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| Can the next mayor help Londoners change London for themselves? | Can the next mayor help Londoners change London for themselves? |
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| London mayors can have an influence beyond their uneven and limited formal powers, but what does it really amount to? Boris Johnson has spent seven years and £5m arguing that Heathrow airport should be replaced by a vast new one in the Thames Estuary. The decision isn’t his to take, yet the national media have lapped up his “Boris Island” idea, stitching it into their unending Dave versus Boris narrative and assuring us that his views matter greatly. In the end “Boris Island” wasn’t even on the Airports Commission’s score sheet. Johnson’s plan may have influenced the output of Westminster journalists but it’s made little impact where it counts. | |
| Scale down to local level. Who remembers the Mayor’s Fund for London? This was Johnson’s big idea for combating youth crime. Donations from large companies and wealthy individuals would finance charitable initiatives for keeping the disaffected out of trouble and off the streets. It was a headline policy of his 2008 election campaign. Where is it now? Well, the Mayor’s Fund still exists and says the work it does these days “reaches every London borough” but has it fundamentally transformed the relationship between the capital’s very rich, its energetic third sector and its potentially problematic young? Johnson still makes the odd plea for more philanthropy, but these have long had a plaintive quality. | Scale down to local level. Who remembers the Mayor’s Fund for London? This was Johnson’s big idea for combating youth crime. Donations from large companies and wealthy individuals would finance charitable initiatives for keeping the disaffected out of trouble and off the streets. It was a headline policy of his 2008 election campaign. Where is it now? Well, the Mayor’s Fund still exists and says the work it does these days “reaches every London borough” but has it fundamentally transformed the relationship between the capital’s very rich, its energetic third sector and its potentially problematic young? Johnson still makes the odd plea for more philanthropy, but these have long had a plaintive quality. |
| There is a case, then, for doubting if any mayor can make a major difference to the city beyond the areas where he or she has direct command of policy and cash. It’s one thing to “call” for things that excite journalists, quite another to effect substantial change beyond your immediate remit. But David Robinson and Will Horwitz of the Changing London project have faith in what they call the mayoralty’s “super powers” and “a voice that is heard afar.” Their website has attracted an array of ideas and the book since formed from these, subtitled A Rough Guide for the next London Mayor, has been endorsed by Labour mayoral hopefuls Wolmar, Lammy, Khan, Jowell and Abbott. Its key theme of innovative, bottom-up, practical community action to address local issues and inequality are linked with the mayor’s ability to pull together different interest groups from across the city to collaborate in helping Londoners to change London for the better for themselves. | There is a case, then, for doubting if any mayor can make a major difference to the city beyond the areas where he or she has direct command of policy and cash. It’s one thing to “call” for things that excite journalists, quite another to effect substantial change beyond your immediate remit. But David Robinson and Will Horwitz of the Changing London project have faith in what they call the mayoralty’s “super powers” and “a voice that is heard afar.” Their website has attracted an array of ideas and the book since formed from these, subtitled A Rough Guide for the next London Mayor, has been endorsed by Labour mayoral hopefuls Wolmar, Lammy, Khan, Jowell and Abbott. Its key theme of innovative, bottom-up, practical community action to address local issues and inequality are linked with the mayor’s ability to pull together different interest groups from across the city to collaborate in helping Londoners to change London for the better for themselves. |
| On Monday, the London School of Economics hosted a seminar about Changing London. There, I put it to Robinson that the current mayor’s “super powers” had created more noise than results, and that perhaps more attention should be focused on what the next one will definitely be able to do from City Hall rather than what he or she probably won’t. Robinson’s response was that continuing commitment and focus are essential if disappointment is to be avoided in future. He urged the next mayor to find four or five projects of the type Changing London advocates and to keep on pushing them throughout their four year term. | On Monday, the London School of Economics hosted a seminar about Changing London. There, I put it to Robinson that the current mayor’s “super powers” had created more noise than results, and that perhaps more attention should be focused on what the next one will definitely be able to do from City Hall rather than what he or she probably won’t. Robinson’s response was that continuing commitment and focus are essential if disappointment is to be avoided in future. He urged the next mayor to find four or five projects of the type Changing London advocates and to keep on pushing them throughout their four year term. |
| Robinson, a long-time community activist in the East End, hopes the type of politics Changing London espouses could improve voter turnout for the next mayoral election in May 2016. His and Horwitz’s goals also relate to the wider debate about devolution to London and the value of allowing it two layers of government greater political and fiscal autonomy in addressing the challenges of rapid change, inequality and population growth. Given the shortage of large mayoral levers in these respects, the attractions of mobilising grassroots energies on everything from children’s playspace to diet to street design to combating loneliness are magnified. | Robinson, a long-time community activist in the East End, hopes the type of politics Changing London espouses could improve voter turnout for the next mayoral election in May 2016. His and Horwitz’s goals also relate to the wider debate about devolution to London and the value of allowing it two layers of government greater political and fiscal autonomy in addressing the challenges of rapid change, inequality and population growth. Given the shortage of large mayoral levers in these respects, the attractions of mobilising grassroots energies on everything from children’s playspace to diet to street design to combating loneliness are magnified. |
| You can buy the Changing London book here and read the London Papers, pulling together five of the project’s core themes, here. Which Changing London ideas would you like London’s next mayor to use his or her “super powers” to champion? Are there any others you would add? Let me know. | You can buy the Changing London book here and read the London Papers, pulling together five of the project’s core themes, here. Which Changing London ideas would you like London’s next mayor to use his or her “super powers” to champion? Are there any others you would add? Let me know. |