There is something slightly odd about a proud South London boy framing a Tottenham Hotspur shirt behind his office desk. There is something odder still that this peculiarity should be found in the office of the Mayor of London, recently renovated to make it appear more like the boardroom of some FTSE 100 company and currently occupied by the recently re-elected South London Tottenham fan.
Philip Green – soon to be ‘Sir’, I’ve been assured many times before – is the mayor of the financial capital of Europe and yet, with his disarmingly white smile, tanned skin and open collar shirt, he seems more like a wealthy expat living it up on the Adriatic.
“Oh, I got that last year.” He points up to the football shirt, his surname and ‘2016’ emblazoned on the back. “They gave it to me after the FA Cup final. That was a good day. A very good day.”
I motion to ask my first question, but he’s already noticed my lips moving before I even make a sound.
“But you’re not here about that, are you?” The 65-year-old mayor is as quick as his business-headed political persona makes out. “I was – correct me if I’ve got this wrong – told you wanted to talk about the Docklands. Isn’t that it?”
Straight to the point. He doesn’t miss a beat as a file that’s been sitting on his desk for the past few minutes is pulled out to reveal the official sketches and diagrams of the mayor’s latest ‘enterprise plan’. As a man from Croydon, an area that knows all too well the upsides and downsides of massive regeneration and financial enterprise, it’s not hard to see from where his enthusiasm stems.
He lays out the plans on his modern charcoal desk and runs his hand along a bird’s-eye view of the Royal Docks. Where council homes and flats currently sit, the mayor intends to build an international airport; closer to Victoria Dock Road, there’s a conference centre, office blocks and luxury apartments lining the route from Bow Creek in the west to Gallions Reach in the east.
“Marvellous, really. Really bloody marvellous. I think this is the best plan ever put forward for the Docklands site.” It is far from the first. Certainly, it is far from the first to consider an airport and conference centre.
When I raise the 1985 Paper on Docklands Development, he waves his hand in confident dismissal.
“I’ve heard it all before.” I have no doubt that he has. “I can see the similarities, of course, but this is my modern plan for a modern city. Take the airports, for example – around London, we’ve got, what, London Langley, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Southend? And every attempt at expansion sees one protest after another after another, so it gets put back every time. Londoners have had enough of the delays.”
Clearly, the mayor has not been taking notes from Shahrar Ali’s Ecology group on the Assembly. Whether his plan will be kicked into the long grass like all the rest remains to be seen, but it’s telling that the Transport Secretary, Nick Hurd, has thrown his weight behind an extension of the MetroEast line into Silvertown and North Woolwich. Such an extension would connect Newham’s interior with its outer Docklands: the perfect link to a new airport.
“I’ve got to be their voice on this,” he says quite seriously, “and I mean business whether I’m taking my proposals to the boroughs or to the government.”
There’s a certain presidential air about Philip Green. His insistence on his plan and his proposals makes it seem as if the policy unit Green utilises at City Hall have contributed nothing to the Docklands Enterprise Plan. His constant reminders of his direct election and accountability to ‘ordinary Londoners’ mirror the attitudes of American Presidents – past and present – to their own public mandate. Whilst there’s no possibility of the United States electing a conservative business tycoon based only on his corporate nous any time soon, the parallels between London’s ‘chief executive’ and the American Presidency aren’t completely ridiculous to comprehend. Does he see anything in the comparison?
“I don’t think so, no. Not to be negative about President Casey and his new job, but I don’t envy his position one bit. There’s a lot of power in the presidency that you just don’t find being Mayor of London and there’s a lot more responsibility as well. It’s bad enough trying to juggle Havering and Harrow – I don’t think I could cope with keeping fifty states in line.”
So, there’s no possibility of a trade in positions?
“Never. Wouldn’t trade this for the world,” he laughs. “I’m perfectly happy to do my bit for my city.”
It should be noted, after all, that Philip Green is ‘Mr London’ to the rest of the world. Being the first directly elected Mayor of London would have done that to anyone who managed to win the mayoral contest twice in a row and Green has taken to it with the passion of any local boy looking to improve the fortune of his hometown. The cultivation of this image was exactly what allowed him to narrowly beat Caroline Flint in 2012 and then Parmjit Dhanda in last year’s election, but the ‘Mr London’ image belies a Conservative Party man with a Conservative Party agenda. Integral to this agenda is his insistence on enterprise and “business sense” over all else.
‘Over all else’, in this case, must necessarily include the interests of the communities he seeks to transform in his Docklands Enterprise Plan. Does he anticipate the same resistance that Thatcher and Parkinson faced in the 1980s?
“I anticipate someone will kick up a fuss. There’s always going to be somebody on the opposite side trying to undermine you when you’re making a change. But, as I’ve said from the beginning, it’s a case of either letting the area go to the wall like it did in the Eighties or injecting a bit of business sense to save it.”
It’s a bold claim and one not unknown to the residents of London’s Docklands. The same reasoning was used when the 1985 Paper was published, when the Ruddock government reached out to AIG and the Santander Group to help fund a new business district on the Isle of Dogs, and when the Conservatives put caps on local business taxes in their winning 2015 manifesto. The idea that business knows best and that local government ought to move aside is what drives the conflict at the heart of the Docklands development. Philip Green, the Mayor of London, is just the latest actor in the thirty years-long drama that has been unfolding in Newham and Tower Hamlets.
I thank him for his time, having got all I need from our interview transcribed in my notepad. He attempts to talk more about Tottenham and the FA Cup, but I confess that my knowledge of football leaves much to be desired. He doesn’t seem to care much, standing up as I do but pointing towards an illegible signature on the Tottenham Hotspur shirt I presume is from a player I’ve never heard of. Still, I grab my things and head towards the door.
I may know little about football, but even I know never to subject myself to a Tottenham fan’s ramblings if I can help it.
Philip Green – soon to be ‘Sir’, I’ve been assured many times before – is the mayor of the financial capital of Europe and yet, with his disarmingly white smile, tanned skin and open collar shirt, he seems more like a wealthy expat living it up on the Adriatic.
“Oh, I got that last year.” He points up to the football shirt, his surname and ‘2016’ emblazoned on the back. “They gave it to me after the FA Cup final. That was a good day. A very good day.”
I motion to ask my first question, but he’s already noticed my lips moving before I even make a sound.
“But you’re not here about that, are you?” The 65-year-old mayor is as quick as his business-headed political persona makes out. “I was – correct me if I’ve got this wrong – told you wanted to talk about the Docklands. Isn’t that it?”
Straight to the point. He doesn’t miss a beat as a file that’s been sitting on his desk for the past few minutes is pulled out to reveal the official sketches and diagrams of the mayor’s latest ‘enterprise plan’. As a man from Croydon, an area that knows all too well the upsides and downsides of massive regeneration and financial enterprise, it’s not hard to see from where his enthusiasm stems.
He lays out the plans on his modern charcoal desk and runs his hand along a bird’s-eye view of the Royal Docks. Where council homes and flats currently sit, the mayor intends to build an international airport; closer to Victoria Dock Road, there’s a conference centre, office blocks and luxury apartments lining the route from Bow Creek in the west to Gallions Reach in the east.
“Marvellous, really. Really bloody marvellous. I think this is the best plan ever put forward for the Docklands site.” It is far from the first. Certainly, it is far from the first to consider an airport and conference centre.
When I raise the 1985 Paper on Docklands Development, he waves his hand in confident dismissal.
“I’ve heard it all before.” I have no doubt that he has. “I can see the similarities, of course, but this is my modern plan for a modern city. Take the airports, for example – around London, we’ve got, what, London Langley, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Southend? And every attempt at expansion sees one protest after another after another, so it gets put back every time. Londoners have had enough of the delays.”
Clearly, the mayor has not been taking notes from Shahrar Ali’s Ecology group on the Assembly. Whether his plan will be kicked into the long grass like all the rest remains to be seen, but it’s telling that the Transport Secretary, Nick Hurd, has thrown his weight behind an extension of the MetroEast line into Silvertown and North Woolwich. Such an extension would connect Newham’s interior with its outer Docklands: the perfect link to a new airport.
“I’ve got to be their voice on this,” he says quite seriously, “and I mean business whether I’m taking my proposals to the boroughs or to the government.”
There’s a certain presidential air about Philip Green. His insistence on his plan and his proposals makes it seem as if the policy unit Green utilises at City Hall have contributed nothing to the Docklands Enterprise Plan. His constant reminders of his direct election and accountability to ‘ordinary Londoners’ mirror the attitudes of American Presidents – past and present – to their own public mandate. Whilst there’s no possibility of the United States electing a conservative business tycoon based only on his corporate nous any time soon, the parallels between London’s ‘chief executive’ and the American Presidency aren’t completely ridiculous to comprehend. Does he see anything in the comparison?
“I don’t think so, no. Not to be negative about President Casey and his new job, but I don’t envy his position one bit. There’s a lot of power in the presidency that you just don’t find being Mayor of London and there’s a lot more responsibility as well. It’s bad enough trying to juggle Havering and Harrow – I don’t think I could cope with keeping fifty states in line.”
So, there’s no possibility of a trade in positions?
“Never. Wouldn’t trade this for the world,” he laughs. “I’m perfectly happy to do my bit for my city.”
It should be noted, after all, that Philip Green is ‘Mr London’ to the rest of the world. Being the first directly elected Mayor of London would have done that to anyone who managed to win the mayoral contest twice in a row and Green has taken to it with the passion of any local boy looking to improve the fortune of his hometown. The cultivation of this image was exactly what allowed him to narrowly beat Caroline Flint in 2012 and then Parmjit Dhanda in last year’s election, but the ‘Mr London’ image belies a Conservative Party man with a Conservative Party agenda. Integral to this agenda is his insistence on enterprise and “business sense” over all else.
‘Over all else’, in this case, must necessarily include the interests of the communities he seeks to transform in his Docklands Enterprise Plan. Does he anticipate the same resistance that Thatcher and Parkinson faced in the 1980s?
“I anticipate someone will kick up a fuss. There’s always going to be somebody on the opposite side trying to undermine you when you’re making a change. But, as I’ve said from the beginning, it’s a case of either letting the area go to the wall like it did in the Eighties or injecting a bit of business sense to save it.”
It’s a bold claim and one not unknown to the residents of London’s Docklands. The same reasoning was used when the 1985 Paper was published, when the Ruddock government reached out to AIG and the Santander Group to help fund a new business district on the Isle of Dogs, and when the Conservatives put caps on local business taxes in their winning 2015 manifesto. The idea that business knows best and that local government ought to move aside is what drives the conflict at the heart of the Docklands development. Philip Green, the Mayor of London, is just the latest actor in the thirty years-long drama that has been unfolding in Newham and Tower Hamlets.
I thank him for his time, having got all I need from our interview transcribed in my notepad. He attempts to talk more about Tottenham and the FA Cup, but I confess that my knowledge of football leaves much to be desired. He doesn’t seem to care much, standing up as I do but pointing towards an illegible signature on the Tottenham Hotspur shirt I presume is from a player I’ve never heard of. Still, I grab my things and head towards the door.
I may know little about football, but even I know never to subject myself to a Tottenham fan’s ramblings if I can help it.
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