Bloomberg for London mayor?
With rumours former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is eyeing a transfer, London’s current mayor offers some advice in this column originally written for The Daily Telegraph.
Omigosh. Can that be true? Is the legendary American zillionaire Michael Bloomberg poised to make an entry into British politics? In fact, he is said to be toying with the job currently held by your columnist. Bloomberg for mayor, they say — mayor of London! What with one thing or another, I didn’t have time to ring Mike up and get to the bottom of it, not on Easter Sunday; but the story does not seem to be a complete invention.
Mike’s cause is being championed by no less a figure than Steve Hilton: remember him — Prime Minister David Cameron’s guru who pads around without any shoes on. Steve rightly admires the former New York mayor’s can-do spirit and astonishing record of achievement. So do many others, including me. Nowhere in the text is there what you might call a formal dementi from Bloomberg himself. My friends: there is only one conclusion. This is a test.
Someone, somewhere is mounting a Draft Bloomberg campaign, and they are sticking their fingers in the wind, testing the waters and generally running it up the flagpole to see who salutes. And I want you to know, therefore, that I am standing to attention and signalling my wholehearted approval. Mike, old friend, this is the big one. I had hoped that you would run for president, but you have mystifyingly decided to let that chance pass. There is therefore only one way to excel your epic 12-year career at the helm in Manhattan; there is only one great municipal job that could conceivably count as a promotion; there is only one way to graduate upwards from the position of mayor of New York, and that is to become the leader of a city that has regained its status as the greatest on earth.
London was the first city since ancient Rome to have more than a million souls, and 100 years ago it was unquestionably the caput mundi, the centre of the biggest empire the world has ever seen.
In our lifetimes, alas, we have seen how it temporarily lost that crown. For much of the postwar period, few would have been so foolish as to rate London above New York. We lagged behind in dynamism, in entrepreneurial spirit, in sheer energy — not to mention gross domestic product.
Today, however — well: it is clear that in many key respects it is London that now has the lead.
It is not just that the British capital still has the largest financial sector on earth, with probably about 320,000 people involved in one way or another. I read somewhere that there are more American banks established in London than there are in New York itself, and London does far more currency dealing. Britain’s capital now has a bigger tech sector, with about 528,000 people employed in all manner of startup industries, and a creative sector expanding so fast that in the next 10 years we will probably make more TV and feature films than either New York or indeed Hollywood.
We have more museums and galleries than New York; we have more live music venues. We have more worldclass universities in London than there are in New York. We have more World Heritage sites, twice as many bookshops, far more bars and pubs, and a much lower crime rate (the murder rate in London was last year the lowest since the 1960s, and less than a third of the rate in New York), not to speak of wonderful taxi drivers who are obliged by law — unlike those in New York — to know where they are going; and a Tube network that is running ever faster and more efficiently.
If you add all these factors together you can see why people are so keen to come to our city.
Last year London hosted 18.6 million visitors from overseas, beating the record achieved in 2013. It is now the world’s No. 1 destination for international tourists — and all the cash they bring — knocking Paris and New York off the pedestal. That is to the best of my knowledge the first time in recent history that London has come first in this fundamental criterion of global popularity.
Each city has an amazing future — according to all reputable analyses — as a powerhouse of wealth creation and innovation. But before you start your campaign, dear Mike, there is one cloud
Each city has an amazing future as a powerhouse of wealth creation and innovation
on the horizon, one way that London could go backward to the 1970s, and that is if the people of this country are so mad as to elect Ed Miliband next month.
Labour’s policies would damage our universities, by depriving them of vital revenue for investment in teaching. Labour would hit financial services and jeopardize the jobs of thousands who are by no means affluent; and above all a Labour government would pursue policies of taxation and regulation that are diametrically opposed to the spirit of enterprise that enable you to build your own empire.
It would be a great thing to enter the glass spheroid in Southwark and become mayor of London, Mike. But first we need to ensure a sensible Conservative government on May 7.