What If Proportional Representation Had Been Used In the 2019 UK General Election?

This is something I have long done with UK elections, most recently in 2017: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2017/06/what-if-proportional-representation.html It is a counter-factual exercise which looks at what would have happened if proportional representation had been introduced to UK elections either in 1918 or under the Labour governments 1997-2010 which had it as a policy which was never enacted.

I use a simple system for my analysis, allocating the number of seats in Parliament on the basis of the share of the vote received. Of course, any proportional representation system cannot replicate purely the percentage figures but they tend to come close. Some systems, e.g. that of Germany, will not allow any party polling less than 5% of the total vote, to have a seat in parliament. However, I assume such a bar is not in place. Furthermore, if there was proportional representation, the choices of voters might be very different and smaller UK parties, notably the Greens, might receive more votes as they would be seen as more 'viable'.

Given the large majority that the Conservatives secured in 2019, perhaps aided by the election unusually being held in the December, unlike the 2010 and 2017 elections, I would expect that there would not be vast differences if it had been through proportional representation, but the above analysis suggests the story is more complex and I thought it was important to verify or contest easy assumptions. 

It is interesting to note that in 2017, the Conservatives got 42.45% of the vote but did not secure a majority but in 2019 got 42.4% of the vote but now have a majority of 80 seats. Interestingly, Boris Johnson did not secure a larger percentage of the votes than Theresa May did, but they were spread much more widely across the country. This highlights one challenge of the British system but is little compensation to May to know that overall she was no less popular with voters than Johnson, just that her support was much more heavily concentrated. 

In fact, the turnout in 2019 was 67.3% compared to 68.8% in 2017, meaning Johnson not only secured a smaller percentage, but actually a smaller actual number, of votes. If they had remained as concentrated in certain areas as they had done for May, then he would have had an even smaller number of seats in parliament that she had. The big win for Johnson was to get a few voters in traditionally Labour seats to back him, rather than him being as popular as May had been in traditionally Conservative seats. This, however, is not how the media portrayed it and May will go down in history as an unpopular Prime Minister, though ironically from her own party, she could secure more votes.

Interestingly, support for Labour in 2019 as a percentage was almost identical to that in 2017. However, they suffered from a maldistribution of support in the way that May did. Johnson won not by securing more support, but from converting Labour supporters to his line. In many ways this is what Margaret Thatcher did in 1979 and 1983, which might suggest that, unless Johnson blows it badly, he could be in office for many years. However, given what his friend David Cameron did, staying in office for a decade now seems out of fashion and it is likely Johnson will leave in 2027, for a profitable retirement.

Note that despite long promised reduction in the number of seats and in the boundaries between constituencies, this has still not come into force. If it had done, then Labour were expected to have around 35 fewer seats anyway.  There was an electoral pact between the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Plaid Cymru in certain seats so that they would not contest against each other. However, this does not seem to have had any impact on the results. Depending on the form of proportional representation used it might have done in this context.

In the details below, the text and numbers in square brackets are what the parties actually got.

2019: 650 Seats [Conservative Government]

• Conservatives (42.4%): 276 seats [317]
• Labour (40.0%): 259 [202]
• Liberal Democrats (7.4%): 47 [11]
• SNP (3.0%): 20 [48]
• Green (2.7%): 16 [1]
• Brexit Party (2.0%): 11 [0]
• Plaid Cymru (0.5%): 4 [4]

Northern Irish Parties

• DUP (0.8%): 5 [8]
• Sinn Fein (0.6%): 5 [4]
• Alliance Party (0.4%): 3 [1]
• SDLP (0.4%): 2 [1]
• UUP (0.3%): 2 [0]

With Northern Ireland, I have assumed that the 'left over' votes have gone to the two largest parties in terms of seats. The Alliance Party secured more votes than the SDLP though they were very close so the 'extra' seat might have gone either way. Constituencies in Northern Ireland can be very partisan. It is clear however, that the DUP was in part 'punished' for supporting Theresa May's government 2017-19, as, while they secured extra funding for the Province, the Brexit deal that began to emerge, ran counter to what their supporters had been seeking.

Looking at the election overall, after a period in the 2000s and 2010s in which proportional representation would not have provided much benefit to Labour or the Liberal Democrats, we seem to have reverted to a pattern similar to that in the 1980s. The media portrayed the election as a great win for Johnson and highlighting how he swept into constituencies that have long been held by Labour. Conversely, Corbyn has been portrayed as a bad liability for Labour, wrecking their chances of coming to power. Yet, in terms of votes, the picture is not so clear. With proportional representation, even the AV system considered in 2011, Johnson would not have secured a majority. 

This does not mean necessarily that a Labour-Liberal Democrat with or without the Greens and SNP, would have come to power. Before the election there had been tensions as the Liberal Democrats and Greens had wanted to reverse Brexit whereas Labour had been more ambivalent on the issue. The SNP was demanding a further referendum on Scottish independence within one year of a coalition involving themselves coming to power. The outcome is likely to have been either Labour would have to tack to being anti-Brexit which might have split the party or would have struggled on with support on certain issues. Ironically, to get a soft Brexit through they would have had to rely on Conservative support in the face of Liberal Democrat/Green/Plaid Cymru and probably SNP opposition. The trumpeted 'national unity' grand coalition may have come about though perhaps with Keir Starmer rather than Corbyn at the helm of Labour, under a soft Brexit Conservative, possibly Philip Hammond. A further general election in better weather would be a high probability, perhaps making the fourth election in six years.

With Brexit Party MPs in parliament, the Conservatives would be harangued to keep to a hard (perhaps even harder) line on Brexit and their failure again to secure a majority is likely to have been blamed on not doing this. It seems that not securing a majority again, Corbyn would still have had to leave. However, it would be on better terms than has proven to be the case. Added to that it seems likely that Labour left-wingers would be in a stronger position than in our situation rather than Labour feeling compelled to find someone more like Johnson, or at least like Tony Blair, as leader.

The 2019 election is a case which would give heart to those commentators who argue that proportional representation leads to unstable government. However, in part it simply highlights how diverse opinion is in the UK. The 2019 election, as it was run with the first-past-the-post system, does mark a return to the pattern of the 1980s, at the time called the 'elective dictatorship'. If Johnson wants to, he could still be in power in 2031, in the equivalent to Thatcher's experience. However, to him politics just seems to be a bit of a jape and just a component in his diverse career. It does mean that we will probably see history repeating itself. Unrest due to Conservative social policies and Labour adopting a glamorous leader effectively offering simply a watered down version of Conservative policies, which are already biting hard on natural Labour supporters. Though, as in 1983, it seems they are falling back on xenophobia to sustain them through tough times.

The Olympics Is Wrecking So Much Of UK Life

There was an article in 'The Guardian' on Saturday 21st July, by Caroline Davies entitled 'World awards UK gold medal in whingeing'.  It reported how foreign commentators have noted how irritated much of the British population appears to be at the Olympics.  I doubt that it is something unique to the UK.  I remember all the complaints around the financial mess which were the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the fact that facilities for the 2004 Athens Olympics were incomplete.  I certainly imagine Greece regrets the cost of hosting the Olympics now that it is so short of funds.

British complaints are not about the Olympics per se, but how they have been handled by the government.  You can certainly see enthusiasm for the games wherever the Olympic torch has been run around the UK.  People have been standing outside largely in pouring rain to watch a matter of seconds of a person running by with an Olympic torch, most of the time a person that they have no idea who they are.  Yet, they are still cheered on.  Tonbridge in Kent which was missed out by the incredibly winding route, had Dame Kelly Holmes a champion British athlete bring her torch (each of the 8000 runners gets to take their own torch home) to a specially organised event so that town did not feel left out.

Enthusiasm does not seem to be missing.  In the sport, I follow, cycling, the sense of anticipation following not only Bradley Wiggins winning 2 stages of the Tour de France and the race overall, but 3 stage wins by Mark Cavendish and one each by Chris Froome and David Millar in that race, given that these are 4 of the 5 men who will be on the Team GB road racing team, is at a very high level.  I am sure among fans of other sports featured, there is similar anticipation.  The problem for the average British person, whether a fan of any sports or not, is how badly this has been handled by the government.

The ticket process looked to be a shambles from the start and continues to be.  No-one seemed to know anyone who got a ticket.  The websites kept crashing at the time.  Yet, despite massive demand, it appears lots, literally hundreds of thousands of tickets have been left over unsold.  Thus, the view for fans is that they were somehow barred from getting tickets due to the process, with corporate buyers winning out over the average public and yet it has now resulted in loads of empty seats.  I do not know how it could have been handled any better, but there must be people who know.  Have the British not gone and talked to the Australians who ran the 2000 Sydney Olympics which are often rated as the most successful in recent years?  The way the tickets have been handled set the tone for what followed.

In the weeks running up to the Olympics, it has been as if there is an impending disaster is about to hit the UK.  I am sure that if it was known that a meteorite was heading towards Earth or very vigorous solar flares were anticipated, the information would be commuicated in exactly the same way as the approach of the Olympics has been.  Months ago there were warning notices at service stations and across London, about how companies needed to change their delivery times as they would not be able to get supplies into London.  Now ordinary drivers are being told to stay clear of large parts of southern England.  In a country where the train service is now often beyond the income of ordinary people to use, this simply adds to the sense that this is an event for the elites not the average UK citizen.  This is accentuated by the special lanes which have been carved out of London's roads.  Increasingly as a traveller in the UK you get the feeling that you are in a replica of medieval Japan where the ordinary people were expected to vacate the road and bow down in obeyance if a samurai wanted to ride by.

In Swindon in Wiltshire there are warnings about traffic disruption if you are going even in the direction of Weymouth in Dorset where the Olympic sailing events are being held, let alone trying to visit that town.  Swindon lies 142 Km (89 miles) from Weymouth, which suggests the vast area over which Olympic disruption is impinging on the ordinary public. South West Trains which runs the trains that go to Weymouth  have said that they cannot cope with the extra 80,000 passengers per day expected to use their services.  Contrary to the official advice not to attempt to drive to Weymouth and to use public transport, the train company incredibly is advising people not to attempt to use its service and to go by car instead! They have had years of time to prepare and yet they have failed.

The failure of the companies which make millions in profit but provide a declining service makes up a great deal of the problem and a focus of complaints.  South West Trains are not alone.  The G4S scandal has already attracted parliamentary attention and I imagine they are not going to be the last company to be called to account.  However, the problem has its roots further back.  During the Thatcher era 1979-91 and under her successors Major and Blair, there was a faith that private provision would always be better than anything the state could provide.  There was a lazy assumption that companies are interested in quality of service as well as profit.  Yet, year after year and now decade after decade, in those semi-monopolies, we find that in fact prices rise and service deteriorates.  I quite expect to hear that the companies supplying water and electricity to the Olympic site will soon be saying that water and electricity supplies in the surrounding area will have to be cut in order to supply the games.  It is no surprise that G4S could not supply enough security staff despite 100,000 applicants and unemployment at the highest level for years.  Their services are appalling all of the time anyway, especially handling prisoners.  Giving them an expensive monopoly for the Olympics was not going to change how they approach business.  Too many ministers feel inhibited from challenging companies employed by the government, despite paying them so much to be inefficient.  New Labour would not do it, nor will the coalition.  They are all brain-washed by the Thatcherite view that 'private, for-profit is best' so mentally cannot handle the fact when yet again this actually turns out not to be the case.  The current government loves to monitor and direct all aspects of life apart from companies making vast profits.  You only have to look at the lack of ability to curtail the immoral behaviour of the Murdoch press to not be surprised that it keeps happening.

The security situation is a key one for the UK because we are such a paranoid, militarised state.  It has been noted by 'The Guardian' how much the military has come into the foreground of British society, see: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/where-did-uk-veterans-day-suddenly-come.html  In many ways it has always been there, but the British of the past have overlooked this because of our feeling that to be a militarised state is to resemble the Prussians.  The UK is constantly involved in wars, in a way that our neighbours in Europe generally are not.  To support such activity we have given the military a raised status.  The implication is that unless you blindly support whatever military action the government (or the US government) has decided on, then you are betraying the service people injured or killed in these conflicts.  Ironically, many of the people Help For Heroes and Military Wives support would not need such help if the government did not keep shoving them into wars that had no chance of any British victory particularly with decreasing numbers of soldiers available and chronically under-equipped for over a decade now.

Paranoia is patriotic in Britain something we learnt from the Americans especially during the Bush era.  If you do not rush around screaming about the potential, often simply imagined threats to your country, then you are not patriotic:  http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/be-patriotic-be-paranoid.html  This is a bitter development in the UK if you remember back to how much better we handled actual, regular terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s and is very ironic now that the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' slogan prepared for use in the Second World War has become such a fashion accessory.  That would probably be a better attitude for handling the Olympics that the various flavours of paranoia reaching from panic about traffic jams to the myths around people being excluded to attending events if wearing branded items not provided by the Olympics' sponsors.  The militarisation and the paranoia has nicely bisected with the fact that troops are now being used to fill the gaps left by G4S's inability to employ enough staff.  I do not know if anyone can tell me if there will be more troops in uniform at the London Olympics than there were at the 1936 Berlin Olympics or the 2008 Beijing Olympics; maybe we will only get the Bronze in that competition.  Do not even get me started on the missiles stationed on rooftops across East London.  Anything being shot down at that stage damage the area anyway.  I guess it is more about pushing the incoming missile towards areas of East London like Hackney or Bow or Stepney(of course not to The City or Docklands where too many elite people will be) or Barking or Dagenham, rather than Stratford, so as to cut down on the policing costs next time riots come to London.

So, what have the Olympics done for us?  Well, I have not even touched on the laughing stock that featuring the moronic buffoon that is our Mayor of London, Boris Johnson makes of absolutely everyting he is involved with.  I think we should have simply had him appointed Chief Jester by the Queen in addition to his duties and then have one of his sinister and less comic deputies appear as Acting Mayor of London.  At least then there would be a gramme of gravitas.  Even George Bush Jr. could pull off looking suitably serious at serious events even if he would fluff his lines; Johnson cannot even manage that.  The other thing that is worth criticising is the impact on the internet.

The impact on the internet and the consequences for British business were highlighted a couple of weeks back by the BBC.  It has not been discussed much partly because the coalition, as noted above, tries to pretend it is a government which actually helps business, and not simply those companies that contain its friends or give generous donations to the Conservative Party.  Yet, having been in areas where the Olympic torch has been passing, I know that even that impacts on the internet connection.  At first I thought it was an attempt to compel us to abandon our computers and get out to watch the parade.  I did that for the sake of the 10-year old who lives in our house and saw tens of metres of procession which simply summed up many of the problems I have commented on.  There were tens of police either in standard uniform on motorbikes or in the natty grey running kit; there were numerous corporate sponsor vehicles and then lost amongst all this was an individual carrying the torch.  It perfectly summed up paranoia and corporate greed all in one.  I did wonder about the runners.  They receive high level protection, with four police staff runing with them, but what happens once they have handed over the torch?  Suddenly they transmogrify back into ordinary people.  If they are such a target while running with the torch, why not some minutes later?  Again, to me this seemed to sum up how narrow the perspective has been of the organisers at every single level.

Anyway, we have been warned by BBC News Breakfast programme to expect a similar fall off in internet service during the Olympics.  It will be interesting if some econometrics specialist can subsequently tell us how much damage that will do to the British economy.  Every bank holiday we are told how many billions of pounds are lost because people have one day extra off.  I would guess, on the same scale that more will be lost through damage to the internet connections over two weeks than is gained through money brought into the UK.  There clearly is already a loss given that troops who already had a job are being used for security rather than 3000 unemployed people getting a job however temporarily.  Increasingly, it is apparent, that the disruption to the UK which is of a scale far greater even than the recent flooding, is going to damage it at a time when its economy and society are already at a low ebb.  Britain is not going to come out of the Olympics unscathed.  The legacy is pretty illusory.  Yes, some people might take up some sports they might not have done before, but you could have pumped the money spent on the Olympics into local authorities into reducing the charges at leisure centres to achieve that, without all the traffic disruption, missile sites and paranoia.

The best way for the UK to have handled the Olympics is to have held our hands up and said, 'no, we are incapable of doing this without disrupting the UK economy and having to try to terrify much of the population; we have no companies that can deliver what they are promising' and then in the spirit of international friendship offered to help Dublin or Paris or Brussels actually host the games with British troops (out of uniform given sensitivities) along with Boris Johnson, packed off to the new host city to run it all.  Then Britain could get on without the disaster warnings, the militarisation and the paranoia and without the damage to the UK economy which is going to follow in the wake of this fiasco.

P.P. 31/07/2012
Since posting this I have been reminded by people about how poor the logo for the 2012 Olympics was, almost entirely illegible and also that the 'mascots' were so alien as to frighten children, a major failure when you are trying to peddle millions of soft toys.  These things do not damage the every day life of most people, though may have had an impact on some retailers grasping for any sales in this recession.  The error over the North and South Korea flags was typical of Britain.  David Cameron must be the only world leader who has been compelled to apologise to North Korea.  Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the US Presidency made an utter fool of himself, though apparently he has no foreign policy advisor.  Saying that even Michelle Obama made fauxs pas when she and her husband visited, but that was simply about the snobbery of the Queen, rather than what Romney has done, offend one of his country's prime allies and the only one which has stood by it when the last Republican President, George Bush Jr. decided to go to war.   You do wonder if there is anyone left in the USA who is white and works in business and has any brains.  Perhaps they have all emigrated; clearly they are not going into politics any more.  If Bush and Romney are the best the Republicans can produce you wonder what the men they beat are like.  The UK has been a close ally of the USA for over sixty years so to be able to offend it takes some really misguided talent.  The concern is, when he travels to countries who are more sensitive to such things and whose displeasure can have an impact on the USA, that he may actually provoke violent attacks, maybe even a war.  This may is a danger to world peace.

P.P. 03/08/2012
One thing that I was only alerted to recently was the impact that the Olympics have had on postal services in and out of London.  One form of special delivery has been suspended for the duration of the games and letters posted first class in London will now take a day longer than usual to arrive.  Despite this, the post office guarantees to make available stamps featuring gold-medal winning British competitors a day after they have won their medal and to paint postboxes close to where the competitor lives.  I do wonder about their sense of priority.

P.P. 05/08/2012
The detrimental impact on the economy of the Olympics, especially in London continues.  Shopping centres across the capital are deserted.  This is not really suprising as if you drive towards London, even 25 Km (15 miles) out you see flashed up on the motorway 'Avoid Central London until 15th August' as if there is some immense natural disaster occurring across the city.  These signs were up even before the games began.  It is in fact a great time to visit Central London, as many of the attractions are deserted.  'The Guardian' reported yesterday that you could get on the London Eye after only 10 minutes of waiting rather than the 1 hour of queuing which is usually the case and museums and other attractions are empty.  The British are excellent at panicking as was seen earlier this year when even talks about a potential oil tanker drivers' strike drove people to rush to fill up with petrol, often at risk to their health.  The strike never occurred.  With the Olympics, the organisers' assumption has been that London would be in chaos and the warnings that have been hammered into us for months now, have made many people simply assume London is a no-go area.  It has impacted across the locations.  I have noted above that there was an assumption that Weymouth would be a no-go area, so people are simply avoiding that town and the surrounding countryside too.  Apparently as a result, attractions in Weymouth are closing down due to insufficient people turning up.  By making it appear that the infrastructure of the UK was going to collapse under the weight of the Olympics, the government has insured that it will not simply by scaring hundreds of thousands of people away, at a time when the tourist industry actually needed a boost.  It is sickening to see how many empty seats there are at so many Olympic events, because corporate guests cannot be bothered to turn up.  They should simply go into the streets of Stratford and hand out tickets to people.  The people of East London have to put up with enough on a daily basis anyway, they deserve something free.  Even if they sell the tickets on, it will stimulate the grey economy of the region which is actually a key factor there.  The UK could probably not have run the Olympics any more ineffectually than it has.  However, it has shown that fear is a key drive in British civil society, constantly fanned by the government for its own purposes.  Consequently in this situation we are reaping what has long been sown.

Political Assimilation of the UK Police: A Third Reich Model?

People always jump whenever I draw parallels between any state at the moment and that of Nazi Germany. To some degree everyone tends to simply think about Nazi Germany as it was by 1944: a state at war carrying out extermination of millions of people. Obviously, that is an important aspect to remember, but the obsession with that phase means that people overlook very important lessons from earlier in the Nazi regime, for example 1933-6 before the state moved to a war setting and the authoritarian period that preceded it, 1930-3. It is unlikely that the UK or any other European state will ever return to the kind of behaviour of Nazi Germany in the mid-1940s (though the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s showed how easy it can be) but it is far more possible that states will take the first few steps towards an authoritarian or totalitarian regime and it is those steps, those policies being put into place that people looking at democracies in the 2010s need to be aware of.

With that caveat, you might wonder what issue has attracted my attention that I see parallels between the UK today and Germany in the 1930s. The issue is the apparent seizing of control over the (London) Metropolitan police service by the Deputy Mayor of London, Kit Malthouse. Malthouse is an elected member of the Greater London Authority (GLA) and was given the position of deputy mayor for policing by the directly-elected Mayor, Boris Johnson. Malthouse was formerly Deputy Leader of Westminster Council responsible for the council's finances, 1998-2003.

It became clear earlier this year that Johnson and his team wanted greater control over the Metropolitan police service. Unlike all other constabularies in the UK the Metropolitan Police is not headed by a Chief Constable, but by the Home Secretary, who, however appoints a Commissioner as operational head. To some degree all of this goes back to the role the Metropolitan Police played historically as I have highlighted in my articles on the Great Upheaval of 1910-11. Being the largest force they often supplied officers across the country to bolster local forces in times of trouble. They were often called in to investigate serious crimes particularly murders, in various parts of the country, often far from London. Thus, whilst not being a national police force they used to often play that role though it is one that has declined greatly in the post-war era.

Thus, a contest over who controls the Metropolitan police is really a battle between Conservative-run Greater London Authority and the Labour government with the police service as the 'football' between them. Ironically this turns on its head the similar tension between the Labour-run Greater London Council (GLC) under Ken Livingstone and the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher which led to the abolition of the GLC in 1986. London was without a central authority until the creation of the GLA in 2000 and ironically the last leader of the GLC, Ken Livingstone was elected the first Mayor and head of the GLA. Trying to run London without central authority caused immense difficulties as anyone who lived or drove through London witnessed in that period (roadworks were not co-ordinated between different boroughs and in London with population so high you cross borough lines every few minutes at that time often from one set of roadworks to another).

The first steps to greater GLA control came with the resignation of Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in October 2008, citing lack of support from Johnson who had been elected five months earlier. To a great degree it was believed that Blair was resistant to Johnson's wish for greater political control of the London police and so was pressured to leave. Things, this month, have taken a step further with Malthouse, saying he and Johnson now 'have our hands on the tiller' of the Metropolitan police and have an electoral mandate to influence what it does. Furthermore he said that they had had 'elbowed the Home Office out of the picture' and would not simply comply with Metropolitan Police proposals: 'We do not want to be a passenger on the Met cruise' he said. Despite his ineffectual nature and the corruption of many of his deputies, it is clear that Johnson relishes power. However, it has become quickly apparent that Johnson is the pioneer for further steps of this nature.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party who seems absolutely confident that he will become prime minister in 2010, has outlined the policy of having elected heads of all constabularies. This is sold on the basis that it will reduce Home Office bureaucracy and allow greater accountability to the local community (or certainly to those who are not marginalised and can make a fuss). Of course, you will find quite strict controls over the electoral process as Cameron would not want an active Muslim as the new head of the West Midlands or the Greater Manchester constabularies as might be the case in a free election.

Unsurprisingly, these steps have attracted resistance from the police. Ian Johnston, President of the Police Superintendants' Association (superintendants and chief superintendants run local police and detective units; they can be considered middle management in the police structure) has portrayed the approach as risking the world renown of the UK police service for 'short-term political dogma'. Now, people on the left like me, see the police as a very conservative force in society anyway and their response to the G20 protests this year which resulted in the police murdering a passerby as well as the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by police in 2005, just heightens that sense. So, if they feel that a right-wing Conservative policy is going too far, then you know it must be pretty extreme. Back in the early 1990s I remember talking to liberal police officers (they do exist, there are police who do still see themselves as having a role in guarding rather than repressing society) who were worried by what they saw as the politicisation of the service back then and we have gone much further since.

So, what has any of this to do with the Third Reich? Germany in the 1930s had a police system very similar to the UK model, i.e. decentralised. This in part had come about because the German state was a federation of various other states which retained their own police forces. There was an imbalance as after 1866 Prussia constituted two-thirds of Germany so Prussian police forces covered a great deal, if not all of the country. As in the UK, detectives from the capital, Berlin in Prussia, would be called into to tackle serious murder cases in other German states.

When the Nazis came to power in January 1933, they obviously were keen to take full control of the police system. They created a rival body in the SA (Sturmabteilung), their paramilitary group which almost immediately set up their own illegal prisons and the first concentration camps. However, step-by-step 1933-6 the Nazis began to bring the police forces of Germany under political control. In March 1933, Heinrich Himmler became Police President of the Munich police and Commander of the political police (these units had existed in a number of German states since the late 19th century and were responsible for monitoring revolutionaries and reactionaries and anyone who threatened the political status quo) across the whole of Bavaria, the largest of the German states outside Prussia. In September 1933 Himmler became head of the political police in all German states except Prussia. In Prussia he became Head of the Prussian Police and its political division (the 'Gestapo' from GEheim STAats POlizei, i.e. secret state police) though in theory he was under Hermann Goering who had been Minister of the Interior for Prussia since January 1933. It was not until 17th June 1936, three-and-a-half years after the Nazis had come to power that Himmler became head of all police forces across Germany. He merged the detective units, the so-called Kripo (KRIminalPOlizei) with the Gestapo to create the Sipo (SIcherheitsPOlizei - security police). The Orpo (ORdnungspolizei - order police), the uniformed sections remained separate but still under Himmler.

Himmler already headed the SS and had created the SD (Sicherheitsdienst - security service) as an intelligence organisation to monitor Nazi party members though it turned into a counter-espionage unit. The final stage of politicisation of the German police came in 1939 when the RHSA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - Reich Security Central Office) merged the SD and Sipo effectively making the police an arm of the Nazi party.

Now, I am not saying that David Cameron intends that by 2015, the UK police will be an arm of the Conservative Party, but what is important to note are the steps that led up to Himmler taking control in 1936. Cameron would contest that he would weaken the Home Office and reduce centralisation. However, given the people likely to be elected to run the different constabularies, it is likely that they will get guidance from the Conservative government, and recognising that they need to maintain their position by popular vote are going to press policies that they know the public are sympathetic to. We all know that in a referendum the UK would be compelled to leave the EU, the death penalty would be re-introduced, paedophiles castrated and all people from ethnic minorities would be expelled from the country. Thus, the likely step is that we see more radical policies aimed at those that people that the 'silent majority' despise and are whipped up to hate by the tabloid media. What would be interesting is, if in some areas of the country where left-wing radicalism lives on a truly liberal head of police was elected and police policies such as use of the over-use of sus laws against ethnic minority men and the blocking of protestors from reaching sites would be challenged. I could imagine that happening in Liverpool and Glasgow. Presumably in that situation, the Cameron government would find some excuse to take direct control away from that particular elected head. Do not be deluded that election of heads of police means no central control, it will just be a different approach to a more explicit control.

To some degree I do not know why Cameron feels he has to grab this control of the police. They basically follow a very conservative line anyway. Individual chief constables may not follow the Conservative Party manifesto to the letter, but as we saw with the G20 protests they are more than happy to intervene forcefully against and perceived threat to the status quo. The police have not balked at imposing the anti-terrorism legislation though it has effectively brought house arrest to people who have not been convicted of anything; similarly they have no trouble tracking 'escaped' asylum seekers from places like Campsfield House. To some degree because Tony Blair took a number of steps towards an authoritarian state and Gordon Brown has not reversed these, to appear more conservative, Cameron has to go further. Perhaps he genuinely believes in democracy, but I am increasingly feeling he sees it as a faulty system that gives too much of a voice to those people he feels should not have a voice because they only make foolish decisions.

The UK will not become the Third Reich reborn, but there are lessons from German history about how a decentralised police service can be centralised and politicised step-by-step that are useful for us to bear in mind at a stage when Boris Johnson begins to assert political control over the largest police force in the UK, not that different from what Hermann Goering did in Berlin in 1933.

The Death of Opportunity

Last month I put up an essay I had produced eight years ago about the political consensuses in Britain. However, I realised reading about the Alan Milburn report of last month into the restrictions on social mobility than a period of social consensus was coming to an end too. Of course even the concept of society took a bashing during the period of the Thatcher regime. However, ironically, Margaret Thatcher coming from a non-professional middle class background to becoming prime minister, like her successor John Major effectively from skilled working class to working in a bank, demonstrated that there was a degree of social mobility and a bank clerk could feasibly dream of holding the highest position in the UK. Contrast these to David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party who assumes he will be the next prime minister and Boris Johnson, Mayor of London; both attended the elite Eton school. These are the face of the Conservative Party as it enters the 2010s just as they could of been when it entered the 1930s.

Cameron has done nothing in his life except work for the Conservative Party, he does not even have the experience of business, the military or the media that many of his fellow Conservatives have done. Johnson is a moron, a poor quality journalist who is adept only at offending people. He has gained and retained positions just because of who he is and who he knows and seems incapable of actually showing any real ability in anything; even as a host of a comedy quiz he struggled. I do not think he should be unemployed and the electorate of London are free to elect who they could, but if he had not come from a wealthy family he never would have been in a position to even stand as a candidate let alone garner votes.

Perhaps, Tony Blair, former lawyer, began the move away from that trend, but I think it is behind the scenes that the changes to end the attitude of the 1960s-70s that people should rise as high as their abilities will allow, was really being killed. However, in the Blair years we did see the expansion of universities with the aim of 50% of 18 year olds attending them. In theory this would open up the routes especially into the professions for a broader swathe of the population, and, it was intended mean more capable people coming into public life in particular. The benefit was mainly for middle class children and working class participation after a brief rise has been static since about 2002 and with the decline in funding of lifelong education is likely to go in reverse in the next few years.

Of course the privileged have not sat still in terms of defending their interests. It was easy when only 6% of the population went to university, you could bar people from professions like medicine and the law by simply asking for a degree. Despite the success of the Open University the numbers were not sufficient to alter the balance of the intake into those areas. In fact there were other aspects happening in terms of equality for women and ethnic minorities if not for the majority of the population, i.e. working class people. Steps have been made, but if you compare the UK to many neighbouring states, most professions do not reflect the fact that 53% of the working population is female or that 17% of people in the UK are members of ethnic minorities. However, there were clear signs that even the Christian Democrat approach favoured by Blair was alarming the privileged.

All the writing about how universities should be distinguished from each other as of different ranks and people mourning the fact that in 1992 polytechnics became universities was one sign of this. Of course, many of the post-1992 universities are in a far better situation in the current economic crisis than their older rivals and just as some people now expect some UK universities to close (London Metropolitan after its fraud must be a leading candidate) others will be merged or taken over, probably by one of the stronger post-1992 universities. Other things such as dismissing of 'A' level results and the favouring of the baccaleauriate and places like University of Oxford discussing having entrance examinations again, seem like actions by the elite to reduce the pressure from the active middle class in trying to join them.

Milburn highlighted another way in which this is being done, through the use of internships. In some ways this is an extension of the policies adopted by fee-paying schools. They educate 7% of the population and yet provide 33% of MPs, 45% of civil servants, 70% of finance directors and 75% of judges. Of course, they would argue that that is because they can provide the best education and facilities, though if you go around the average fee-paying school you often find that is far from being the case and many of them are in out-of-date buildings with old equipment and old educational approaches. It is more the fact that even if they taught their pupils to do nothing except recite the complete works of Rudyard Kipling, the bulk of their pupils would get good jobs due to family connections.

In the 1990s noises were made about these privileges and the fact that how could such for-profit organisations be charities so such schools gave bursaries and in 2006 regulations were changed so that the Charities Commission could be stricter on for-profit schools who were not aiding the local community sufficiently. A couple have been criticised this year and one had the charitable status revoked. However, this misses a huge point, is that even a child who gets to such schools on a bursary will never be a proper part of the school. Their parents cannot pay for the ski trips, the instruments, the other lessons that are taken for granted, actively encouraged in such schools. There is superificial widening of access but if your parents do not have sufficient money your access will never be more than superficial.

Via a long route round, this brings me back to internships. There are a couple of issues going on with them. It is clear like almost all training for young people, employers use it to get cheap or free labour and in exchange give very minimal training. 'The Guardian' reported how even MPs are exploiting the system, like glamorous industries such as fashion, journalism and other media, they use the desire of the young people as a way to get cheap workers despite the fact that each has £104,000 year to spend on help which many of them use to employ family members. They save the government £5.3 million per year, but are selling young people false hope and exploiting them as badly as the worst modelling agencies.

To work for free costs money, especially if you are going to do it for a decent amount of time sufficient to gain real skills for work. This again relies on the family income, that your parents can support you through the period of internship. Yet, internships are now seen as vital for a decent job; US websites show that in the USA students are now expected to have completed two internships by the time they have graduated if they want to get a decent job. Internships are both exploitation and a new way of putting obstacles in the way of aspirational people from non-upper class backgrounds.

Privileged people would argue that the meritocracy fostered in the 1960s (originally used a pejorative term) has failed, given the state we are in. However, many of the problems we are facing notably in terms of the environment and the financial crisis have been fostered by greedy, privileged people with an inability to see beyond their own bank balances and their children they have raised purely through nepotism rather promoting people on ability. If you want to see the kind of damage such systems promote, look at the record of the British Army.

I have recently been reading about how in 1811 the Duke of Wellington's unwillingness to meet with the Portuguese commandant of Braga allowed the army under General Soult to escape capture by the British forces in Portugal. The commandant had come to tell Wellington of the potential escape route for Soult's forces along a Roman road, but Wellington would not meet him as he was deemed to be of too low class and the British general emphasised hierarchy. This meant 20,000 French troops escaped. Wellington was one of Britain's best generals. Others who came on through status and position were far worse. The fiasco of the retreat to Corunna in Spain in 1808, the retreat from Kabul in 1842, the bulk of the action in the Crimean War and certainly the logistical support, the same in fiascos of the Zulu Wars and the Anglo-Boer Wars in South Africa 1899-1902 let alone most activity on the Western Front in the First World War (and in fact I keep thinking of more examples, just look at the American War of Independence 1775-82 and the Fall of Singapore in 1942) you can see how foolish men ignorant of basic strategy, of the fighting machine they had under them, the requirements of an army, the ingenuity of their opponents and above all disregard for their soldiers meant the UK has a huge record of military fiascos that led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and lengthened wars.

If, as Milburn reports, social mobility is declining in Britain there is a 'closed shop' culture in the professions which is not levelling off but increasing. After the shifts of the post-war era there was not an infinite capacity for people to always do better than their parents, but what is happening now is so many are doing far worse. The opportunities for intelligent, hard-working and innovative people are becoming fewer and when they come they come at such a huge financial costs in terms of student loans as to hamper the rest of that person's life. Despite all the bursaries and the access, university, feasibly is still only open to the children of the rich, certainly if it is not the last thing in their lives they can afford to aspire to do. The 'me first' culture fostered from the 1980s onwards is allowing the privileged to strengthen their position. Not for the first time do I feal we are trundling back to the 1930s with Baldwinian policies waiting in the wings to be introduced by David Cameron (though I am still not convinced he will win easily) and a social elite approach to opportunity that appears modelled on the one shown in 'Gosford Park' (2001), i.e. set in 1931 with people complaining that the unemployed would not take positions as domestic servants.

Some will see the greater egalitarianism of the 1960s-70s as an 'experiment' or a 'phase' that proved to them that it could not succeed, though seems to be doing pretty well in other countries. I know the USA has always had an imperfect system but being educated in the state system and working hard can still get you a lot further than in the UK, let alone if you look at France or other European states. Yes, there are inequalities, yes there is privilege, no, not everyone can become prime minister, but these discussions actually pivot on the lives of millions of individuals and whether they will ever get the chance to head the department they work in or whether they will be barred from that on some spurious grounds and have the boss's son with minimal experience put in over them. That is what these broad debates are about frustration is household after household, life after life.

As a society, we will never know the cost of the medicines that will not be developed, the efficiency of our economy and the running of our state that will be lost because so many young people have no hope. These days they cannot even aspire to be the same as their parents in their occupations, many millions will be poorer and less secure in their work than their parents ever were. The privileged love to see binge drinking, drug abuse, youth crime, the assigning of ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) because it allows them to say that other classes do not deserve opportunity and so should not have the right to it. In fact shutting off opportunity in the way that is happening so actively now, simple rots society. There were always be criminals and the socially dysfunctional, but by shutting off any hope of a better future for whole swathes of the population you simply exacerbate the problem and bring unknown misery to millions. New Labour should have really smashed the 'glass ceiling' for social as well as gender, disability and ethnic equality, but instead it has overseen a hardening of these divisions and that is a legacy all of us are going to be dealing with for the next few decades.

P.P. 09/10/2009: New findings have revealed that students from independent schools are over-represented on 'vulnerable' (i.e. to having their departments closed) but economically important degree courses such as modern languages and engineering. Independent schools teach 7% of pupils in the UK but provide 28% students doing French degrees; 38% on Italian and 41% on Spanish degrees; 25% of students studying mechanical engineering, 26% on civil engineering and 38% on general engineering degree and 38% on medical degree courses; the 42% of independent pupils who make up the students doing economics cannot really be deemed to be in a valuable subject area given how much damage such people have done to the UK in the past two years.

These figures may be taken as an excuse to boost independent education, but what such a step neglects is that these are the kind of pupils who always went to university. These degree programmes often stretch over four years, for languages you have to go abroad for a year and engineering degrees often have a year in industry, so students need more money to complete the course than on other degree programmes. In addition, these figures show up the opportunities independent school pupils have at school and to travel before they even reach university; also that their parents are more likely to speak foreign languages and particularly to be doctors. What the figures show is that if you go to a comprehensive school or even a grammar school you stand little chance of moving into these subject areas. For the sake of the future of the UK more resources need to go into state schools otherwise it will continue to be the case that too much of British industry is driven by people who have come from a particularly narrow-minded mould, out of touch with the bulk of UK society. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8291320.stm

P.P. 14/10/2009: The evidence that even attending university does not give you any greater benefits in terms of social mobility seems to keep on coming in. It also seems that the peak period of such opportunity, sometime in the early 2000s is now well passed without having made much of an impact on the social background of those in professional jobs. With the recession it is likely to worsen. It is easy to slip into seeing the recession as having been engineered by the elites to knock back what they saw as middle and even working class people becoming too 'uppity' and pressing into the jobs that were usually reserved for their children. Whether it was ever intentional or is just a by-product of what is happening, the elites can sit back and be happy that they are facing far less challenge from the lower classes than they would have done 5-10 years ago.

The BBC continues covering these issues: 70% of judges, 54% of CEOs, 54% of leading journalists and 51% of doctors went to independent schools which only educate 7% of the population. As anyone who has been round many independent schools knows they often are in worse conditions than children at a local comprehensive and often receive outdated teaching, but of course they do not have to try as hard as many of them will be guaranteed jobs and easy career progression simply because of who they know. I am heartened to see that 32% of MPs and 24% of vice-chancellors of universities went to independent schools, though this still means that indepedent school pupils are over-represented 3-5 times, this is better than 10 times over-represented. However, I do worry that the balance will get worse again meaning that even more than at present the bulk of us and our children will never stand a chance of holding a professional job certainly one that shapes the country even if we are capable of doing it. In our place will be incompetent people who simply got there because of who their family is and which school they went to. For the latest BBC coverage see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8295524.stm

P.P. 25/01/2010: Working for a company which seems to think it is normal that what is or not acceptable to say in any situation seems to be the privilege of affluent employees no matter what their standing within the context of the company, I am feeling the bite of the power of the privileged more sharply than I have for many years.  That aside, I noted the continued attempt, now that higher education takes in so much more of the population to try to draw divisions within it, down the line of old fashioned assumptions.  No-one, even the Million group which represents post-1992 universities seems willing to say that in some fields you stand more chance of getting a job with a degree from a newer university which properly engages with the subject than from a stuck-in-the-mud traditional one.  Now this snobbery is spreading to schools as well.

The government has resisted the rush by independent (i.e. fee-paying) schools to adopt the IGCSE in the place of the GSCE, so now people like the head of the elite Harrow School Barnaby Lenon is whining that poorer children are being lied to about their chances of having a decent career studying the standard qualifications that the bulk of schools still offer.  He refers to 'worthless qualifications' and inidicates that he feels educating the masses of young people will simply lead to circumstances like Weimar Germany or current day Zimbabwe, not realising that actually in those countries education qualifications were/are a rarity reserved for the elite.  So Lenon is equating mass education with dictatorship, rather what is in fact the case, it promotes democracy.  Of course, Lenon does not want to advance democracy and certainly not equality, he wants to keep education and the paths it opens restricted to those who have privilege already.  See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8475876.stm

It is clear that the privileged feel they are beginning to win the argument and with a few more pushes will be able not only to push back some of the increase in social mobility of the past decade but also push it back to before the 1960s changes in opportunity.  This will certainly come about if the Conservatives, no longer fronted by middle class people who worked their way up like Margaret Thatcher and John Major, but by people from the elite, notably David Cameron, win the next election.  The further shutting off of opportunity for thousands of young people is iniquitous and needs to be fought strongly.  This is not about struggling for greater opportunity for ordinary people, it is about maintaining the opportunity opened up over the past four decades and not allowing us to slide back to a situation of the 19th century in which people got a position because of who their father was, not because of any ability.  Returning to that means not only frustration for many thousands but also decay for the UK as a whole.

Boris Johnson: Buffoon of London - Is this what we want from politicians?

Last month in the posting about the desire in London to revive the Routemaster bus, an old-fashioned beloved but impractical vehicle, I mentioned the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The position of an elected Mayor of London was created in 2000. Despite having a population of around 10 million people, more than many European countries, and being at the centre of an economic region with 25 million people (i.e. larger than the population of Spain or Poland) London has often lacked its own government. In 1986 on party political grounds rather than issues of practicality, the Greater London Council (GLC) was abolished. Control of London then fell to the 32 London boroughs and the City of London (the government of the medieval core of London, a small area with few inhabitants but the main financial centres). It was not until 2000 that the replacement Greater London Authority and the London Assembly were created. It is incredible that the largest city in the UK had no cross-city government for 24 years. Anyone living in London at the time knows the chaos it caused as road works in particular could not be co-ordinated across boroughs (which being so densely populated are often only a few miles wide) and major transport projects were delayed because companies had to deal with a whole range of councils.

Anyway, finally in 2000 this mad system was ended and we got an elected mayor. Ironically the man who held the position 2000-08 was Ken Livingstone who had been leader of the GLC 1981-84 and then after a short break 1984-86. Having broken with the Labour Party he was an Independent 2000-2004 and then as a Labour candidate 2004-08 having been welcomed back into the party. He lost the election to serve his third term of office by 1.028 million votes to the Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson's 1.168 million. Livingstone came over in the election as looking weary (he is 63; Johnson is 44). Perhaps he did not expect people to take Johnson seriously. Livingstone has headed London for a total of 13 years. One thing that must be said about him is that he always had good ideas and a populist touch. He radically reformed public transport in London with the Fare's Fair scheme of the 1980s and again the Oyster system of the 2000s. He has always been a strong advocate for London and played an important role in getting it the 2012 Olympics and the preparations for that. People have perceived him as left-wing, but that is mainly because of how he was painted as a 'loony left' member by the Thatcherite press of the 1980s. In fact though his policies seem to stem from a mix of common sense and trying to do what he sees as the best for the people of London.

Now, we turn to Boris Johnson who has been in power for a little over 3 months. Johnson, as I have mentioned before, is an ex-public school boy having gone to Eton (as did Conservative party leader David Cameron) and then on to Balliol College, Oxford University. So immediately he is unlike almost everyone who lives in London. He has an international background he was born in New York, his great-grandfather served in the government of the Ottoman Empire, his father worked for the European Commission and Boris went to school in Brussels; his second wife is half-Indian. So in these ways he has an international background in common with many London citizens. Before surgery as a boy he was deaf and this may explain the rather distracted manner in which he comes across. He was Conservative MP for Henley-on-Thames 2001-08 and Shadow Education spokesman 2005-08.

The main problem with him is his incompetence. For someone who has been in the public eye as a politician and before that as a journalist, he seems to have a real inability not to offend people. He failed almost immediately as a management consultant because he found the graphs and charts of the profession tedious. This is a characteristic that has already caused him difficulties in his job as mayor because he complains the meetings which are at the heart of the job are tedious. He has handed responsibility for all planning to a deputy, an approach that is in sharp contrast to Livingstone's hands-on approach.

Johnson was kicked off 'The Times' for falsifying a quote, but seems to have risen through 'The Daily Telegraph' from 1987 onwards becoming European Community correspondent (no doubt aided by the inside family contacts; his father-in-law is also president of the European Commission on Human Rights, so often he would be interviewing family friends) then assistant editor 1994-9 and then editor of 'The Spectator' 1999-2005. Both of these are very conservative publications. Working for them seems to have simply kept him distant from ordinary people and he has continued to make ill-judged comments about citizens of Liverpool, Portsmouth and New Guinea that he has had to apologise for. In this way he is very like the Duke of Edinburgh. They are so wrapped up in attitudes that died in the 1950s that they go around speaking in an ill-informed way that causes offence in these more enlightened times. The Duke of Edinburgh you can forgive, he is an elderly, non-elected monarch with actually no power, Johnson is different he runs a city with the most multi-cultural population in the UK and a budget of billions. Under his mayorship it will be the Olympic city welcoming people from around the globe. More faux pas from him could cause international embarrassment for the city and the UK as a whole. He tends to speak bluntly and in appealing to his 'constituency', prosperous people of the kind I encountered at that Hampshire show recently, he forgets that the bulk of the population do not share his outdated views and actually want someone who is responsive to the world of 2008-13. Though perhaps I am wrong, maybe it is not 'the bulk' and I am looking at this from my small constituency as much as he is. However, if he was mayor of Royal Leamington Spa, then he would be facing fewer challenges than as mayor of the capital.

It is not just that Johnson comes over as being very 'silly' and has pandered to this by appearing on comedic television programmes, it is because you have no sense that this is an act. It does lead people to excuse him for his faux pas, but hardly instills confidence that he can handle crises when they come.

Given his loathing of procedure and his dependence on his deputies; he had 5 deputy mayors. The deputy mayor he handed planning to, Sir Simon Milton was embarrassed when it turned out that he was breaking regulations by remaining a member of Westminster Council and the Local Government Association and taking up this new role. Ray Lewis, deputy mayor for young people was forced to resign last month when it was revealed he had been investigated for financial irregularities when a church minister. Even during the election Johnson lost his deputy chief of staff James McGrath after he made statements about people of Afro-Caribbean origin returning to the Caribbean region if unhappy with policies in London. Tim Parker another deputy mayor and the one designated by Johnson as 'first deputy' have said that there are insufficient women of quality to appoint them to senior positions in the GLA. So, again we have out-dated attitudes seeming to be accepted by the Johnson administration. Like Johnson himself, men such as Lewis and Milton have controversy around them, that might not be criminal, but certainly makes people feel uneasy. The fact that there are 5 deputy mayors, will lead, according to Tony Travers of the London School of Economics quoted in 'The Guardian' to a fragmented policy-making approach which the formation of the GLA was supposed to combat.

What policies does he have? Well unsurprisingly he cleared out those Livingstone had initiated such as an increased congestion charge for heavy fuel using cars and to pedestrianise Parliament Square. Instead he annouced the abolition of the 'bendy' buses and revival of the Routemaster buses. So he is clearly moving transport back to the early 1960s and favouring elitist transport over public transport. He also scrapped plans to introduce 60 hydrogen-powered vehicles and ended the oil deal that Livingstone brokered with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who Johnson (in line with the US attitude) calls a dictator. Aside from that, very like David Cameron himself (they were both Eton boys and members of the same banqueting club at Oxford University) he has no policies.

Is this really a problem? George W. Bush has set the model of a leader who makes no policy for himself and is a silly figurehead who seems to act simply as a distraction for whatever is going on below him. He seems to have no idea of what politics is actually about let alone running a country or in Johnson's case something big enough to be a country. No wonder it has been ruled out that Johnson could not replace the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, because we know that if he did you would have a shabby, mildly corrupt figure in that position again more about publicity than policy. I think that the British public has a low tolerance of politics. They see all the functions of the state as going on moderately inefficiently and feel they can do nothing about it. They will protest when a service is stopped in their local area or they oppose the building of some necessary structure and even then they blame the local council rather than any other broader political structure. So, for them, why not have a mayor who is a comic figure who spouts mildly bigoted views that they mouth themselves when among friends down the pub? There is no need to have a politician let alone an effective one as head of London. I think for all his policies, Livingstone won because people liked him standing against the Labour Party and he seemed like an ordinary man. In the past eight years though he has had to be a politician and that is not something people like in their heads of government.

I remember when at university fellow students complaining that the university newspaper was 'too political'. Its politics coverage was about student union politics nothing broader, but this was too much and they wanted it to restrict itself to sports results and details about social events. When I was at university people would often elect a pet cat or a pinball machine or an elderly celebrity to particular student union posts, rather than a person, despite the fact that universities were under heavy pressure in the dying days of Thatcher's rule. If university graduates wanted this, then surely it is unsurprising to find that attitude spread across many in the population. So, possibly in Boris Johnson, many Londoners have got the politician they want, someone to entertain them like a clown for the next five years while London grinds on not getting any better and with many challenges not even noted let alone tackled. I predict that as a result the 2012 Olympics will run into severe problems, notably with transport, but also attitudes to visitors. In his bigoted attitudes even to people from other parts of the UK, Johnson gives the green light to those people with stronger prejudices, that it is alright to speak and behave that way. This is going to be making an unwelcoming environment for visitors (though after Beijing it might appear mild in comparison). London will decay under Johnson because simply he is incapable of doing the job for which he has been elected. Given how much of the UK is tied into London it will damage the country as a whole. Of course by then he might be well in step with the national government because Cameron as prime minister will be no different and we will see a head of government with really no idea what to do but muddle along. Meanwhile London and the UK as a whole will become poorer and far more divided than it is even at the moment.

Britain - The Land That Time Forgot 2: Buses

Last year I did a posting about how obsessed the British were with the past and how we seemed to only be able to derive pride from things that were very dated like pre-decimal currency and I did another similar posting about imperial measurement. Well, all of this stuff seems to be going on but I was alerted this week to a new and more vigorous example of this obsession. When the Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson, a real buffoon who has a made a career in the media of appearing like a real-life version of the 'Tim Nice-but-Dim' character of the comedian Harry Enfield, was elected to be the Mayor of London, he said he would reintroduce the Routemaster bus to London by 2012 and remove the so-called 'bendy bus' by 2015. The Routemaster double-decker bus was produced 1954-1968 and used in London from 1956 onwards up until present day, though they were phased out actively from 2005 onwards. This means that the Routemaster is not a pre-Second World War bus as many people assume. In fact its predecessors were Leyland Titan, in service 1938-9 and the AEC Regent III RT produced from 1942 onwards and used in London primarily 1947-54, though the last RT ran until 1979. They are often mistaken for the Routemaster.

None of these old buses, including the Routemaster was designed for an era in which we are concerned about disabled access. Its aisles are very narrow as is the staircase to the upper deck and it is high off the ground so is difficult for children and the elderly to access let alone anyone in a wheelchair. The Routemaster is open at the back, it cannot be closed against the weather and it allows people to jump on and off while the bus is moving causing on average 10 serious accidents per year and also making fare evasion easier. Every day 1000 wheelchair users travel on buses in London. This is compared to 6 million users in total, but it suggests on average there are 1-2 wheelchair users on every London bus route every day. Obviously this does not take into account the many more pushchair users or the numeous elderly people using the three-wheeled push along supports or people with other mobility difficulties or even luggage to get on board who welcome the low-level floors and ease of access of modern buses. This is why there are only 18 routemasters running compared to 5,197 modern double-deckers and 389 'bendy', i.e. two compartment buses in London, A bendy bus can hold 149 people compared to 90 on a modern double-decker and only 69 on a Routemaster.

People complain that there are fewer seats than on a Routemaster, but have they actually tried to sit in the seats. I am 6'0" tall (1.86m) which is about average height for a man in the UK now. I cannot sit on most Routemaster seats because my knees are jammed so hard into the seat in front, so I have to turn them to one side so I take up two slots or I have to stand anyway. Routemasters are more expensive to run than modern buses. People complain that they are safer on a Routemaster because of the conductor. Well, I know modern buses do not have conductors, but there is no reason why you cannot put one on or have a 'guard' if it makes people safer. I have travelled often on the Docklands Light Railway which is totally automated. There is no driver and all the tickets are bought from machines, and yet often, especially at night, they have a guard to make people feel safer. The structure of a bus does not determine who you put on it. If you wanted to, there is no reason why you could not have four armed guards on every bus. We do not have conductors on underground trains and yet people pack on to those.

You can see how successful modern design buses are if you note that bus passenger numbers are rising faster than at any time since 1946, they carry more people now than at any time since 1968 (when the Routemaster was dominant) and they cover more distance than at any time since 1957. Why is that? It is because they are clean and safe and easy to get on and off.

What is hilarious is that there are more complaints about the abolition of Routemasters online than there are people complaining about inflation. As I have noted before the British will always sacrifice comfort and efficiency for some perverse sense of nostalgia, that it is somehow better to be jammed on to a draughty bus that fills up quickly because it looks 'right' than to be on a modern efficient, safer service that their granny can get on without difficulty. Its removal is not portrayed as a step forward but, and I quote, 'an act of cultural vandalism'. No-one says every Routemaster must be destroyed but there is a difference between things you see in a museum and what you need to get to work or the shops in the morning. It is the same with the old red telephone boxes. They may have looked good but you had to be a weight-lifter to get the door open, not a child or an elderly or even just an average middle-aged person.

Johnson is clever, he knows how masochistic the vocal British public is, in its desire to live in some fantastical golden past that costs more and works less efficiently. His policies pander to that. It is ironic that most of the people who want the Routemaster back do not travel daily by bus in London. It is no different to saying that we should replace modern airliners with the aircraft you might see at a historic airshow or that the British Army should return to scarlet jackets and muskets because we won more battles with that equipment. Nostalgia has its place but not in informing the best approach for tackling the challenges of day-to-day life in 2008 Britain.