Boris - keep on meddling in a free world!

Boris Johnson's predecessor Red Ken was a socialist, who traditionally don't understand free market economics and imagine that everything would be much better of controlled from the centre.

Take for example housing. Red Ken introduced the idea that a certain percentage of all new developments over a certain size (20 flats or more) had to be sold at cost to a Housing Association. The larger developers gritted their teeth and got on with it. But how did the smaller developers respond? Either keep the number of units below 20 by leaving part of the site undeveloped, or build 18 large flats rather than 24 smaller ones*. Result? Fewer small flats coming on to the market for sale, so causing prices in London to rise even faster than in England & Wales as a whole.

Anyway, I digress. You might think that Boris, being a Tory and having studied at Oxford, would be a tad more free market. Nothing of the sort. A cornerstone of his manifesto was opposing expansion at Heathrow or London City Airport** and he mumbled support for building more 'affordable' (for which read 'social') housing. Bad enough you think, maybe he won't be quite so awful once he gets in...

Nope.

1. He slapped a ban on alcohol on the Tube (which wasn't in his manifesto AFAIAA and nobody was calling for anyway) within weeks.

2. He now 'plans space for small retailers'. Er, no he doesn't, what he's doing is overlooking the fact that there will always be large and small shops anyway, and inventing all manner of new constraints for property developers at a time when the commercial property market is more or less dead on its feet.

The article quotes a chap who knows the right questions at least:

But Stephen Robertson, director-general of the BRC, highlighted the variety of uncertainties around the scheme, which Mr Johnson said would be set out in detail in the next eight months. "How do you define small independent retailers?" asked Mr Robertson. "Who meets the cost of subsidised rents? Will larger retailers on the site have to pay more, adding to their costs, driving up other rents in the area and ultimately pushing up prices for customers? "What will be the competitive impact on existing retailers nearby who are not receiving rent subsidies?"

* I have anecdotal evidence for both these effects, it is not just theory.

** He has now done a U-turn on the latter and called for a 50% increase in the number of flights - at a time when airlines are cutting back flights because of the high oil.