A report says a third of townies want to get out. And you can see why. The very qualities that render London a thrilling international city are what make it utterly un-British. No wonder Robert Kilroy-Silk could make hay (however hypocritically), sneering at the “metropolitan elite”; the lives of Londoners and non-Londoners are now inexplicable to each other.
Few Londoners regularly go to a pub, let alone a tea room, garden centre, boot fair, cricket match, steam-train parade or rock festival featuring forgotten 1970s stars. They do in the country. And few rustics frequent internet cafes, speed-dating bars, lectures on t’ai chi and new age quackery, dinner parties where politics is discussed, or good book shops.
The chasm has grown wider partly due to the influx of foreigners; the capital is now more ethnically diverse than New York. The influx is white, coffee-coloured and black. For every “scrounger”, there is another incomer richer and more skilled than the natives. South Kensington, with its European bankers, resembles Geneva (without the pretty lake). St John’s Wood is like Boston, just more expensive. And Chelsea is the new Moscow minus (so far) the Kalashnikovs.
And everywhere are Poles. They do all the work. An American told me recently: “I don’t live in Britain. I live in London.”
Once, London hosted British Empire exhibitions, when each colony was represented: now there is no need. The rest of the world has moved to London. You want authentic Indian curries? Try Brick Lane. Turkish watermelon? Dalston. An American bank? The City. Colombian marching powder? Notting Hill. A Parisian coffee bar? Look on any street corner.
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Nobody sounds more foreign to the rest of us out-of-towners than the czar who rules this alien land: car-hating, terrorist-loving, Ken Livingstone, snug in his Glass Testicle HQ.
As a thriving power, his city-state of London is building an empire. Outposts of honorary London dot Britain: Harvey Nichols in Leeds; weekend retreats in old manor houses for jaded London clubbers; Brighton, which is Camden-sur-Mer.
If London’s denizens are shocked when they venture into the wild country beyond the city walls (the M25), the capital is as scary to peasants journeying to market: a threat of crime and terrorist attack; odd minicab drivers more familiar with Kabul than Kilburn; schools that teach little but a hatred of education; and drunks, touts, pimps, litter and graffiti everywhere.
People talk of the “white flight”, which hit American cities in the 1970s, when middle-classers got the hell out. Here they are even hints that established blacks and Asians want to escape too. To replenish itself London will seek yet more workers, often from eastern Europe (visa scandals are here to stay).
Britain is now out of love with London And the capital doesn’t care much for the country either: but who will sue for divorce first?
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Channel 4: home of the brain-dead
What went wrong at Channel 4? In a dumb medium, the station stood out as home for bright, intelligent programming. No more.
Brawling on Big Brother is but the latest lapse, rendering the après footie in Portugal almost genteel. The station places some show-off morons, selected for their incompatible and spiky personalities, into a house with nothing to do: it can’t feign shock when they fail to converse about magic realism over cucumber sandwiches. Like rats in a cage, the morons mate, munch and mooch about — and they fight. You can’t expect more of such simple creatures.
If this were on ITV it would not matter. But Channel 4 has indirect subsidy. It is meant to provide some public service broadcasting. How do shows such as this elevate our spirit? Nor would it matter if Channel 4 were a niche station on cable. But its head, Mark Thompson, is taking over from Greg Dyke as the BBC’s director-general.
Is more tawdry reality TV his recipe to make the BBC worthy of its licence fee? To encourage a generation to feel the highest career goal is to rut and ruck on reality TV is profoundly depressing.
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After this, Thompson will have to work hard before he tries any Reithian lectures about broadcasting standards.
I have no wish to join those prudes who quiver whenever Channel 4 shows, say, a lesbian kiss. No, what offends is the dumbness. What does the thoughtful Jeremy Isaacs make of the monster he created? Big Brother: it’s time we stopped watching you.