LDN Weekly – Issue 199 – 1 December 2021
FESTIVE PHILANTHROPY
The season of goodwill is upon us with the start of Advent and halfway through Hanukkah, so thoughts rightly turn to those less fortunate than us, especially as the temperature has started to drop.
| No images? Click here  FESTIVE PHILANTHROPYThe season of goodwill is upon us with the start of Advent and halfway through Hanukkah, so thoughts rightly turn to those less fortunate than us, especially as the temperature has started to drop. So, for those readers looking for a very good London cause to support, today saw the launch of this year’s TapLondon campaign by the Mayor of London, the Deputy Mayor for Housing and the Leader of Hounslow Council. It may shock some readers that 1 in 52 people in London are homeless and we cannot call ourselves a successful thriving city whilst Londoners are forced to sleep on our streets. So why not consider giving the cost of a day’s commute into London (that you were not going to do anyway), towards this worthwhile campaign. On the subject of giving and generosity, we all await news of the settlement for Transport for London on 11 December, something the Mayor focused on in his speech at the excellent Centre for London conference yesterday. Meanwhile, read on about ongoing union issues, latest planning news and much more. As ever we hope you enjoy this edition and if you don't already, follow us on Twitter and Instagram and feel free to visit our website for more information on LCA’s team, services, and clients. Oh and a technical note: If you like hearing from us, make sure to add ldn@londoncommunications.co.uk to your contacts or ‘safe sender’ list – this will help ensure our news bulletin lands in your inbox.  TUBE TROUBLESRolling strikes on the Tube spell trouble for Sadiq Khan – and for London as a whole. The Mayor had invested much political capital in reopening the Night Tube, which was closed during the pandemic and ultimately the decision was made to reopen the service from 27 November, though only on the Central and Victoria Lines (previously it also ran on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines). Despite the limited service, workers affiliated with the RMT union were incensed by the terms of the new rotas and launched plans for a rolling schedule of strikes affecting several Tube lines in the period 26 November to 18 December. RMT argues that shifts on the new Night Tube, previously “reserved for people who volunteered” are now “compulsory”, describing the situation as “unfair” as they make the lives of drivers with caring responsibilities “more difficult, damaging their attempts to preserve a work-life balance”. London Underground has clarified that the changes will mean four weekend night shifts a year per driver. This labour dispute is only one of several fronts on which TfL is at odds with workers – over the course of the past few months, trade unions have been variously agitating against planned changes to TfL pensions, conditions on the Woolwich Ferry, as well as other issues. The problem, for our Labour Mayor, is twofold: on one hand, he’s made it a priority to work with unions, promising in his 2016 manifesto to achieve “zero strike days” - a pledge long-broken, with the Telegraph estimating in August that the tally stood at 30 days (higher than his predecessor). On the other hand, Khan is keen to see the machinery that keeps London going stay in motion to facilitate economic recovery. With TfL desperately seeking external funding from Government to sustain it beyond the expiry of its current “bailout” on 11 December, a tussle with its own staff is the last thing it needs, especially as the city puts on its festive finest to welcome visitors and ensure Londoners can celebrate the season, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. PLANNING ROUNDUP
GRIM READINGAn investigation by the Evening Standard has revealed the truly shocking extent of abuse suffered by many female councillors in London. The newspaper surveyed 58 female and 22 male councillors about their experiences of witnessing or being victims of gender-based abuse. 60% of the female councillors surveyed said they have been victims of some form of misogyny. Most of their male counterparts said they have also experienced some form of abuse, but 45% of them also said they witnessed abuse towards female colleagues that “wouldn’t happen to them”. Councillors of all parties revealed harrowing experiences of gender-based threats, harassment and intimidation. Other research has unsurprisingly shown that women are underrepresented in local government and in government more generally, both in London and nationwide. PEOPLE NEWS
 DESIGN FOR LONDONThe Mayor is searching for 30 new Design Advocates. The new cohort will be independent experts from the built environment sector who will ‘ensure quality buildings and public spaces that benefit Londoners are at the heart of the capital’s recovery from the pandemic’. The Mayoral Design Advocates (MDAs) will focus on three factors when reviewing schemes: quality, recovery and representation. The original group, appointed in 2017, has reviewed over 150 schemes where the Mayor had jurisdiction over planning or had invested funding or supported local authorities, such as the high-profile Tulip and Bishopsgate Goodsyard schemes. The previous cohort also developed guidance in support of the London Plan. CITY HALL CASH CRUNCH?As City Hall begins the laborious process of drafting its budget for 2022/23, it is clear that TfL is only one of the GLA’s financial headaches. Only last week, the London Assembly began to scrutinise an early “budget plan”, with a more detailed draft expected to be issued for consultation "before the end of December” and the process as a whole unlikely to conclude until well into the new year. It appears that the now-delayed move from City Hall to The Crystal is only one of several cost-saving measure to be taken, with MyLondon reporting that City Hall staff “are facing real-terms cuts to pay in the face of the rising cost of living” – citing a City Hall spokesperson as acknowledging that the GLA “is unable to offer a pay award this year” and explaining that “the GLA has chosen to protect jobs and key services such as for rough sleepers rather than budgeting for a pay award”. Separately, while there is no indication that this is an intentional cost-saving exercise, it is hard to see Assembly Members’ recent complaints that the heating has been turned off at City Hall as anything other than symbolic of their predicament. But it’s not all bad news for the Mayoral purse: City Hall has just secured £43.5m of funding from the Government’s Care and Support Specialised Housing (CASSH) fund, to help develop homes for older and disabled people. LABOUR'S LABOURSLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer carried out a reshuffle of his top team on Monday, though he reportedly did so without informing his Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, who was speaking at an Institute for Government event as appointments were starting to be announced. The reshuffle saw some big names return to the frontbench, including Yvette Cooper who has been appointed as Shadow Home Secretary, while London MPs Wes Streeting (Ilford North) and David Lammy (Tottenham) have been made Shadow Health Secretary and Shadow Foreign Secretary respectively. Former Labour Party leadership candidate Lisa Nandy has been made Shadow Levelling Up Secretary, taking over from Steve Reed who is now Shadow Justice Secretary. The new line-up can be seen in full here. 
The LCA team was absolutely delighted to attend Centre for London’s 10th London Conference – a hybrid event which saw an all-star cast of Londoners congregate at the Congress Centre as well as an audience of hundreds online. Sadiq Khan delivered the keynote address, making it quite clear that he was up for a fight to secure the future of Transport for London and certainly not ruling himself out of another run for Mayor in 2024. The event also marked the launch of the final report on A New Vision for London produced by CfL’s London Futures project. LDN editor and LCA Board Director Jenna Goldberg gave the audience a quickfire appraisal of London’s political landscape before chairing a panel about the politics of the pandemic with Professor Tony Travers of the LSE, Islington leader Kaya Comer-Schwartz and Liberal Democrat MP, Sarah Olney. We were also pleased to bring our Who Runs London banner out of storage for a much-needed update. Last displayed at the 2019 London Conference, the 3x4 foot illustration of the complicated web of public authorities and agencies involved in running our city is, barely two years on, partly outdated. Armed with markers and post-its, LDN’s chief reporters and LCA’s Research operation, Emily Clinton and Stefanos Koryzis, did a “live update” of the graphic, helped along by helpful comments and suggestions from other delegates. LDN CONTRIBUTORSRobert Gordon Clark, Senior Advisor and Partner Jenna Goldberg, Board Director Stefanos Koryzis, Research Manager Emily Clinton, Research Executive Aroa Maquedano Pulido, Middleweight Designer LCA prides itself on its intelligence-led approach to PR and communications and our dedicated research team monitors London politics, news and issues as it happens. If you would like to know more about LCA or anything in this edition of LDN – London in short please get in touch.If you have received LDN Weekly indirectly and would like to subscribe to receive it every week, please click here to register your details.LDN is put together by a dedicated team at London Communications Agency. The content for each edition is developed from news drawn from the last week from every London local paper as well as the regional and national press, from intelligence gathered by monitoring local, regional and national government activity and from the insight and expert knowledge of the entire LCA team.    |