London on the Slide

...The traffic congestion, now a feature of driving here, has also received more than its fair share of condemnation...

...The absence of a central body charged with overseeing the well-being of the English capital has contributed significantly to the unhappy state of affairs here...

...The Labor Party, gearing up for the general election campaign, has recently called for the establishment of a new Greater London Authority...

...To some extent, the grumbling one hears is excessive...

...Germany's Frankfurt is already attracting business that in earlier times would automatically have crossed the Channel...

...Moreover, there is great concern that the widespread doubts about the quality of British banking management and the telecommunications revolution might undermine London's long-established role as Europe's financialhub...

...Increasingly overcrowded in rush hours and subject to repeated breakdowns, delays and cancellations, the transit lines provide depressingly inadequate service despite charging the highest fares in Europe...

...Vehicle speed during peak periods is said to be down to half of what it was at the beginning of the century, before the blessings of the internal combustion engine were upon us...

...Hugging the middle ground to avoid the "loony left" stigma of Livingstone's GLC, the Laborites would confine the activities of such a body to undertakings beyond the purview of the individual borough councils that are vital to restoring the city's reputation and morale...

...The matter the Prime Minister is being advised to confront prior to putting his job at risk is "the London factor...

...The situation is partly a result of the huge number of businesses that have failed over the last two years, and is partly due to the grim economic outlook prompting thousands of others to cut back...

...A substantial number of Tory parliamentarians have been pressing the Prime Minister to produce a comprehensive program for rejuvenating the city, even though to do so would amount to admitting that after 12 years of Conservative rule London has little left to boast about...

...A growing army of jobless Londoners is spared those daily horrors, but that is a thin silver lining...

...Samuel Johnson, it is being recalled, oncesaid, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life...

...The subway and commuter trains are particular targets of complaint...

...Since the Greater London Council (GLC) ceased to exist five years ago, London has been the only major city in the industrialized world without a supervisory board...

...This is not meant to suggest that anyone is suicidal over the present conditions, but that most Londoners do believe their lives here leave much to be desired these days...

...According to the latest statistics, for every available job in the capital there are 46 people seeking work...

...One in every seven Britons—including an enormous bloc of the electorate whose support is essential if the Tories are to stay in power—lives or works in the capital...

...The London Zoo may have to move to a countryside annex...

...Several of its wealthy financial backers, certain they were on to an extremely lucrative sure thing, have been brought to the brink of ruin by the company's losses...

...Britain has one of the higher levels of unemployment among Europe's industrialized nations, and London's rate is increasing faster than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, even troubled Northern Ireland...

...With the economy shrouded in gloom, the National Health Service in a state of upheaval, and the Conservative Party divided on the role the nation should play in a united Europe, he is likely to wait until the last moment before summoning voters to the polls...

...Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...But her concerns are shared by countless Londoners across the political spectrum and by the Henley Center for Forecasting, a respected British think tank...

...The construction of a new British Library—already a source of controversy because researchers objected to its separation from the British Museum—has been blighted by poor supervision and is likely to prove too small to fulfill the legal obligation to house a copy of every British publication...

...Margaret Hodge, chairman of the unrelated Association of London Authorities, warns that the city will become second rate if vigorous action is not initiated to revive its economic life and restore its social health...

...Nevertheless, from rumblings elsewhere in Whitehall it appears that the government will attempt to face up to the challenges of urban decay...

...Similar problems are common in cities around the world and, indeed, have plagued this city in the past...

...It is true that the crime rate has been climbing, that beggars— formerly nonexistent—have begun populating the streets, and that drivers stopping at traffic lights along the Thames Embankment get their windscreens washed by people seeking handouts for their unwanted labors...

...Several of the city's proudest institutions have begun to feel the impact...

...London tops the country in homes repossessed by banks and building societies because owners have failed to meet mortgage payments...

...But Britons have not been so demoralized by a convergence of adversities for a long time...

...The old English maxim "safe as houses" has become a mockery...

...Subsequently, some of the essential duties it performed feU to London's 32 borough councils, but they are incapable of dealing with the problems that affect London as a whole...

...Funding difficulties have forced the Royal Shakespeare Theater at London's Barbican Center to curtail its repertory...

...For good reason...

...Deterioration is progressing, however, from litter in the streets to noise in the airways above them, and it is certainly affecting nearly everything in between...

...In addition, many previously London-based British firms have chosen to relocate because of intimidating rents and rising costs of all kinds...

...John Major's government does not seem quite sure about how to handle the situation...

...The Center has cautioned that the city's infrastructure is crumbling and that the consequences could be calamitous...

...Nevertheless, London's traffic jams cannot compare to the choked roadways confounding Athens or Rome...

...At the moment, millions of square feet of office space are standing empty...

...Still, crime and panhandling in London are well below the levels that have been reached in, say, New York...

...Hodge is also the leader of the Islington Borough Council in North London and a prominent figure in Labor Party circles...

...And although there has been a noticeable erosion of the proverbial civility of Londoners, their general demeanor remains far above the indifference and brusqueness encountered in Paris...

...The message which is crying out from all the physical symptoms," she says, "is that London is on the slide and is in need of some intensive care...

...By law, Prime Minister John Major is required to call for new balloting no later than next June...

...Finally enraged by the GLC's activities and what she considered its lack of accountability, Thatcher had it abolished...

...In its last phase, the Council was controlled by a hard Left faction dominated by Chairman Ken Livingstone, who today is a largely inactive Labor MP Under Livingstone, the GLC used taxpayer funds to support gay and ethnic programs, politicize the London schools, back supporters of the Irish Republican Army in Ulster, and advance a variety of other causes that infuriated the Conservative government as well as many ordinary citizens...

...But 46 per cent of these people, reports the London Evening Standard, wish they did not...

...Livingstone liked to taunt former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by hanging huge banners bearing antigovernment slogans from City Hall (soon to be converted into a hotel), across the Thames from Parliament...

...The misfortune that has overtaken Lloyd's of London, the most famous insurer in the world, appears to symbolize the current drift...

...Evidence of the city's decline is everywhere, and grousing about it has become habitual in the newspapers, magazines and broadcast media...

...Bryan Gould, the Labor Party's spokesman on environmental matters, exaggerates only slightly in declaring that getting to and from work each day is a nightmare...

...Two heavily invested urban construction projects—the massive London Docklands development and Chelsea Harbor—have failed to attract the residents and businesses that were to transform those neglected corners into thriving upmarket centers...

...Environment Minister Michael Portillo raised eyebrows recently when he suggested that the overcrowded subway system and the congested roads of the capital "are a sign of a city alive and flourishing...