July 1, 2010
The Aesthetics of Poverty
Over the last year I’ve been living in East London, first in Whitechapel and then in Stepney Green. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much a tourist in these parts. As a funded graduate student I live off a government grant, and if things ever go pear-shaped I can run back to mummy and daddy. But nonetheless the past year has given me an insight into an aspect of poverty that is rarely – if ever – discussed.
Although I am not poor I see poverty on a daily basis in Tower Hamlets, in parts one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. When I campaigned for Labour in the general election, I had the dubious privilege of visiting some of the most run-down and decrepid estates in London. And decrepid is the word I want to focus on here.
There’s no doubt that one of poverty’s most grinding hardships must be the daily struggle to make ends meet; of living hand-to-mouth under the shadow of uncertainty, an unsecured future and a present of never having quite enough. For those living in poverty with children, the double burden of worrying not only about oneself but also about vulnerable dependents must simply be horrible.
But as well as those better-recognised aspects of poverty, there’s also the fact that poor people live in poor areas. And that really matters. I’ll try and paint you a picture.
Here in my flat, just off the Mile End road, not a day goes by without hearing (usually four or five times), the screech of police sirens. These are forever interspersed with the dull thud-thud of bass speakers from the local boy-racer cars, who compete in an apparently un-spoken agreement to find out who can turn corners the fastest (in most dangerous style) whilst blasting out what passes for “music”, at whatever time of the day.
There’s little doubt where the money for these cars is coming from. Indeed, there’s a small grassy area just 30 seconds from the back of my flat where a group of 5-10 Asian lads (not, by the way, that race matters) are doing their best to recreate a Baltimore corner scene from The Wire. Not that I would particularly want to sit on that area of grass. It’s covered in dog shit.
If I fancy a 25 minute walk I can always head off to the only area of open green space that isn’t covered in canine faeces and old beer cans: Victoria Park. In fairness, this is quite a nice park – not least because the drunks and drug addicts that make the rest of the local “greenery” effective no-go areas are spread-out there. Having said that, it doesn’t always feel especially safe: East London’s finest helldogs can usually be observed running off-lead and unmuzzled, occasionally savaging unfortunate Yorkshire terriers.
This may sound trivial, but over the last few weeks of hot weather its been incredibly frustrating to find that there are few clean, safe, welcoming areas in close distance to just go and sit in. (Remember that round here few people have gardens). It’s ok for me, of course; I can walk half an hour to get elsewhere, or take a tube. But imagining what it would be like to raise children around here – and in a cramped, too-hot by summer, freezing-by-winter, council flat to boot – isn’t much fun. Doing it must be far, far worse.
Walking round these streets – especially if you brave some of the estates – you soon notice what a state of disrepair everything is in. Paint peels from doors, loose bricks and slates hang from walls, pavements are uneven and black with dirt and used chewing gum. Sunlight is intermittent, as low-rise housing estates cast strange patterns of darkness. Whoever gave planning permission to the disjointed monstrosities that pass for local architecture clearly didn’t have “inspiring happy human emotions” at the top of their priority list.
And it really, really gets you down. The noise. The dirt. The disrepair. The vandalism. The permanent stained grey of the concrete. The sheer ugliness of it all.
Human beings are drawn to beauty, and nobody wants to live in a dump. Having to do so makes life far more unpleasant than it otherwise would be – and this is an aspect of poverty, heaped on top of the other hardships that brings, which really ought not to be forgotten.
The likely financial effects of the Tory budget on Britain’s poor are rightly receiving a lot of attention. Increased economic hardship may tip some struggling families over the edge, rendering the lives of many individuals even more difficult than they already are. But public spending cuts will also mean reductions in investment in basic infrastructure, in public cleaning, in park maintenance, in urban renewal. People – and most of them will be poor – who are living in already depressing areas such as Tower Hamlets can expect for things to only get worse over the next 5 years. It’s just one more way in which life in poverty will be made even harder.
June 15, 2010
Red Ken, Blue London?
Jon Cruddas has endorsed Ken Livingstone as Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London. This in itself doesn’t strike me as all that significant – Cruddas himself is more likely as Labour deputy leader candidate, and JC and KL’s politics are hardly worlds apart.
I’m fairly convinced that Livingstone will get the Labour nomination. And this strikes me as not good.
First things first, I’m suspicious of Livingstone’s politics. Hearing him at the Ken Campaign Conference (aka Progressive London), I found it pretty galling that somebody in 2010 could stand up and unashamedly endorse the Chinese Communist regime, and demand that Britain’s economy-government relationship become more like those of China and Vietnam. They call him “Red” Ken for a reason, after all. But Livingstone continues to strike me (like his former advisor John Ross) as the sort of person who admired the Soviet Union until the bitter end. And that’s a part of the left’s history that needs to be discarded, not preserved.
Those who remember the 1980s often take a different view: as a friend once put it, Ken was (after all) the only person on the left that Thatcher went after but never got. I’m sure that elicits a certain fondness. But it doesn’t add up to making Livingstone the right candidate for Labour. After all, a man who fought his big battles and made his mark in the 1980s is not exactly what Labour needs to show it can govern effectively in the 21st Century.
In all honesty I’m slightly sanguine about whether or not Ken will win (if he does, he thankfully won’t be in a position to emulate China, as I suspect he would like to). My sense is that Boris is popular (proof, perhaps, of deep voter misjudgment given how atrocious he has been if one pays attention) and will beat Ken. And why would people vote Livingstone back, after giving him the decisive boot last time around? He’s offering absolutely nothing new, and his pitch of “I’m not Boris!” isn’t going to work if people think BoJo a sort of amusing affable chap who is funny on the telly.
Instead, it rather reinforces the message that Labour has no fresh blood, no fresh talent and no new ideas. Which is, perhaps, accurate. But for peat’s sake this is politics and the party should at least try to make itself look the other way around. Of course, London experienced a big counter-national, pro-Labour outcome in the General Election. Perhaps this will repeat in Ken’s favour. But then, perhaps it won’t because the dynamics are different.
Either way, it’s worth moving beyond the tribalism and asking: what’s the state of Labour in London when a hard-leftist apologist for authoritarian regimes, believing it is his god-given right to rule the capital, is effectively allowed to continue as such despite a decisive electoral rejection at the last showing? Where is the internal pressure in Labour telling Ken that his time is over and it’s time to retire into amphibian-raising obscurity.
So, despite my belief that the Labour machine is too in-thrall, or in-debt, to Ken to pick anyone else, I think Labour should choose Oona King. I don’t think she could beat Boris, to be hoenst. But sometimes in politics winning isn’t everything.
