Yorkshire in London. Policy politics. MD, Insight @LDNComms Formerly @centreforlondon @mayoroflondon. Tweets are my views alone
Aug 16, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
1/ 🧵on Mayoral election voting systems. I missed @jillongovt's piece on Monday on the change to the voting system for next May's Mayoral elections. It's an issue that has frustrated me in the past (£)ft.com/content/e14876…2/ As a reminder, voters in London have, since 2000, had a first and a second preference vote for Mayor. A winning candidate must get 50% or more of the votes. To date, no candidate has ever achieved 50% in the first round of voting.
Jul 7, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
1/ I’ve been asked what a change of PM means for London. There’s two parts to this - the personalities and their relationships; and then the hard political realities. But what I would say is things couldn’t be any worse!
2/ Rather ironically, it presents the opportunity to reset relations between City Hall & Government the Transport Secretary called for in his recent letter to the Mayor - perhaps not quite the reset he was thinking!
Jul 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Spent the day pottering around #Belgrade. Visited the House of Flowers - resting place of President Tito. The museum to his life was interesting - there’s even a football signed by the 1980 Man Utd squad sending him a get well soon message 2/ Shhhhh 🤫 Don’t tell TfL about the roundel in the Tito museum
Jul 7, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1/ 🧵 Social norms & conventions alone aren’t enough anymore to protect something as important as our democracy. Running a country isn’t like a golf club - shaking of heads at jeans in the clubhouse. I hope I’m wrong but I’m not sure we can rely on ‘doing the right thing’ anymore
2/ We like to think we’re special and that we don’t need the protections of a simpler, clearer written constitution, neatly captured in one place. To quote a former PM, I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists. Why are almost alone as a democracy without one? 🤷🏻♂️
May 20, 2022 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
1/ Crossrail funding – a long thread 🧵: there’s much being written now on Elizabeth Line (EL) funding ahead of the opening next week, not all based on fact. It is complicated, involving central government funding and money from London.
2/ The fact it is opening in 2022, 48 years after the first concrete plans were approved, 33 years after the 2nd attempt was shelved, shows how poor we are at big transport projects. Over this period, Paris has built 5 equivalents with the RER
May 20, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
I read @DaveHill’s book on the 2012 Olympics recently, but it’s taken me a while to get around to tweeting about it. As someone who has lived in London throughout the period of bidding for, winning, building and hosting the games, it was a real reminder of much I had forgotten
Dave is unapologetically positive about what the Olympics has done for East London. But it is also a reminder of how London was the centre of the world for that fortnight in 2012, and the country was proud of the city. We’ve lost that some of that pride
May 19, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Fascinating thread from @ahawksbee - new transport infrastructure alone won’t solve levelling up, and it will require investment in many of the more softer elements
These findings matters from a London perspective because there is a perception that, as London has (relatively) great transport infrastructure, levelling up can’t possibly be a problem as everyone has easy access to shed loads of secure, well paid job
2/ Shhhhh 🤫 Don’t tell TfL about the roundel in the Tito museum 