CHARLOTTE GILL
Corbyn-loving London is the world’s rudest city
ASK any Londoner what they think of the capital and they’ll probably tell you, as Mayor Sadiq Khan is fond of boasting, that it’s ‘one of the most progressive cities in the world’. Londoners like to think of themselves as cultured, caring and cosmopolitan, not least because so many voted Remain in the EU referendum.
This was overwhelmingly portrayed as the open-minded, friendly thing to do. In comparison, Brexiteers around the country were depicted as heartless, grumpy old men and women.
Londoners’ sense of moral superiority was only heightened at the last Election when they largely backed Jeremy Corbyn. What could be less selfish than supporting The Many, Not The Few?
Yet, despite all these compassionate credentials – and the fact that I still enjoy living in the Big Smoke – the truth is that Londoners are actually some of the rudest people on earth.
This is especially apparent when I venture back to my parents’ home in Kent – where, incidentally, most people voted Leave. Every time I walk my little border terrier, Sidney, I am taken aback by the friendliness of strangers.
I do have to confess though, having been conditioned into London life, that every time I’m greeted with a cheery hello, my first instinct is to jump screaming into a bush.
When I was at Leeds University (in Brexit-backing Yorkshire) I adored the bus conductors who called me ‘love’ or ‘darling’ every time I bought a ticket.
I know as a woman you’re meant to find pet names terribly sexist – but I knew they were just evidence of strangers trying to be nice.
Yet in London, where so many proudly think of themselves as ‘woke’ – the fashionable phrase that means being attuned to every nuance of the latest politically correct behaviour – there is a gaping kindness deficit.
Let me cite two recent examples, both small but each terribly distressing to witness.
The first happened when I was walking around the City. A disabled boy, not much older than six, was trying to reverse his mobility scooter on a busy pavement. As he trundled backwards, I noticed a group of young, smartly dressed office workers leaving a cafe. I assumed they would wait for this young lad as he anxiously navigated the road, watched by his assistant in a green bib.
But they were far more interested in rushing their cafe food back to the office, and walked straight into his path.
The bewildered boy had to quickly apply his brakes to avoid a collision, then start his complex manoeuvre all over again.
The workers couldn’t have cared less, laughing and chatting as they sauntered off into the distance.
A few days later, I saw an elderly man with a stick walking slowly and painfully towards my local Sainsbury’s. Strutting the opposite way down the pavement came a young brunette lady, with her earphones in and nose in the air.
TO MY horror, it was the frail gentleman who ended up being the one forced to move aside. On the brunette strolled without even an acknowledgment of his existence. Such meanness is not remotely unusual in ‘the most progressive city in the world’. Usually it’s the old and vulnerable who are worst affected by others’ lack of courtesy, but even for a young(ish), relatively active woman, such behaviour can be distressing.
Navigating public transport often leaves me feeling like a bowling pin, pushed from side to side. No one ever says thank you – or allows others to go first.
This matters profoundly because it’s social graces that keep society moving. Without them, we’re reduced to the I’m-All-RightJack world that London’s Left-wing voters accuse the wicked Right of creating.
It’s all very well proclaiming your love of open borders and wearing your goodness on your T-shirt.
But it’s hard to take such sentiments seriously when that compassion isn’t even extended to the streets. FOR her final collection as poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy has written about the ‘evil twins of Brexit and Trump’. Not exactly season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, is it?