Living in London is like having urine constantly extracted from your bladder without you realising it was there to take. Perhaps that’s why its Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, did not make the building of much-needed public toilets a priority in this vast city. Anyone caught short on a long journey stretched to gargantuan proportions by delayed trains usually has to choose between forking out £6.75 for a pint in a pub or daring to risk the shame of sneaking past the bar to their porcelain paradise.
The upshot of this laboured metaphor is that Sadiq Khan has plenty of pi** to take and seems content to do so. The latest instance to inflict itself upon my consciousness is an insufferable poster which informs me, as though this is reassuring, that it was paid for by the Mayor of London. It reads: “You are loved and wanted in London.”
It’s not news that Khan loves spending my money on PR – back in 2020 it was revealed he spaffed 26% more cash than Boris Johnson on telling us he’s doing his job, honest – but the cheek of this campaign is enraging.
The obvious thing to wonder is whether or not any murder victims, in their dying moments, have glimpsed this poster and through throatfuls of blood appreciated its grim irony.
For the rest of us, this poster is as though Sadiq has grabbed us by the wrists, slapped us with our own hands repeatedly and said “stop hitting yourself” like a child.
London, under his leadership, has degraded to the point of being actively hostile to the ordinary people who try and make their lives work in it.
Just over a year ago, aged 34, I gave up on renting a tiny one-bedroom flat with indefatigable damp that resurrected my childhood asthma because it was impossible to wipe out debt and save while doing so.
Just before Christmas, my girlfriend was spiked while we were at a pub in an affluent London suburb. That was a few months before a homeless crackhead punched her while she was walking home from work.
My friend’s phone has been nicked out of his hand as walked through a park in south-east London. And, obviously, my bicycle’s been pilfered.
One of the saddest things about the above – save for the spiking and punching – is that I can think of a nasty rebuff to each of them, such is the cynicism that pervades this place and sections of the commentariat.
Why did you try living on your own if you couldn’t afford it? Live like a student if you have to! Don’t expect dignity! You probably spent a deposit’s worth of money on lattes, you stupid millennial.
Who walks with a phone visible in London? Idiot! Doesn’t he know how things are here? Asking for it!
How long was your bike there? How many locks were on it? Everyone knows you need at least two in order to ensure the wheels aren’t nicked!
The answer to all of which is: this shouldn’t be the case though, should it?
But it is. And that’s why – even as a relatively lucky London resident – it is enraging to be told by the office tasked with making this place better that we are loved and wanted.
This city, under a Labour Mayor, has become a place even more divorced from the people his party is meant to represent than it was before.
And instead of getting what we pay for, we’re handed delayed, packed trains whose drivers were last year handed a pay rise that comes in the form of the money his party is so fond of doling out. Which is to say our money.
Today I learned that this idiotic PR campaign was initiated in order to show that “no matter where you’re from – you are loved and wanted in our city”. The same press release assures me that “London is, and will always be, a place for everyone”.
Well perhaps it’s worth telling one of the most undeserving knights in history that as somebody from Bolton who moved here to make a better life, you do not make me feel loved and wanted.
Nor have you made welcome my friends who’ve fled this place due to a combination of heaving streets and expensive housing.
I’ll leave you to use your doubtless impressive mind to consider whether a woman rendered out of control due to violating drugs likely administered for the purpose of rape feels loved and wanted by her own city.
You surely already know the resounding answer of hard-working tradespeople forced to pay punishing ULEZ charges.
Now to fellow citizens of London: the next time you’re balancing in something resembling a stress position, your fingertips fighting to stay connected to a rail on the London Underground as the train jolts a sweaty armpit into your face and someone’s bag into your back, just remember one thing.
Remember it too when the day of the month comes on which you pay your scumbag, buy-to-let, opportunistic leach of a landlord £2,121.
Marshall it as your support when you, or your loved ones, are the victim of crime.
Say it with me: You are loved and wanted.