Stop taking London's motorists for a ride

Record numbers of drivers are being fined in the capital. But the real villains are the ministers who are forcing local councils to use the income to make ends meet

Published in the Evening Standard 31 August 2006

Jonathan Freedland

OK, so here’s my one. It was 9am, I had to drop my niece off at school, there was nowhere to park. Either she was going to be late or I would have to leave the car on a yellow line. I dashed in and dashed back, taking 90 seconds, maximum. When I returned, a traffic warden was hunched over his electronic gizmo, punching in the details that would be spat out as a computerized ticket. I pleaded, but to no avail. “I’ve already pressed the button,” the warden shrugged impotently. It was too late.

It’s not a classic parking ticket story, I grant you. It lacks the creepiness of June's night raid in Islington, when residents noticed a ghost squad of attendants slapping notices on cars at 3.54am. Nor does it have the Buster Keatonesque comedy of the Battersea woman who parked legally in a residents’ bay with a valid permit on show – only to find council workmen had painted a yellow line alongside her car, promptly followed by a warden issuing a ticket.

Still, at least my experience has some of the crucial elements known to us all: the pain of arriving just seconds too late, the desperate plea for clemency, the warden’s blank declaration of powerlessness and, above all, that peculiar brand of irritation, if not fury, that lingers for the rest of the day.

Holidaying in the English countryside this summer was a holiday from all this. Sure there was the odd pay-and-display car park by a woodland trail or beach, but yellow lines were a rarity, red routes never seen. I encountered a traffic warden not once.

But now I'm back in London, where simply getting into a car - what with the congestion charge and the cameras ready to pounce if you go too fast, lurch into a bus lane, block a yellow box or stop on a red route - constitutes a financial gamble. Figures out yesterday confirm it: record numbers of drivers are being fined in the capital, with more than six million penalties issued this year.

Last month the government promised to reform the parking rules. It’s a wonder they didn’t do it ages ago. For this is smart populist politics: colleagues tell me the Standard hears more outrage from readers on traffic and parking than on any other topic. We care how the capital’s schools teach our children, how hospitals tend to our sick, of course - but get us on to speed cameras, hidden yellow lines, and broken meters and then you’ll see the blood boiling. I’ve heard people boast of a successful challenge to a ticket with the pride of old game hunters, returning from the bush with the head of a tigress.

Why does it exercise us so? It’s hardly rational, at least not among those who can happily blow £50 or more over lunch or dinner and scarcely feel it. Why do even people with plenty of cash feel such rage over a measly parking fine?

In some cases, the anger is self-directed: we know we could have avoided that ticket if only we’d got back a moment or two earlier, if only we’d read the sign more carefully. It also feels such a waste. But what makes the ire really rise is the sense that attendants are not simply doing their best to keep the streets clear, to ensure traffic flows and pedestrians move, but are driven instead by a positive desire to catch us out, actively wanting to print out as many tickets and tow away as many cars as they can.

This is not paranoid: it is indeed the case that wardens work to targets, set by local authorities who have come to rely on parking fines as a steady source of income. For the capital as a whole fines bring in a staggering £500m, with £130m going to Westminster council alone, three times the cash the borough raises through council tax. If it looks as if there are more wardens around than there used to be, that’s not your imagination: there are. And if you wonder why it always seems easier to spot a parking attendant than a policeman, that might be because police officers cost money – but don’t bring any in.

Nor is this as trivial or Meldrew-ish as it might sound. The danger of a penalty is so great, it can make shopping on the high street too high risk a venture: much safer to go to some out of town store with a car park or, better still, shop online. That’s one more threat to the high street and the small, independent shops that give an area its character. They need their customers to be able to park and pop in, without paying a fine of £50 or £100 for the privilege.

More sensitively, traffic wardens are now predominantly drawn from a single ethnic group, more often than not black Africans. Asking them to be in a constant state of friction with other Londoners is unfair to them - and damaging to the harmony of our city.

Because, obviously, it’s not their fault. Nor is it really the fault of the local councils who pay their wages, even though the luckless parking attendants have become the most visible face of local government – thereby fuelling public hatred for the very concept. Local authorities are not, chiefly, to blame because their over-zealousness over parking is born of the need to raise revenue – and that need is the fault of central government.

Successive administrations have curbed the ability of local councils to raise their own funds, capping rates and closing off all other potential sources. So if the government want to help the pained London motorist, the course is clear. They don’t need to draft national guidelines, however individually welcome they might be. They just need to set councils free to raise their own money, without turning every meter maid into a hated tax collector.

Our crazy Big Apple - why I just love it

A report out today shows that thousands of the middle-classes are deserting the capital. But they should relish it, not flee to the country

Published in the Evening Standard 24 August 2006

Two weeks on holiday with the kids and certain refrains are stuck in my head. The entire back catalogue of the Wiggles for a start and, like plenty of parents, the repeated incantation, “Are we there yet?” But there’s one more line, offered by my five year old son, which has stayed with me. “When are we going back to England?”

Nothing unusual in that, you may think. Except that we WERE (ital) in
England – Cornwall, to be precise. Yet to my son, born and raised in
London, it looked and felt like a different country.

And he might not be wrong. New statistics out today are expected to show that London has grown almost into a state of its own. While many parts of the country are hollowing out, their population ageing and birth rate falling, today’s data are likely to confirm London’s place as the biggest city in western Europe.

Numbers are not all that set London apart. Yes, the clichés are true: walk on a country footpath and strangers say hello, something no one ever does on the Tube. And we really didn’t need to lock the door of our rented Cornish cottage at night.

But the biggest difference was visible on the faces we saw. Almost all of them were white.

London’s diversity is so established, it’s easy to forget how distinct this makes us from the rest of the country. One in three Londoners are non-white, yet the percentage falls to about 6% for the country as a whole. More striking still, while the country reels at Monday’s statistics showing the vast wave of immigration to Britain from Poland and the New Europe, London can reflect that, according to reliable estimates, 40% of its population was born outside the UK.

It’s not just the newcomers heading into London who are shaping this new terrain; it’s also the Londoners getting out. Underneath today’s figures is an intriguing trend. Yes, there’s a net inflow into London from the rest of the world of more than 100,000 people a year. But what’s realised less often is that there is a net OUTFLOW (ital) of 100,000 Londoners to the rest of the UK every year as well. Put simply, at that rate, in a decade’s time there will be a million more foreign-born Londoners – and close to a million fewer British-born ones, both black and white.

That last point is important. Some have assumed that this migration out of London is a ‘white flight’, with middle-class families in particular fleeing the capital for a less stressful life in the Home Counties. Others say it’s difficult to tell, since this movement of people is not tracked by ethnic origin. Indeed, they note that Londoners of Indian background are following the path earlier trod by London Jews: from the East End to Gants Hill to Golders Green to Mill Hill and eventually out of London altogether, to the likes of Elstree or Radlett in south Hertfordshire. In other words, it might be the affluent – of whatever colour – who are getting out.

In which case, the ethnic complexion of the countryside, especially near London, will slowly begin to change. But that does not alter the larger picture that’s emerging – of two nations, with London a different society from the rest of England, let alone the rest of the UK. London’s economy roars, generating more wealth than any other part of the nation. (Employment is rising in this city, while other parts of the UK struggle.)

And, all the while, London is becoming more international, more
cosmopolitan, sharing little of the homogeneity I saw these last two weeks in the Cornish countryside.

Does this matter? Is it, as some will feel instinctively, a cause for
alarm. There is a useful precedent. New York has long been a city with around 40% of its population born outside the US (though London may now have overtaken it to become the most cosmopolitan city on earth). It too is often lampooned as utterly alien from the country that surrounds it: plenty of New Yorkers speak of the rest of America as if it were another land, “flyover country” separating New York from the more familiar Los Angeles.

Yet there is no move to cut the Big Apple off the American tree. It
survives. Indeed, to the rest of the world, New York remains the symbol of the United States, from the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building (and, in a different context, the Twin Towers).

The new London taking shape before our eyes is surely beginning to perform a similar role for Britain. Different from the rest of the country, for sure, but also a vibrant, attractive version of it – one that lures people from all over the world.

That, admittedly, is the rosiest scenario. I embrace it – but, at the same time, I think we should do what we can to keep those Londoners who are here from wanting to leave. The 2005 figures showed 268,000 people moving out. Some of those will have left seeking a better quality of life, or simply better schools for their kids.

That’s the obvious priority for London’s masters: improve the schools and more of those middle-class families will stay here. And the evidence shows, the more such families are involved, the better those schools will become: a virtuous circle.

Indeed, that has been one of New Labour’s more enduring beliefs: that the well-being of our public realm depends on the middle class staying in. If that’s true of public services, it is surely true of a city like London. We don’t want to follow the lead of 1970s Detroit or Chicago, where the affluent fled, leaving the city to sink into crime and despair.

It shouldn’t be too hard to persuade those Londoners dreaming of a new life elsewhere. Sure, the streets are cleaner, the roads less congested and the views more beautiful. But the countryside is still for holidays. London is where you come for life.

If Europe doesn't want Middle East war to begin again, it has to step up

EU nations are confirming the US right's prejudices by failing to deliver on promises of troops to police Lebanon's ceasefire

Read the full article on the Guardian website

Even now, Jews must not give up on Israel

Published in the Evening Standard August 3 2006

On Tuesday night I was at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the lovely old building in Southwark converted into a theatre, bar and restaurant. I was there for a performance of The Last Five Years, a musical two-hander which tells, through song, the story of a romance turned sour.

It was light and witty – especially for Jews in the audience. The couple in question are mixed – he’s Jewish, she’s not – and while that issue is barely explored, it does give the lyricist the chance to raise the odd smile. In his first song, Jamie belts out his delight at finding a “shiksa goddess.” No more Annie Mincus, Karen Pincus or Lisa Katz for him: he will give his love to a good Christian girl. His opening line: “I’m breaking my mother’s heart.”

That brought a laugh of recognition. But the evening also provided relief for those Jews who were there. For an hour or two they could escape what has become the nightly ordeal of watching the television news.

The ongoing war in Lebanon has cast a shadow over Britain’s Jewish community, whose biggest presence is in London. Headlines like the Standard’s yesterday – Children Die in New Blitz – have made the last four weeks difficult to bear in a way that other Londoners might not readily imagine.

Officially, the Jewish community stands fully behind Israel in its conflict with Hizbullah. Last week’s Jewish Chronicle carried an informal poll which showed majorities of 80% and higher backing the government in Jerusalem.

Yet those figures obscure a more nuanced truth. In reality, Jewish dinner tables have been noisy with anguished conversation about events in the Middle East. Some of that has been concern for friends and family in Israel: some 1500 British Jewish teenagers are currently undergoing the rite of passage that is a summer “Israel tour.” Others have been, as so often, obsessing over perceived bias in the media coverage of the war.

But many are simply troubled by the human cost they see each day. All but the most stubborn hardliners have been distressed by the images that have come from southern Lebanon. No human heart can be untouched by the sight of a dead child, his small body still and grey from the dust of rubble.

For a small minority it is becoming all too much. Will Self spoke for them when he wrote on these pages last week that he felt like “resigning as a Jew” over the Israeli army’s “indefensible” conduct. Others are not ready to go quite so far – if only because Jewishness is not like party membership, you can never really tear up your card. But they are poised to take what feels like an equally drastic step – and give up on Israel once and for all.

I understand the despair that leads to such feelings. I was just 15 when I watched the footage of the last Lebanon war in 1982, as Ariel Sharon wreaked havoc with his calamitous invasion. The idea that, nearly a quarter century later, Israel is once again smashing buildings, razing villages and incurring worldwide fury is enough to make anyone feel as if Israel is a lost cause.

But I would urge Will Self and the rest of my fellow Jews not to give up on the Jewish state just yet. For one thing, despite appearances, this war is not some insane, random act of lashing out by Israel. Hizbullah poses a genuine threat: it has tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israeli towns and cities. As we have seen over the last four weeks, it is not afraid to use them – and it only ever aims at civilian targets.

Hizbullah are not partisans in the forest, heroic resistance fighters on a student bedroom poster. There is no meaningful occupation they are seeking to end: Israel effectively withdrew from Lebanon six years ago. Their leader is a man who says that the beauty of Israel is that, since it has gathered all the Jews in one place, “it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Its idea of foreign activity was the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. Today Hizbullah are the proxy army of Iran, whose president vows to wipe Israel off the map.

All of which makes Israel’s fighting back legitimate. Which is not to say it is wise. I agree with those who believe the Israeli military has acted out of all proportion, at a terrible cost. But I don’t see how that constitutes a new and separate moral category from, say, Britain’s action in Iraq against the wholly bogus threat from Saddam – a war which has claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives. Yet I don’t remember Will Self resigning as a Briton over that.

So, yes, Israel’s current offensive is hideous to behold, excessive and self-defeating. But it is not devoid of justification and nor is it unique. There will be some Jews who cannot accept that, who cannot utter a word of defence for Israel’s behaviour. Yet even they should not give up on the country just yet.

For there are few political forces in the world that can change Israel. One is Israeli public opinion. The other is the US government. But the third is what Israelis would call the Jewish diaspora.

Israel likes to act in the name of the whole Jewish people. Yet if Jews around the world began to make clear their disaffection, even their anger, with Israeli policy, that would have a profound impact. It does not work if Jews express it as outsiders — as opponents of Israel and all its works. But if the criticism comes from those who explicitly declare that they want to see Israel not only survive but thrive; if it comes from those who seek to be Israel’s candid friends, then Israelis will not be able to dismiss it – they will have to listen.

This is the message for those who want Israel to change. Don’t resign, don’t give up – but work to make Israel the country it should be.

For Palestinians' sake, Olmert must emerge with his people's respect

Many outsiders would like to see Israel's prime minister ousted, but if he were his successor would be more hawkish still

Read the full article on the Guardian website