LDN Weekly – Issue 230 – 3 August 2022 - Happy Birthday LCA!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LCA!
London Communications Agency turned 23 this month. Our Chief Executive Jonny Popper opens today’s edition, reflecting on how those years have flown by – and on how the agency is positioning itself for the next 23 years of success.
No images? Click here HAPPY BIRTHDAY LCA!London Communications Agency turned 23 this month. Our Chief Executive Jonny Popper opens today’s edition, reflecting on how those years have flown by – and on how the agency is positioning itself for the next 23 years of success.
LCA co-founder, Partner & Chief Executive Jonny Popper We hope you enjoy this edition and if you don't already, do 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. TfL IN LIMBOTfL was today meant to decide whether or not it accepts the Government’s latest financial settlement - but as of writing, the deadline has elapsed with no decision made. To rewind a bit, on 22 July, the Department for Transport (DfT) wrote to Transport for London (TfL) with a long-awaited funding settlement to replace its current succession of short-term funding packages. Few details about what was included are known, though Transport Secretary Grant Shapps did say that it includes ‘£3.6bn worth of projects’ and also described it as the Government’s ‘final offer’. The Transport Commissioner and Mayor have been reluctant to reveal any details about the offer’s contents while they considered them, but did last week tell TfL's board that the £3.6bn sum ‘is not all new money’ and does not cover the three years requested. The current emergency funding deal, which was set to expire on 28 July, was extended to today to give TfL time to ’scrutinise’ the Government's offer for a longer term settlement. An update by TfL this afternoon says only that its officials are still in “active discussion with the Government to ensure that the draft funding proposal that they have made is fair and deliverable and can prevent the managed decline of the capital's transport network”. It ends with a rather vague “we hope these discussions can be concluded successfully soon.” And so, we wait. TfL was meanwhile also facing another deadline, after the RMT union said that they wanted assurances on jobs, pensions and working conditions by 2 August or a Tube strike planned for 19 August would go ahead. Yesterday it was confirmed that the 24-hour strike will go ahead on both the Overground and Underground after TfL, according to the union, ‘refused to share details’ of the proposal received from Government. OLYMPIC LEGACYLast Friday, London celebrated the 10th anniversary of the 2012 Olympics – well, some of us did at any rate. As we have previously noted, critics at home and abroad have pointed to evidence that many aspects of the ‘Olympic legacy’ have fallen short of ambitions set out in the 00s and 10s. Other analyses, including recent pieces by the BBC’s Dan Roan, On London’s Dave Hill (who’s also written a book about it) and the Economist, arguably offer a more balanced view of what the legacy has produced. Indeed, we would point to evidence collected by City Hall and Hackney Town Hall, as well as by LCA clients Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and London Sport, which proves that the Olympics have – whether directly or indirectly – led to huge investment in East London’s infrastructure, housing, and local economy, as well as more opportunities than ever to get involved in sport or physical activity. As an agency that backed London’s Olympic bid (does anyone remember a certain PR stunt involving a convoy of Land Rovers?) and has worked in and around the Olympic Park for 20-odd years, we are fully prepared to agree that not everything panned out exactly as planned. But what has been achieved is nothing less than extraordinary – and that’s worth celebrating. PROMISES, PROMISESThree months since May’s local election, new and returning borough administrations are starting to deliver on their election pledges – but some are having second thoughts...
Elsewhere, administrations find themselves in the unenviable position of being accused - whether fairly or not - of the dreaded ‘u-turn’.
LONDON PLANNING ROUNDUP
DLUHC LATESTDespite leading a caretaker ministerial team, Housing Secretary Greg Clark has been busy of late.
PEOPLE NEWS
LOW POWER LONDON?A notice by City Hall on the electricity grid’s capacity in West London has sent a shock through the sector. The Financial Times had the scoop, alarmingly suggesting that the capacity issues amounted to a ‘new homes ban’ in three boroughs. A week later (and with the GLA’s ‘Infrastructure Coordination note’ now in hand) we can confirm that while this is a serious issue, it’s neither an imminent catastrophe, nor for that matter an unavoidable one. To get one crucial thing straight, there is no ‘ban’ in place from a planning perspective. Energy companies are, however, clear that the proliferation of energy-guzzling data centres along the M4 have led to the grid in Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow (plus several councils just outside London) facing significant strain. This means that unless something is done, large-scale (i.e. requiring 1MVA or more) new developments in certain areas ‘will have to wait several years to receive new electricity connections.’ Smaller schemes, e.g. of less than 25 homes, are less at risk. Clearly, this issue could stall build-out, impact viability and affect investment interest. But it’s early days. The GLA, local authorities and industry are on a war footing, working together to assess the scale of the problem, and to work out a solution – which, given the will and the right resources, should be feasible. TORY LEADERSHIP LATESTWith just over five weeks left until the new Prime Minister is announced, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s campaigns to win over the Tory membership are in full swing. Last week, the two candidates went head-to-head in debates on broadcast by the BBC and Talk TV. They have since begun a circuit of 12 hustings across the country, starting in Leeds this past Sunday and Exeter on Tuesday. So far, Truss’ performance and policy platform have seemingly won her a sizeable margin of support amongst Tory members with the latest YouGov poll giving her a hefty 38-point lead over Sunak – though a Techne poll of party members conducted two weeks ago placed Sunak just five-points behind Truss and a Savanta ComRes poll of Tory councillors puts the two almost neck and neck. Nonetheless, it is clear that Truss’ campaign has picked up momentum and she has recently received endorsements from Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and former leadership rivals Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat. In a bid to revitalise his campaign, Sunak has pledged the biggest income tax cut in 30 years, attracting ‘flip-flops and U-turns’ accusations after the ex-Chancellor called Truss’ plans for tax cuts ‘immoral’. For her part, Truss was forced to hastily backtrack on her proposals for adjusting public sector pay by region as a cost-saving effort. On planning and development, Truss has now vowed to remove (some) planning restrictions and regulation to boost housebuilding, whilst Sunak has pledged to (wait for it) block housebuilding on the green belt, prioritising development on brownfield land instead. Looking ahead, Tory party members will have to wait to cast their votes after the Party has delayed the mailout of ballots following warnings by GCHQ of cyber fraud. LABOUR RUCTIONSOne may think that the Tories’ bitter infighting, after 12 years in power, would be a boon for Labour. Think again. A week ago, one poll gave Labour a 13-point lead, but a more recent one puts them one measly point ahead. More reliable aggregations of polls indicate this trend is less dramatic, but the Opposition is clearly in choppy waters. Some speculate that with Boris Johnson on his way out, the Tories are shedding his toxicity amongst some voters, but considering the furore over Johnson’s resignations honour list, that can’t be the only factor. Our guess is that Labour’s own infighting and wider identity crisis are more to blame. The party’s ambivalent position on industrial action has exposed Keir Starmer to criticism from unions, the party’s left and even his own frontbench. Similarly, backtracking on previous pledges to seek the nationalisation of key industries has led to confusion. Starmer polls decently against his opponent(s), but surveys also indicate voters still don’t know what he stands for – and as per one commentator, Labour can’t just ‘rely on the Tories ‘to self-destruct'’. Beyond Starmer himself and the party’s policy pledges, Labour needs to assemble an ‘electable’ set of candidates for the next General Election and has recently announced a number of selections in key marginal London seats – including Tory-held Hendon, Chingford and the Twin Cities. As a side-note, it is worth noting Labour’s chilly response to speculation that former party leader Jeremy Corbyn is being encouraged to run for London Mayor as an independent in 2024 – a scenario that will surely be treated as very unwelcome indeed by one Sadiq Khan. A left-wing challenger might not be an real contender for the job itself, but with Mayoral elections now shifting to the traditional first past the post system, it could well erode Labour’s vote, giving the Conservatives better chances of winning…
On his latest punditry turn on Nick Ferrari’s LBC Breakfast Show, LCA Senior Advisor Paddy Hennessy gave his take on the Tory leadership race, predicting to Nick’s 1.3 million listeners that Liz Truss’ latest debate performance would widen her already clear lead, with the ‘Telegraph-reading constituency’ (which we guess he ought to know about as a former Sunday Telegraph political editor). It doesn’t begin and end with Telegraph readers for Truss – as we reported above, multiple subsequent polls have confirmed her polling advantage over Rishi Sunak among Conservative members more generally is consistently wide and seemingly growing. Paddy can also be heard on Times Radio, while LCA’s Partner and Managing Director of Insight Jenna Goldberg is a regular contributor on the capital’s political scene to BBC London Radio and ITV London among other media outlets. LDN CONTRIBUTORSRobert Gordon Clark, Senior Advisor and Partner Jenna Goldberg, Partner & Managing Director, Insight Stefanos Koryzis, Senior Insight Manager Emily Clinton, Senior Insight Executive Rahul Shah, Insight Executive Aroa Maquedano Pulido, Middleweight Designer LCA prides itself on its intelligence-led approach to PR and communications and our dedicated insight 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. Email us ![endif]>![if> 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. |