Gorgeous George
Bradford is going to the polls again in just under a month, so soon after giving the national media a field day in Bradford West; this time it is to decide whether or not the City needs a Mayor.
Hot on the heels of Gorgeous George shamelessly using the City’s woes to claim a ticket back to the Westminster spotlight, we now have to elect somebody whose remit will be little understood by most. Not that there is much hope for a serious grasp of the real issues, given Galloway’s crushing victory on a singular manifesto in what the Sunday Times’ correspondent, Rod Liddle, named as West Karachi.
You may well find Liddle’s description offensive, some will find it amusing; what it does is further emphasise just what an easy target Bradford is for the media as recently demonstrated by Channel 4 with the pathetic Make Bradford British. Interviewed on Sky TV following Galloway’s odious victory parade, the Labour peer Lord Adonis attempted to justify the new mayoral role proposed for twelve cities – Leicester and Liverpool have already voted in favour – arguing the case for Bradford rightly claiming that the city had “not been well led over the last thirty years”, that there was “no sense of leadership” and that “large parts of the city looked like a bombsite”; hard to argue with any of those points.
A Ghost Town
Crucially – and I agree wholeheartedly – he highlighted the City’s high levels of unemployment and poverty allied to poor standards of educational achievement as major issues presenting a considerable challenge to the new Mayor. Wait a minute though, I thought we had a Council Leader and a Chief Executive, on a not inconsiderable salary in excess of £200k; so what will the new Mayor change other than add to the burden on the public purse?
Lord Adonis is right to highlight the city centre debacle as evidenced by the Westfield bombsite but as any Bradfordian will tell you this is simply the culmination of decades of inept leadership from City Hall by bungling local politicians aided and abetted by a small army of consultants, planners and “visionaries”. With over 3,000 buildings in the centre unoccupied it has become a ghost town and the Council has proved to be delusional, disingenuous and, frankly, out of its depth; I am not sure they could run a market stall let alone a retail mall. Their chances of negotiating a good deal for the city with an international giant such as Westfield are abysmal; it is men against boys.
For decades successive councils have made ridiculous commitments to the electorate over several far fetched schemes, none of which has ever come to fruition. These have included numerous farcical promises to develop Odsal stadium as the “Wembley of the North”; then there was a scaled downSportsVillageon the same site. We had a ridiculously futuristic remodelling of the centre enthusiastically proposed by architect, Will Alsop, presumably having modelled it on some childhood fantasy. There was the “West End” retail development centred on the stricken Odeon building, still with no decision on its future after 12 years of being left to the elements. And, of course, the coup de grace of cock ups we now have the bombsite.
When We Were Kings
Of course, as a Bradfordian, I am very aware of the past great history of my city but much of this was over a century ago and has little resonance with the issues facing the city today which shame many of us. A number of notable firsts are attributed to Bradford; the first Pullman train service in 1874; the first to build a local electric generating station in 1889; the first school bath in 1899; the first school meals in 1907 and the first trolley buses in 1911. As defenders will point out as well the city had more millionaires in the country at one point than anywhere else; sadly this was around the time of the First World War.
Speak The Unspeakable?
If you want to seriously debate Bradford’s fall from grace you cannot skirt around the subject of immigration as generations of hopelessly politically correct local and national politicians have done so, in fear of being labelled racist. This is not to suggest that Bradford’s problems are wholly the result of immigration because the city’s growth was founded on immigrants. These included the German wool merchants – hence the beautiful heritage of Little Germany – Italians, Ukrainians, Poles, Irish and Jews; Bradfordhas been a multi-cultural city longer than most and long before the concept was viewed as a trendy social experiment.
The present day problems though are inextricably linked to unchecked post-war immigration, when immigrants, largely from poor, rural areas of Pakistan, came to do low-skilled jobs largely in the textile mills. Subsequent generations have seen most of these jobs disappear, some have worked hard to find a better life, but many also have been trapped in poverty, unable to contribute to the local economy and hampered by a lack of education, training and a basic ability to speak the native tongue. Arguably they are little better off here than in their native land.
Realities of Life
The challenges this stores up for the future are immense. The local newspaper published a survey recently that found that in primary schools alone an incredible 140 different languages are spoken; how much of a challenge is that to climb those education league tables? Much has been made in the media of the poverty evidenced by areas within the Bradford West constituency but, let’s be frank, if you emigrate to a country unable to even speak the language and without a skill to offer what chances of prosperity do you really have? Am I likely to get a swish apartment in Munich if I land there tomorrow without skills, a grasp of the language or the culture?
The Government talks of shaping a future immigration policy around attracting skilled workers; this, by its very admission, explicitly sums up Bradford’s problems. Immigration has been largely unskilled and poorly educated, so the resulting divisions within the city should not be a surprise. As the inner city has decayed in recent decades, differentials in property values alone have created divisions; policy makers remain ignorant of this reality preferring to keep banging on about how important multi-culturalism is; to most ordinary people it is well down the list, to those that can it is about trying to move out as far as possible.
There is also an almost suppressed debate around third generation Asians, some of whom have sought less lawful forms of earning a living, although this is not an exclusively Asian problem. Were the jobs that their grandfathers and fathers came to do still available, it is unlikely a hard core would be prepared to do these. Faced with limited opportunities some find the potential riches from a life of crime hard to avoid and the Elders seem to have a waning influence on the young: as evidenced with Galloway’s victory against the advice of the Elders. Of course this gets little sensible commentary crushed by flabby political correctness.
In 1995 Bill Bryson wrote in his novel, Notes from aSmallIsland: “Bradford’s role in life is to make every place else in the world look better in comparison, and it does this very well.” Sadly, the City is still doing this and I cannot see any new Mayor riding into town to sort this mess out.
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