I both agree and disagree with you; when devolution was being set up for London, the Labour hierarchy was twitchy about it, but I think that was largely because it was obvious Ken was the front runner. The Tube PPP was a mistake, both on the policy itself and in the way it was foisted on London shortly before devolution. However, now it is established, I’d say that they might see the worth of it.

Regarding the northern MPs and the general perception that London receives too much coverage in the national press, I’d say that a growth in London politics and London media would reduce the imbalance as it would no longer be necessary to cover the public life of the single most important part of the country at the national level.

I don’t know whether the Tories would be foolish enough to get rid of citywide governance for London again, though I rather doubt it. What I don’t doubt is that they would favour the boroughs against the GLA.

I hadn’t realise about the media coverage issue – very interesting. That having been said, plenty of people in the Home Counties commute into London and are otherwise attached to it. I wonder how much it costs to have a channel on satellite

There are some pretty good local London papers – the Camden New Journal, for instance – but there isn’t really one for Westminster, where I used to live, and various other places. There’s a problem across the country in municipal politics not receiving enough scrutiny, but London is a region rather than a municipality, albeit a metropolitan region.

Tom,

That’s true, but it doesn’t really help matters as the coverage of London politics in the nationals is a bit superficial and tends to focus on the personality of the Mayor rather than looking at policy impacts in any meaningful way.

I actually think, even though they don’t have as many readers and listeners as I’d like, that the broadsheets and radio programming do a reasonable job of holding the political system up to scrutiny. Whether or not its enough, London is less, and needs more.

Simon K,

Agreed, although it does act towards the imagined community that I mentioned earlier. I’d also say that the ES, London Lite and the defunct thelondonpaper were a bit too focused on going out in zone one.

xD.

It’s also very easy to overstate the extent to which the national media really scrutinise and hold Westminster to account.
.-= Tom Chance´s last blog: Who is really ripping us off? =-.

http://853blog.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/the-boy-boris-meets-the-man-bloomberg/

Trouble is, Labour doesn’t trust London – witness the early Livingstone ructions, Tube PPP, northern MPs moaning, etc – while the Tories simply don’t want any kind of city-wide government, preferring everything to be devolved down to the 32 squabbling, unrepresentative fiefdoms that are the London boroughs, which are too small to merit London-wide coverage, but which sometimes don’t have any proper local media scrutiny at all (like Greenwich).

And without a London mayor having *real* powers, there’s no real incentive for the media to scrutinise him/her properly.

Media distribution’s also a factor here – in TV terms, London’s broadcast footprint from Crystal Palace also takes in the northern Home Counties, so we’ve always had to share with areas like Luton. Whereas in the US, cable’s been the primary method of TV distribution (in New York, cable is licenced on a borough by borough basis) so broadcasters can have a tighter focus. So while a channel like NY1 would be welcome in London, it just isn’t going to happen when most people watch TV through aerials or dishes.