I was born in London and spent the first 20 years of my life assuming that if it wasn’t happening here in the capital — and preferably inside the Circle line — then it wasn’t happening anywhere else in Britain. I was very wrong about that. I went on to spend 16 years as an MP near Manchester, where people lived their lives in that cauldron of cool creativity and felt almost completely disconnected from what was happening in London. There was a sullen resentment about the capital: why was this vampire squid sucking in talent and taxpayers’ money?
I tried to persuade Mancunians and others that this was just as mistaken as the Londoner arrogance of my youth. It was to the huge benefit of our northern cities that the most international, global city in the world was just 200 miles away. So when I chaired the Northern Powerhouse Partnership I would refuse to let us issue press releases complaining when some road scheme or science project in London got funded, and when I edited the Evening Standard I made sure we covered events across the whole of the UK.
I’m not sure how much success I had in changing attitudes. For today those false assumptions remain entrenched. When the HS2 railway line was cancelled, that massively short-sighted decision was greeted with despair in Birmingham and Manchester but largely ignored in the capital. When some of London’s great cultural institutions, such as the Royal Opera House and National Theatre, got their budgets squeezed in the name of “levelling up” a couple of years earlier, this act of levelling down was cheered in some regional quarters — without understanding the damage it did to the national ecosystem of the performing arts.
Don’t level down
Now, as another Treasury spending review approaches, the speculation is that London’s loss will be the regions’ gain — and that the rest of the country need not worry about the tax rises to come, because they will be targeted on City fat cats and foreign millionaires. The new government would do well to learn from the mistakes of its predecessors — and their successes too. Here’s a few things I would do if I was in my old job at Number 11 and I wanted to get London motoring for the whole nation.
First, go early and go big on major infrastructure. On my first day as chancellor in 2010 I was told we could save billions by axing Crossrail 1 — a new railway line east/west through the city — and no one would care. Today, every time I ride on the Elizabeth line I say a silent thank you that I listened to the voices that said don’t scrap it.
Today there are at least four big transport schemes that have been worked up and are ready to go. There’s Crossrail 2, a new Elizabeth line from north to south. There’s the extension of the Bakerloo line into south-east London. And there are new river crossings out near Dartford and at Silvertown. I said “yes” to all of them, but left office before the point of no return. Since then they have stalled. If I were Rachel Reeves, I’d press the start button next month, drive forward construction and within a decade the new railways and roads would be open, bringing jobs and investment. I’d also find a way to reverse the crazy cancellation of HS2, so the capital’s economic engine was harnessed to the rest of the country. You can’t say you’re for long-term planning and growth and not make decisions like these. Ending the dither over extra flights at London City Airport was a good sign this government means business. It’s time to double down on that.
‘Every time I ride on the Elizabeth Line I say a silent thank you that I listened to the voices that said don’t scrap it’
Send a signal to the world
Second, I know more than anyone that you’ve got to make the public finances add up. With the Budget looming there’s a lot of talk of higher taxes on wealthy people and non doms. The financial sector, and industries like private equity, are in the crosshairs. I’m not going to tell the current Chancellor what she shouldn’t do. But I will make this point. The overall sense of whether a country welcomes enterprise and investment matters enormously. The UK has certain things it is particularly good at and that includes finance, life sciences, tech and the creative industries. A lot of that is centred on London, but thrives across the country.
When Labour came to power in 1997, there were fears they would clobber enterprise. Instead, they cut capital gains and corporation tax. It was so unexpected from a centre-Left government that it had a disproportionately positive effect. Years later they achieved the opposite by introducing the 50p income tax rate, which sent the message Britain was closed to enterprise. Reeves would be well advised to follow the example of the early new Labour years, not the final ones. A nod towards enterprise in her October Budget would be heard around the world. She, and Sir Keir Starmer, will be judged on their mission to get the economy growing. That won’t happen until investors think Britain in general, and London in particular, is a place that welcomes them, not milks them. It’s up to Downing Street to decide what message they want to send.
Finally, I’d recognise how important London’s world-class cultural institutions are to the reputation of the country as a place of creativity. That’s not to diminish the contribution of the arts outside the capital; but it is to realise that having one of the world’s top three opera houses, one of its top two centres of theatre, two of the top 10 art galleries, incredible orchestras and modern dance and ballet, and — in the British Museum — the world’s greatest universal museum, is something everyone else on the planet would dream of having. Some will say I am biased because I chair the BM; I’d say chairing the place that gets more visitors than Venice every year means I know what’s at stake. If you want Britain, and its capital, to claim the crown of culture make sure you don’t lose its jewels. Give them a polish in the Budget and the whole world will notice.
This isn’t an exhaustive list — fixing housing, crime and education in the capital are priorities too. But it is a plan you could put in place, and see the benefits of in a short space of years. Back London and you back Britain.
George Osborne is chair of the British Museum, president of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, former chancellor and former Evening Standard editor
