The rubbish may be piling up in the streets of Tower Hamlets but this is not the Winter of Discontent. Back in 1978-79, the refuse collectors had the good grace to go on strike when the weather had turned cold, sparing residents of the smell currently pervading the East End.
Waste service workers and street cleaners in Tower Hamlets began a two-week walkout over pay on September 18. Unite the Union said more than 200 workers have rejected a national flat rate pay rise of £1,925, because it represented a real-terms pay cut.
Businesses are taking matters into their own hands. To avoid attracting rats, Brick Lane Beigel Shop manager Ellis Zelum has been forced to spend an extra £400 a week to have its rubbish collected. In normal times, rubbish is collected twice a day from the busy market street. But now the entire borough has gone a week without a collection.
With the strike set to go on for another week, residents may have to hold their noses for a while longer.
HS2 turns to farce
High-speed 2 was supposed to cost little more than £30 billion and connect the capital with the great cities of the north of England. Today, the budget has spiralled to the region of £100 billion, while passengers may have to traipse across London just to board a train that could terminate in Birmingham.
It is not that Britain can no longer build great infrastructure projects. From the 2012 Olympics to the Elizabeth line, we have demonstrated the will and expertise is there. But HS2 is stress-testing that theory. Costs have skyrocketed thanks to inflation, delays and Nimbyism. The reality is that successive governments have suffered from optimism bias, wildly underestimating costs and overestimating how quickly the project could be delivered.
The risk now is that we end up with a very expensive train line capable only of ferrying passengers from a somewhat random part of London to a single city in the Midlands. This is not what was advertised a decade ago.
Corbyn conundrum
Susan Hall’s path to victory next year in the mayoral race runs not through ill-advised tweets or Ulez opposition, but through an unlikely Tory saviour: Jeremy Corbyn.
When Londoner’s Diary met the former Labour leader at the launch of expelled member Ken Loach’s final film, he was coy about plans for the mayoralty, saying he could not comment “at this stage”.
Of course, history recalls that Sadiq Khan nominated Corbyn for leader in 2015, with an eye on his own mayoral bid. Funny how things work out.
