London needs to show why it has to be the leader
Sarah Sands
HE humbling of the metropolitan elite is having its effect. A young artist I spoke to recently said he had fearfully altered his social media profile to engage with those outside London, particularly Brexiteers. At another artistic gathering, a theatre director examined his conscience. Were his plays too London-focused? Relieved, he concluded that none of his hits had been set in the capital.
The BBC has been hypersensitive about London-centric coverage for some time. What a relief that Theresa May dashed off to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rather than hanging around in Downing Street. The Prime Minister’s reuniting of the kingdom is a good thing but the mood of quiet jubilation at cutting London down to size is disquieting. In Cornwall, where I spent a week on holiday, a Leaver explained that the Cornish had had it with the bankers’ 4x4s and holiday homes and the referendum was an opportunity to even things up.
The r e s e n t me n t o v e r L o n d o n’s imagined good fortune is profound and geographical redistribution is popular. Why should the Proms continue at the Royal Albert Hall when it could be relocated to Birmingham? Why not move the Government?
A sign of the Government’s new arts strategy was the early announcement of money going to the upkeep of cathedrals outside London. It is a smart move from a vic ar ’s daughter. Cathedrals are
THE advantage of getting summer holidays over early is you are more attuned to the natural seasons. Look at the scorched grass and gone-to-seed plants. Everyone can see that summer is coming to attrac ting solid congregations and tourists, unlike rural churches. And they tend not to be the stomping ground for members of the ME.
So what should the MEs do? Former Chancellor George Osborne has fled to New York for a party given in his honour by ME high priestess Tina Brown. Others are holding the fort here, battling the economic headwinds of Brexit and fearing for all the projects that might keep London ahead of the game. What happens if London is at the back of the queue?
The mood of retrenchment does not suit London, which is both hard-working and playful. After the Olympics there was a spirit of c e l e b r a t i o n whi c h h a s di sappeared. It was following the Olympics that the wonder boy of the opening c e r e m o n y, Thomas Heatherwick, was commissioned to design the Garden Bridge for the Thames. Now an alliance of the hatchet-faced Left and accountants from the Right may do for it. They don’t like the people who are paying for it, they dislike its lure for tourists, they do not understand the need for a new wonder of London, just as there was no need for the Gardens of Babylon.
Before Brexit the mood was Why Not? Now it is Why? London has to find a way of melding with the rest of the country without losing its status as the capital, and a global one at that. If the Government goes cold, the citizens must become active.
Let this be the go l d e n a ge for entrepreneurs, investors and philanthropy. The impulse has to be innovation rather than conservation. Great cities are not built on accepting your place. Onwards! an end. The swifts are preparing to leave. A colleague departs for France on Thursday, via Dover, loaded with water bottles and sleeping bags. Much better than travelling or arriving is returning.