FORUM - Illtyd Harrington: ‘As I Please’

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Published: 17 December, 2010

• I walked onto the high terrace of St Paul’s Cathedral into the circular panorama of London and its limitless shimmering horizon. This, as far as the eye could see, was still the biggest city in the world – the first one ever to reach  one million inhabitants in the history of the world. 

It was August 14, 1947, in the middle of a hot summer. I was 16, on my first expedition outside the narrow valleys of South Wales. I was like Cortez the conquistador upon a peak in Darien, when he saw the Pacific and remained in awe. For the energy and self-confidence packed in around Wren’s great monument is still there after 400 years. 

William Dunbar the 16th-century poet wrote of London: “Thou art the flower of cities all.” 

I had committed myself to an act of unqualified love. I felt what Peter Ackroyd talks about: London’s past is in its present. 

On the night bus back (it was 10 bob cheaper), my imagination went ballistic. I was determined to come back, not carrying Excalibur from a Welsh mountain lake – but now I would.

For London is under a sustained attack from the insidious. Boris and Ken were not equipped to deal with them. London is up for sale and to make life harder, the Coalition Government has cut regeneration monies by 50 per cent.

In 1944 as the war was grinding to a halt, London, still being bombed by V2s, made an act of renewal. The massive Abercrombie plan suggested ways and means for the future. In the 1960s, the all-powerful road lobby almost won the battle for a motorway box ripping indiscriminately through the capital.

The GLC election of 1973 gave us a mandate to stop it, but there are greedy and vicious lobbyists still around. Local democracy is being stripped of effective funding and means of enforcement. Even Christopher Wren planned a new London in 1666 after the Great Fire.

Now, the Greater London Authority has no effective power. Consider the rise of the skyscraper. Although the Gherkin came through for £222million, Ronson’s Heron Tower used to be 70 storeys high and the Shard will be the tallest building in the European Union.

There’s more to come – all whimsically labelled by the proud developers. The Cheese Grater, the Walkie Talkie and a small tangle of highly organised developers are controlling the roulette table. I heard it said the other day: “Goodbye London, Hello Dubai on Thames.”

In the 19th century, the articulate and the literate fought for London.

Mayhew’s London was actually listening to ordinary and very poor people. General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, moved by the plight of the citizens wrote In Darkest England and The Way Out. And Booth was no mean fighter. And then the humble London curate Andrew Mearns wrote a simple pamphlet which electrified the social and political world, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London.

Even Queen Victoria expressed her dismay and lobbied successfully for the first Royal Commission on Housing to coincide with the London County Council’s birth in 1888. They saw the major problems and the need to prepare for the future.

Why have the Christians now lost their nerve? Christ was an angry man. He drove the moneychangers out of the temple. We encourage them in. We pay their debts and compensate them. Corporate financiers are the new theocracy. Christianity is not an anodyne faith. In my Marxist youth, an Archbishop of York attacked us for not being as revolutionary as the gospel. “Read the Magnificat,” he shouted: “‘He hath put down the mighty from their seats.’” True. And if you read and believe the Sermon on the Mount, you will be refused an entry visa into America.

When Thatcher rubbished regional government in London – namely the GLC – a dangerous political vacuum came into existence. Battles can be won. 

London is being stolen from us although we do not own the ground beneath our feet. Christ would have marched with the students and probably got arrested or photographed as a suspicious person. There were few priests or purple bishops among them. The church militants seemed to have been on an away day.

Forget the Muppet politicians whose PR advisers elevate the words “conversation” and “listening” to innocuous ends. London needs an active agenda and a flexing of muscles. 

The centre has become dangerously strong.