Does this look like an unloved blog? That’s because it is. Much as I enjoyed maintaining it once, it’s been bereft of purpose for many years.

I kept it hanging on for a few reasons. One is that while I have no pretension about the content, I do feel I should avoid creating even a little link rot. And, actually, there are some pages on here that remain surprisingly popular, especially the ones about the impact of Second World War bombing in the local area. Another is that I still hope to think of a good use for it one day, although now I am posting things elsewhere, that has become less likely. The biggest reason, though, was inertia, it’s just easier to pay the bills and do nothing.

But no more. I’m changing it to a static site for several reasons.

First, it was on WordPress. WordPress, once, was great, and probably still is for some users. But for sites like this, it’s a bloated mess and probably contributed to the friction that stopped me posting. And because there’s a small security risk, it’s become a pain constantly making sure everything is updated.

Second, the credit card on my hosting expired. Updating it forced me to think about what I was buying. I’ve been with the host (TSOHost) for a long time, and while I wasn’t paying attention, they became terrible. Over the past few months uptime has been an abysmal 95%-98% and dropped well below 90% in my last week with them. I wasn’t just paying for hosting I didn’t use, I was paying for really, really bad hosting I didn’t use.

Third, and final, it’s actually good to quit. Abandoned websites look awful, the original Space Jam website is the only exception to that rule. It might just be semantics, but by leaving it this way I feel it’s not abandoned but instead left with care.

So, that’s it. I really do hope I think of a new use for this site, not least because I’ve had it for over twenty years, but, for the time being, this is it.

Nearly three weeks after the local elections, Wandsworth formally became a Labour council on Wednesday.
One of the ‘perks’ of being an ex-councillor is invites to various civic events, including the annual meeting and mayor-making. I’ll confess, I haven’t been to one since I left the council. While worthy, they are not the most thrilling of events. But Wednesday felt like one I should attend. And one I should write a blog post about; as much as I tried, this was always a council blog, and it feels like Wednesday was a council ‘moment’.
Most people are familiar with fairly brutal Parliamentary elections, where the results take immediate effect and the Prime Minister faces eviction the next day. But councils work at a slower pace. Councillors do not assume their position until the Monday following their election, and changes in administration have to wait until the next council meeting.
So, while it was accurate, it was also slightly odd to hear Ravi Govindia introduced as the council leader, when he wasn’t even his group leader any more, while Simon Hogg had one last duty to perform as the leader of the opposition.
The meeting progressed much like any of the ones I had attended. Govindia, as council leader, did his job well, with the usual gravitas (save one barbed comment, apparently about Peter Carpenter, that felt beneath him) reflecting on the Mayor’s year. Hogg, responded in kind, perhaps with a little more levity and few hints of politics.
Then the Mayor responded, with the usual reflections on the duties of Mayor and what they had seen. In my first year on the council, the outgoing Mayor did this in the form of a poem they wrote, which stylistically sat between William McGonagall and Pam Ayres. I am grateful prose has been used ever since.
But it was for Tony Belton, now in his 52nd year on the council (and author of an excellent local newsletter) to really bring politics to the meeting. Returning to my first-ever council meeting, Belton was leader of the opposition, and his speech of thanks to the Mayor was undoubtedly political. Many felt it inappropriate. But, I was told, he felt that for much of the audience it might be the only five minutes of local politics they get in the year: it was the price of entry for the free food and drink they would enjoy afterwards.
And he was as right then as he was on Wednesday. Nominating Hogg as the new council leader, he discussed not just his personal merits, but the huge challenges he faces. With multiple crises, from climate to cost-of-living, or housing to inequality, it is little use pretending the Labour administration is inheriting a perfect borough or situation.
What was interesting, though, was the atmosphere afterwards. I won’t pretend it was like the 1997 election or the 2009 presidential inauguration were for many, but it had a tinge of those days. There were feelings of hope and optimism in the air.
Chatting with some council officers afterwards, it was obvious the new administration had come in with a clear programme and hitting the ground running. After 44 years of running Wandsworth with methods developed in the early 80s (much as some of us tried and failed to change that), things will be different.
The test is how those changes impact on the borough over the next four years. Will it be a fairer place, with better homes, and a focus on the people, not developers? I hope so.
Whoever won the election earlier this month would have faced a huge challenge, and would have deserved an evening of celebration before the hard work started. I was just glad I could watch from the sidelines, and be happy there has been a change of management.

So am I. I couldn’t help thinking that there must be some logic I’m missing. So pulled together more data. The table below uses data the excellent London Datastore to see if there was any discernible pattern.

Short story. I still haven’t found one.

If you want to look for yourself the table below is sortable (there’s a little black sort button on each column about half-way up on the right-hand side of each header). You can sort by multiple columns by holding ‘shift’ as you click. The size of the table does make it a bit unwieldy on phones, sorry.

I have tried to explore a few different explanations. The first is the good old Inner/Outer London split. You are a bit more likely to be in an open borough if you are inner London.

I looked at population density and school age children to see if this could offer any explanation. This might be the most logical reason for openings that looks odd, since the boroughs vary enormously in size, which might result in decisions that there odd at first sight, but made sense when looking at the numbers. Again, I couldn’t see any pattern here. I did explore by trying to look at the number of schools and how that might affect things. Again, this produced no obvious answers, although that might be skewed by things like cross-border and private schools.

I also wondered about educational need. Given the government’s repeated statements of the importance of keeping children in education it’s possible factors related to educational need might have relevance. I used English proficiency or children looked after as imperfect proxies for these but, once again, there was no obvious link.

The other possibility is that the government have been looking at trends, but given their inability to spot and act on nationally rising rates during the last national lockdown I suspect it’s unlikely they can do this on a borough level.

I have tried various combinations of factors and other data, but not managed to come up with anything. It is possible, of course, that the Department for Education is using a weighted combination that I’ve not come close to. I like to think that there is some logic to it. But unless and until the criteria used are published it’s very easy to conclude the reasoning behind the decisions is not entirely based in controlling the virus.

BoroughStatusInner/Outer LondonCase rateControlPrimary schoolsPopulation density (per hectare) 2017Proportion of population aged 0-15, 2015% of pupils whose first language is not English (2015)Rates of Children Looked After (2016)GLA Population Estimate 2017
BarnetClosedOuter730Con9144.921.146.035389,600
CroydonClosedOuter780Lab8644.72236.786386,500
EalingClosedOuter623Lab6863.321.443.646351,600
EnfieldClosedOuter949Lab6841.222.855.343333,000
BrentClosedOuter632Lab6076.820.937.645332,100
BromleyClosedOuter825Con7721.819.938.940327,900
RedbridgeClosedOuter1,027Lab5253.922.866.528304,200
HillingdonClosedOuter743Con6926.021.329.649301,000
GreenwichOpenOuter705Lab6359.221.944.178280,100
Waltham ForestClosedOuter857Lab5171.221.862.443276,200
HounslowClosedOuter708Lab5349.021.150.645274,200
HaveringClosedOuter1,095Con (council NOC)6122.619.338.942254,300
HarrowOpenOuter726Lab4250.020.557.632252,300
BexleyClosedOuter1,006Con5740.320.632.646244,300
Barking and DagenhamClosedOuter950Lab4457.927.241.769209,000
MertonClosedOuter776Lab4455.320.634.235208,100
SuttonClosedOuter747LD4046.220.734.350202,600
Richmond upon ThamesClosedOuter593LD4534.420.753.526197,300
Kingston upon ThamesOpenOuter595LD3647.119.639.330175,400
NewhamClosedInner894Lab6694.722.758.842342,900
LambethOpenInner696Lab60122.717.639.173328,900
WandsworthClosedInner685Con6193.717.850.841321,000
SouthwarkClosedInner673Lab74108.918.629.875314,300
Tower HamletsClosedInner917Lab70153.720.151.147304,000
LewishamOpenInner696Lab6386.320.640.969303,400
HaringeyOpenInner785Lab6493.92048.067278,000
HackneyOpenInner751Lab58144.020.744.253274,300
CamdenOpenInner481Lab42111.317.325.241242,500
WestminsterClosedInner476Con40112.715.952.639242,100
IslingtonOpenInner593Lab46155.615.957.688231,200
Hammersmith and FulhamClosedInner587Lab37113.017.448.958185,300
Kensington and ChelseaClosedInner476Con27131.116.445.837159,000
Data: London Datastore

Like many I was utterly bemused by some of the decisions made on which London boroughs would see their primary schools opening in the new year.

Clearly having children in school is the best outcome but this has to be balanced against the other public health considerations. A few weeks of education that can be caught up might not be worth the life-long cost of losing a loved one. While I fully expected all school’s to be closed I wasn’t at all ready for the irrationality of the decisions taken.

You would expect some pattern, but looking at data from the London Datastore and the list of schools that are open it looks to me much more like the correlation between opening and closing is much more down to political control.

How on earth can you suggest that Redbridge, with a case rate of 1,027 per 100,000 should have it’s school’s open, while Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, with a case rate of half that, should be closed? Or keeping Greenwich open when six of the ten boroughs with lower case rates are all closed.

There are 32 London boroughs, ten will be expected to open schools. Of those nine are Labour controlled and one Lib Dem. Not a single Conservative controlled borough is expected to open primary schools.

You would expect some incompetence from the government, but at first sight this looks much worse than than.

Update: Redbridge was omitted by the government in error (because this isn’t the sort of thing you would want to double-check before publishing). I have updated that in the list, but think the central point remains: why have places like Hackney and Haringey open when many others are closed.

Update 2: I returned to this with some additional data to try to understand the decisions. I was still none the wiser.

BoroughCase rateControlStatus
Havering1,095Con (council NOC)Closed
Redbridge1,027LabOpen Closed
Bexley1,006ConClosed
Barking and Dagenham950LabClosed
Enfield949LabClosed
Tower Hamlets917LabClosed
Newham894LabClosed
Waltham Forest857LabClosed
Bromley825ConClosed
Haringey785LabOpen
Croydon780LabClosed
Merton776LabClosed
Hackney751LabOpen
Sutton747Lib DemClosed
Hillingdon743ConClosed
Barnet730ConClosed
Harrow726LabOpen
Hounslow708LabClosed
Greenwich705LabOpen
Lambeth696LabOpen
Lewisham696LabOpen
Wandsworth685ConClosed
Southwark673LabClosed
Brent632LabClosed
Ealing623LabClosed
Kingston upon Thames595Lib DemOpen
Islington593LabOpen
Richmond upon Thames593Lib DemClosed
Hammersmith and Fulham587LabClosed
Camden481LabOpen
Kensington and Chelsea476ConClosed
Westminster476ConClosed
Primary school opening status by borough, case rate and control. Data: London Datastore

I find myself in the interesting position of both having and not having a confirmed case of Covid.

There was an outbreak at work meaning many, but not me, were either confirmed cases or required to self-isolate because of exposure. I swabbed as a precaution but given the lack of symptoms both in my team and me, and the timings since the outbreak I was fairly confident I’d escaped. And when there were delays at the lab on Friday I didn’t worry too much that I was leaving for the weekend without a result.

On Sunday I was tired, but that could be anything so thought nothing of it (some people might, totally hypothetically, have drunk too much gin the night before, although obviously I can’t imagine anyone doing that). This morning I dragged myself into work, still feeling incredibly tired but ascribing it to a bad night’s sleep or perhaps a common bug.

It was just after 9am I got my Schrödinger status. I was waving the person with my negative swab result away from my door as I was on the phone with Test and Trace discussing my positive result.

This isn’t to criticise either Test and Trace or the lab, mistakes are made. I’m assuming an input error and that I may never find out the definitive result. However, having come home to self-isolate I fell asleep for most of the day and awoke to find my sense of taste has gone and a feeling I’m never quite taking a full breath. I now have a pretty good idea what the result should have been.

Hopefully, these will be the end of the symptoms for me and I will mostly sleep through it. And hopefully, I will be lucky enough not to pass it on to my family. Fortunately, I can be confined to my own room and while the sense of lost liberty is acute, the fatigue means I am not actually motivated to go anywhere. In any case, unlike actual prisoners I’m allowed books and the internet.

The lesson, for me, is how easy it can be to catch this thing. I have been very cautious in my mask wearing and distancing. Possibly not cautious enough, it transpires, but certainly someone who tended to go beyond the current regulations.

And the other lesson is how much luck plays a part. Were it not for London’s move into tier 2 it’s possible I would have transmitted the virus to other family members at the weekend. And, from there…?

The odds are heavily stacked in my favour; I’m relatively young and relatively fit. It might be unpleasant but I’m likely to be over it soon enough. But other people are not in that position and I hate, absolutely detest, the idea I could now be a link in the chain of transmission to one of them.

I have always had an over-developed sense of responsibility, so even knowing I followed guidance means I cannot shake a sense of ill-defined guilt for an outcome that may never happen and I will never know either way.

Imagine if I’d been the anti-mask type where I would have been more certain of the outcome of my irresponsibility. I oddly never felt my liberty infringed wearing a mask but I’m sure that death pretty severely cramps your personal freedoms.

Be careful. Keep your distance. Wear a mask.

Given my obsession with the effect of organisational change on staff while writing my dissertation (admittedly I was mainly obsessed with self-determination theory) I’m amazed I did not come across this paper, Moving off the Map: How Knowledge of Organisations Empowers and Alienates1 instead seeing it highlighted on Twitter (a platform I have largely been eschewing but am occasionally dipping into, and thanks to Ben Taylor for tweeting it) far too late to be useful.

The original poster highlighted the Lovecraftian nature of organisations being uncovered with one quote from a research participant:

The CEO, after being walked through the map, sat down, put his head on the table, and said, “This is even more f**cked up than I imagined.” The CEO revealed that not only was the operation of his organisation out of his control but that his grasp on it was imaginary.

What, however, I found perhaps more concerning from the paper were the references to the belief in the immutability of organisations. Rather than seeing an organisation as a human-made construct it was a permanent and necessary entity that existed of itself:

they had objectified the organisation, talking about and treating organisational divisions, senior management, functional boundaries, job roles, and rules as “things” having a reality and existence of their own … the organisation increasingly becomes discussed, imagined, and treated as a naturalised, necessary structure. The idea that organisations are an ongoing human product was a provocative insight for these employees.

While there might be few things more depressing than the sentiment “it’s always been that way, it will never change” once the staff involved gained the insight that they were working in a human-made organisation that humans could change the effect was transformative:

Observing the organisation as continuously in the making gave employees an overwhelming sense of possibility, sparking ambition.

It resonated with one of the key findings from research, that autonomy was key to ensuring that staff had intrinsic motivation. In short when they had some control they were happier and got better results. While my research was in education, there are plenty of other examples that illustrate similar results, like Buurtzorg in healthcare in the Netherlands, or the generally positive impact of autonomous (pre-Covid) homeworking on productivity.

It’s not hard to draw parallels with the current situation. Would the response be better if we weren’t trying to deliver centralised public health models in the UK? Could locally directed responses be more agile, and increase our knowledge of what works faster, than cumbersome nationally directed response? Would our response to a tiny virus be better with we didn’t let ‘the economy’ — an imaginary construct with no independent existence — determine so much of that response?

Like my failed attempt at cycling I can’t help thinking that there was so much evidence that things could be different and better before some got to directly experience that difference during the pandemic. But we are just ignoring it all in a rush to return to the old ways of doing things and To keep city centre Prets open. I am less of a fan of Friedrich Milton than I once was but do wish the government, presumably bigger fans, would pay heed to one of his more useful quotes: “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”

We are trapped by the fallacy that what we built before was perfect and permanent when we should be picking up the ideas that have been lying around for years.

  1. Huising, R. 2019, “Moving off the Map: How Knowledge of Organizational Operations Empowers and Alienates”, Organization science (Providence, R.I.), vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 1054-1075.

I’ve had the mixed blessing of having to go into work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. I am obviously luckier than some to have a job but that offered me no protection against the envy I felt towards those working from home. As reduced timetables pushed my daily commute to nearly two-and-a-half hours combined with my pre-existing belief that I am more productive working from home I would trek into work, grumbling about work-life balance, as I passed other people taking advantage of their reclaimed travel travel time by going for a run or a stroll.

It was almost inevitable I would start cycling in. First of all with a borrowed Brompton which I’d use to miss a few stations at the beginning and end of the commute as I built up to using my hefty old bike that would creak and groan as I finessed my form and route to get the daily travel time well under two hours. And I enjoyed it.

Even during this summer’s heatwave I would cycle to and from work, taking it a little easier in the morning to try not to get too sweaty but making it a little more challenging on the way home. I would set little goals. Try to stay in higher gears a bit longer uphill, have secret races with cars that could clearly beat me on the straight but had to slow right down for traffic calming. I’d obsess over segments on Strava, usually wondering why it was so slow when I’d felt so quick. It all added to the enjoyment.

When it wasn’t a fair-weather thing, and I found myself opting for the bike knowing I’d have a headwind the whole way or that I’d get soaked in the rain, I felt I had become a proper cyclist. I was just enjoying it.

And then I stopped enjoying it. I don’t know exactly when. But at some stage I realised I’d not had a moment’s pleasure while cycling for a while. It had changed. No longer free and fun, it had become more stressful. The secret races with cars morphed into constant threat assessment. Do they know I’m here? Are they really going to try to turn left just in front of me? Did they really need to pass so aggressively? And the journey got slower as cars blocked cycle-lanes using them to peek out so they could turn, or drove close to the curb preventing cyclists getting to the head of the line at lights. While I optimistically assume that most of this was unintentional, rather than anti-cyclist, behaviour there isn’t much room for nuance when competing against one-and-a-half tonnes of car.

Looking for an upside I only had one incident of abuse, but that’s probably because that’s mainly reserved for women.

It was also quite notable that it felt distinctly worse cycling in Wandsworth (my commute would take in four boroughs). I don’t know if this was something to do with the nature of Wandsworth drivers or the transport policy in Wandsworth Council. My previous experience suggests the latter, although the recent entitled outcries by drivers aggrieved at cyclist-friendly policies might suggest the former has a part to play as well. It was both sad and sadly predictable that Wandsworth, in so many ways a like a discount version of the current government, would u-turn on its attempts at rebalancing streets in favour of pedestrians and cyclists.

I do, of course, get why people would want to drive. Public transport is filling up and might not feel safe. Time tables are still restricted. Buses a split between schools and everyone else. But the pressures on people to get back to work to save Pret A Manger are there. I get that there are a mix of motivations and that while there are undoubtedly some who fervently believe in their God-given right to drive an over-sized 4×4 on narrow urban stress most are probably just doing what they think is right. And perhaps they are, it’s quite hard to know what is right when the current rules are that you should work from home except that you should go to work but never be with more than six people unless there’s money involved because it’s a shop or a pub when you should wear a face covering apart from when you shouldn’t.

It is just another example of mismanagement, both nationally and locally, the pandemic and its consequences. It just feels a shame that having seen so many benefits of a city with fewer cars bring air and noise pollution we are so desperate lose them all. It does, I suppose, just add one more reason why I rather like home-working.

It is difficult, sometimes, to pinpoint the exact cause of the depressive pessimism that it the mood music of 2020. Is it Covid-19? Or is it the government’s strange inability to collect and publish statistics on it? Or their tendency to blame others for problems rather than solving them? Is it that nagging sense that while the way contracts are being handed out might not be corrupt technically, it’s hard to avoid the whiff of something a bit off?

Is it the incompetence of the handling of A-level results? Or is it the bizarre situation where we’ll get worked up about a handful of people braving the Channel in a dinghy because they, bizarrely, think that life will be better here than any other European country? Or maybe it’s the utterly surreal suggestion by Priti Patel that they are trying to escape French intolerance?

I have started wondering if, actually, it’s because of all the polarisation it’s the one between optimism and pessimism that is most profound. It’s hard to imagine how making ourselves economically weaker while stoking intolerance is a cause for optimism but, when packaged up with terms like ‘freedom’ and ‘control’, it seems that even a government that’s equal parts ideology and incompetence can provide enough of the population with hope that it can dominate a broken electoral system like first-past-the-post.

The difficulty is that there is a finite capacity for pessimism and outrage. So, taking the A-level results, while there is so much focus on young people missing out their Oxbridge places there is hardly any media attention given to those elsewhere on the spectrum such as those who will miss out on a university place entirely. Those for whom the downgrading doesn’t mean the difference between a prestigious university education and slightly less prestigious university education but, instead, is a set-back that will last, with a huge economic cost, for the rest of their lives.

Or, looking beyond this, year, the fact that the algorithms have simply highlighted (and perhaps amplified) an annual inequality that downgrades the potential of children from deprived areas every single year of their education. Surely that is where the outrage should be: by limiting their potential we hold back the whole country.

I’m obviously one of the 55% or so that finds little cause for optimism in the UK. Perhaps the biggest cause of pessimism is that I don’t really expect the government to do anything to appeal to me, why should it? There is no need for consensus building when it can achieve electoral success by just appealing to its base.

Once upon a time politics was about hope and optimism. Remember that Obama poster? Perhaps that is an analogy, something that started positively but ended in disappointment and court battles. But politics was about hope. From Attlee’s ‘Face the Future’ manifesto in 1945, Thatcher in 1979 exhorting people to vote for a ‘better life’, Blair in 1997 offering the country a ‘new life’. Even May’s shambolic 2017 election, despite the comically memorable ‘Strong and Stable’, was under a manifesto entitled ‘Forward, Together’. The consistent theme is that, as a country, things can be better. And now…?

If there could be a more visceral image of a government destroying hope than downgrading the exam results of thousands and thousands of young people, mostly from less affluent areas I do not want to know what it is. Can we really take four more years of it?

I am now enjoying a short break between jobs. Fortunately (and I know there are many in a less fortunate position) it is a planned break. Originally intended to include the Paris marathon and a lengthy break with the family my plans have changed to pretty much just staying at home. Even the things I can still do are affected. I no longer run in a straight line as I curve around people mutually maximising our social distance. My plans to make up for lost time as a school governor have transformed from lesson walks and observations to video meetings and a focus on health and safety and safeguarding.

If it was a badly timed break it is also a badly timed job start. I am, after a brief dalliance in the private sector, returning to the NHS. I cannot pretend it’s a noble move: it was not COVID-19 motivated and by the time I’ve got to grips with my role, new organisation and relationships we may well be past the pandemic peak but the virus will still make starting a job in any organisation an unusual experience.

But the pandemic does highlight why I am going back to the NHS. I was a late and accidental joiner but felt a strong sense of purpose from my very first day. Part of the reason I’m returning is because, even though remained in healthcare, I never felt that same sense of purpose after I left. The NHS is a huge and complex organisation and my contribution was, and will be, small. But the NHS is the sum of those small contributions and each one is worthwhile.

As I stood at my front door joining in the last night I was reminded of the Nigel Lawson comment that the NHS was the nearest thing this country has to a national religion. He, of course, made that comment with the sneering contempt you would expect him to have for a public sector institution. It was clear last night, though, the public attitude would be very different.

The NHS, despite its imperfections (often introduced, I would argue, in the attempts to ‘improve’ by introducing the market) and years of underfunding, remains one of this country’s greatest assets. I’m very much looking forward to having some time with my family but incredibly proud and excited and just a little impatient to be back in the NHS.