John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
Sep 14, 2020 12 tweets 6 min read Read on X
NEW with @ChrisGiles_ & @DanielThomasLDN: UK’s big cities are shadows of their usual selves, but smaller urban areas have rebounded ft.com/content/203cc8…

What’s driving the divergence? Chart thread:

1/ Footfall in central London is still down 69%, but has picked up elsewhere
2/ This is driven by working patterns, but that in itself plays out in two distinct ways:

First, job type. Staff are returning to the workplace at very different rates in different sectors, and the sectors with the most remote working today are clustered in cities, esp. London
3/ Workers in retail, hospitality can’t do their jobs remotely and have returned to the workplace. They’re popping out for lunch or drinks near work and maybe shopping centrally before going home.

In big cities, office-workers are still at home, leaving the high streets empty.
4/ But a bigger factor than what jobs people do is how they get to work, and how far they travel.

The bulk of the divergence is driven by commuting.

There’s a clear relationship between a city/town’s footfall and the % of its workers who usually commute on trains, buses or Tube
5/ People who usually walk or drive have been much more comfortable resuming their commute than those who take public transport.

Car trips are almost back to normal, but train and Tube travel are below 40% of their baseline, and buses below 60%.
6/ That’s 100,000s of people who would usually be piling onto trains to spend time & money in city centres but are now staying home, spending locally instead.

This is a boon for suburban retailers etc, but potentially fatal for their cousins in the business district.
7/ Let’s look at the top-line numbers again:

Almost every city or town saw an uptick in high street footfall over summer as people returned to work, but London’s was barely perceptible.

I’m not sure people fully realise how commuter-reliant central London’s high streets are...
8/ ...but thanks to @undertheraedar, we know:

Here’s where the "daytime population" (workers, schoolkids etc) come in from, for four major UK cities.

Suffice it to say, one of these is not like the others...

(all images from @undertheraedar)
9/ Even if we zoom right into the very core of London — Cities of London & Westminster — a huge portion of its daily workforce usually travels in by train, Tube and or bus.

~80% of the people who usually spend money in its shops & hospitality are just ... not there anymore.
10/ The big question: is this a temporary blip that will spring back to normality post-Covid (whenever that may be), or are people (and employers) settling into a new normal?

Read @ChrisGiles_ & @DanielThomasLDN’s full story for more discussion on that ft.com/content/203cc8…
Woops, this one was meant to come with an @undertheraedar image as well:
11/10 a belated but huge thanks here to @CentreforCities and @lramuni for sharing the city/town footfall data with us.

You can explore their full dataset here, including additional data on high street spending centreforcities.org/data/high-stre…

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More from @jburnmurdoch

Aug 9
It’s really striking how the Corbynite left has migrated to the Greens.

The result is a curious coalition between the older and more Nimby environmentalist base, and the new hard left/progressive influx.

These are quite different people with quite different politics! Image
In 2019, one in ten Green voters was from the most progressive/left segment of voters; now that’s one in four.

Big difference in policy preferences, priorities and pressure on the leadership, as we’ve seen in e.g reaction to Denyer’s Biden statement.
The most glaring tension between these two types of Green is on decarbonisation, where the older Nimby base doesn’t want pylons *or even onshore wind farms* but many of the new progressive Green vote do.

Greens are actually less keen on wind farms than Labour and Lib Dem voters! Image
Read 8 tweets
Aug 4
That incredible Noah Lyles victory in chart form.

Lyles was in last place until *50m*, and then surged past the field to take it on the line. A blue streak.

Thompson led from 25m to 95m, but not when it counted. Image
Granular timing data via @jgault13 and the Olympics website
@jgault13 Bolt was the greatest ever, and his huge margins of victory were iconic, but this was the best men’s 100m race I’ve ever seen.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 15
Essential chart from the new mega report on the general election by @Moreincommon_

The vast majority of people — including Reform voters — said the Tories lost because they were incompetent, not because they were too left or right wing. Image
And to the extent that people thought they were either too left or right wing, equal shares gave each answer.

There’s one very clear message and anything else is a distraction.

Full report here: moreincommon.org.uk/media/e3in12zd…
Another great chart:

When asked what were the biggest mistakes the Conservatives made in government, the common themes are not left or right, but:
• Mismanagement
• Lack of integrity
• Incompetence
• Dishonesty
• Corruption
• “They are chaotic” Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 10
Under-appreciated stat from last week’s election:

Labour won its lowest ever share of the vote in deprived areas (<50% for the first time), and its highest ever share in affluent areas.

The result is a dramatic flattening of the class gradient in Labour support. Image
Here’s the same thing laid out as a timeline so you can see specific elections.

Interesting how Blair 1997 and Corbyn 2017 had similarly steep class gradients.

And shows how Starmer’s landslide was quite different to Blair’s. Image
This is all another side-effect of the hyper-efficient distribution of the Labour vote last week.

Very large margins in safe seats (many in very deprived areas) were squeezed, while gains in more affluent areas won seats from the Tories.
Read 5 tweets
Jul 3
The lack of enthusiasm for Labour at this election really is striking.

Among those who plan to vote Labour tomorrow, the party is much less well-liked than in 2019, 2017 or 2015 (no data before that).

Quite a flimsy voter coalition that could unravel in the absence of results. Image
The Conservatives weren’t especially popular with their backers in 2019 (mainly a vote for Brexit and against Corbyn), and this was a big part of why they fell so far since then, but Lab voters this time are even less enthusiastic about their party than Tory voters were in 2019.
Of course, all that matters tomorrow is winning more seats than the opponents, and Starmer’s Labour will manage that very easily.

But if they don’t start delivering tangible results, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Labour start bleeding votes in all directions.
Read 6 tweets
May 17
NEW 🧵: how Britain became gripped by the worst homelessness crisis in the developed world Image
Here the column in full

Now let’s get into the detail:ft.com/content/24117a…
Some people have responded to that chart with "That can’t be right", or "We can’t be worse than America".

I’m afraid the chart is right. 15 years ago the UK’s record on homelessness *was* not too dissimilar to other developed countries, but things have rapidly deteriorated. Image
Read 23 tweets

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