was a big funding gap.
In 2004 and 2005 Ken made fare rises 10% above inflation (RPI) and in 2006 3.8% above inflation. Altogether a lot of percent and in real terms.
He blamed it on the Government not funding the Tube PPP. Fair. Equally the Government will not fund the Cross River Tram and DLR extensions so why pay consultants and TfL staff to dream. Fair.
- Cp, London UK
How can he stop people from using our streets to urinate in and spit out their phlegm? If he could achieve this it would be a feather in his cap!!!!!!
- Charlie George, ilford england
Thankyou so much Boris for your generosity at this time of need!
Assuming that the precept would have risen by 2%, Your council tax precept freeze has saved me £3.81 a year (Band A).
Your transport fare increases will cost me £104 per year.
So I'm £100.19 worse off. And you've cancelled the Cross River Tram and DLR Dagenham Dock extension whilst simultaneously managing to find the money to throw money away at new buses that will make my journeys slower (less doors = more time at stops), and cost more to operate (conductors).
Thank you *so* much.
- Mark Lee, Vauxhall
Correct me if i'm wrong, but the £25 charge was applicable to the most polluting vehicles in London wasn't it? Going some way to make London greener, I'd imagine it was also trying to target the 'humvie' style space-wagons so loved by the middle-class mum's too scared to drive a normal family car around to drop their 2 kids off at school. This would presumably make specific parts of London (Chiswick, Hampstead, Kensington) somewhat safer.
At the same time you scrap this 'pointless' tax, you've also increased Oyster card prices, specifically for pay-as-you-go users, to grab a few extra quid off those most ill-suited to pay it. Sounds fair. Happy 2009, Mr. Johnson.
- Mike, London
"the biggest programme of investment in London transport for 50 years" will not help parts of south London where you have cancelled existing new schemes (i.e: the Cross River Tram) and switched your priorities to already well served parts of the capital (hence the need to increase existing capacity)
It's time you as our Mayor realised that if you want to encourage new investment, residents and opportunities (especially for the young) into places like Peckham and Walworth, then you need to invest in the infrastructure! The last big transport project in my area was the Grand Surrey Canal!!!! 38 tube stations to 200 north of the river and you wonder why we have the levels of deprivation that we do! Shame on you Boris, must do better!!
- Phil, North Peckham, South London
Excellent article, Boris. You are delivering everything you promised and showing the kind of leadership we all thought you had in you. Keep it up and we’ll be alright.
- St, London
"the biggest programme of investment in London transport for 50 years" will not help parts of south London where you have cancelled existing new schemes (i.e: the Cross River Tram) and switched your priorities to already well served parts of the capital (hence the need to increase existing capacity)
It's time you as our Mayor realised that if you want to encourage new investment, residents and opportunities (esp for the young) into places like Peckham and Walworth, then you need to invest in the infrastructure! The last big transport project in my area was the Grand Surrey Canal!!!! 38 tube stations to 200 north of the river and you wonder why we have the levels of deprivation that we do! Shame on you Boris, must do better!!
- Phil, North Peckham, South London
I like you BJ, but please stop assuming the problem in London schools is the teachers - if anything it's middle class parents sending their children (and that includes you BJ) to private schools that is the huge problem! It's exceedingly insulting to all those teachers who work hard to raise achievement - and that includes my husband who has worked in state schools for ten years! He is a product of public schooling but is committed to state education. He is brighter than any city banker! Why on earth should those in the city who have f***ed up the country's finances, lied, connived and schemed and taken huge bonuses for a job badly done be regarded as clever? Have they done their jobs well? Um, no! And they think they can swan into state education and put it all right? I don't think so! It is quite funny really.
- Lewis, London
