Hugging Ourselves to Death
The insidious moral narcissism of Mayor Khan's London.
At ten, I was subjected to a grand social experiment: a daily sermon in self-love.
In school, our teachers would gather us impressionable little sprogs into a circle. One by one, we’d announce what we loved most about ourselves and what we adored most about our classmates. This daily bout of emotional gentrification—aided and abetted by psychologists, experts, and parents—infused us with a magical mithridate called self-esteem.
The late 1990s was a peculiar time. One could not move for New Age cults and utopian notions of human progress. Not only had we stopped the Russians, but we’d ended history itself. Self-esteem was the panacea: the cure for alcoholism, heroin addiction, violence, teen pregnancy—even rudeness.
Ironically, most of my class remained impervious to this civilised witchcraft. One girl fell pregnant at thirteen. Several others addicted themselves to cocaine, heroin, and crack. One of my mates, bless his soul, overdosed on skag minutes into his 21st birthday. Another old classmate spends more time in jail for petty thievery than “on the out,” as he calls it. A majority, give or take, live lives of nameless horrors—where hopes and dreams run parallel to attainment, never quite touching.
Saunter around Sadiq Khan’s London and you’re soon engulfed in the same sugary affirmations we kids were subjected to. At Holborn station, signs harangue you to Be Kind. Each day, a Transport for London worker with an abundance of time stretches a Sharpie across the Service Announcements whiteboard. Today’s gem featured Garfield, a cartoon cat, imploring grown adults to Believe in Yourself. Naturally, the “be” and “you” are emboldened—lest one miss the Banksy-tier cod philosophy.
Shuffle a few metres amidst the throngs of scrollers. Window-sized posters, decked in syrupy Sixties psychedelic decal, assure you that you’re welcome. Consider the average Londoner: 37 years old, male, probably a university graduate, tax-paying, job-holding, survivor of pregnancy scares, ecstasy trips, and neurotic paramours. He might’ve fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. He’s probably got children of his own. Now consider the next bit of wisdom: You are Loved.
Spend a few moments in London, and you’d assume the average citizen is a catatonic twelve-year-old private school girl named Cressida—so cosseted that any intrusive reality might induce a nervous breakdown.
The Tannoy bleats: “Please hold the handrail. Please hold the handrail. Please hold the handrail.”
And if that stream of obvious advice fails to inspire, an achingly Mumsnet voice commands: “Stand on the right. Walk on the left. Hold on to the handrail. And—please—do not rush.”
Wherever one goes, one cannot forget for a moment that Mayor Khan runs this sprawling nursery called London. ‘Narcissist’—to borrow Orwell’s take on ‘fascist’—has mutated into a catch-all slur for “someone I dislike.” That said, narcissist sticks to Khan like napalm to a Viet Cong footsoldier.
Mayor Khan is our Devouring Mother: part Jungian archetype, part witch doctor. The Devouring Mother smothers rather than nurtures.
As with the Soviet Union, societies built upon bullshit and chicanery elevate the worst specimens to dizzying heights. Since ascending his imaginary throne in 2016, Mayor Khan’s ‘Be Kind’ London has boiled over. Knife crime—a decidedly unkind pursuit—has surged. Fatal stabbings are up. Sexual assaults at knifepoint have climbed by two-thirds. Gun crime has ballooned.
Whilst Londoners plead for safer streets, for governance befitting what was once the world’s greatest metropolis, Khan swans about the capital like a feudal king divvying up the village beauties. Bread-and-butter issues—crime, housing, trains and buses—fail to excite our class of pseudo-celebrities. Having neither the looks for showbusiness nor the talents for much else, they pivot to politics, carefully greasing whoever needs greasing along the way. And we, reader, foot the bill for this desperate little rebellion against biology.
We are the captive audience—force-fed until our livers engorge and burst—for the pleasure of a political celebrity class of mediocrities and dullards.
Consider Khan’s pride and joy: the ‘ultra-low emissions zone’—ULEZ. For the unacquainted, this scheme chivvies £12.50 daily from the working and lower-middle classes who dare drive an offending vehicle into London. Khan pitches the hated scheme as he pitches every vapour streaming from his lips: he’s saving the little people from themselves, and the planet too.
Climate change—the secular sacrament of the Lanyard Class—is just one altar upon which they sacrifice the working poor, £12.50 at a time.
Ride the Central Line. Gasp at the signs reminding you that “sexual assault is a crime.” Study the primitive graffiti slathered top to bottom. It’ll be worse next week. And worse the week after.
There’s little celebrity in mopping graffiti, cutting rents, mending potholes, or locking up violent, swaggering criminals. And so, we Londoners watch as fare-dodgers vault the barriers, workless newcomers harass women, and shoplifting gangs waltz out with armfuls of loot. Meanwhile, Mayor Khan offers lullabies.
Just keep your head down and read the signs—mirrors for Khan’s runaway self-regard. One in particular sums it all up:
“Intrusive staring of a sexual nature is sexual harassment and is not tolerated.”
I suspect Mayor Khan has never encountered the approving gaze of the opposite sex—but no matter. With just a few more signs, I’m sure we can cold-press human nature into something of which Paddington Bear would approve.
Christopher Lasch once wrote that the narcissist “sees the world as a mirror—a reflection of his fears and desires.”
Welcome to Khan’s London. It is not a city. It is a mirror.
Well written and I like the nanny state refrain “stand to the right” as a way to show the uselessness of pretending everything is still functional. If anyone described what the west is currently doing to itself, but set the descriptions in some hittite city or a celtic hillfort it would seem obvious how they had foolishly brought about their own demise. Why is so much of the populace so blind to what is happening to us?!
Excellent as ever. I went on a school trip to London in the 80s when I was 15. It was safe enough for us to be given 2 hours on our own to explore Oxford Street. I headed straight to Our Price record store and Virgin Records. I couldn't believe a can of coke cost a pound! A whole pound! (Up here it was still 35p....). We'd love to take our lads one day, to see the galleries, museums. But not right now. Not Khan's London. It's a cesspit of crime, poverty and no way are we going anywhere near until someone gets rid of that narcissistic dwarf and cleans up our once magnificent Capital.
Boris Johnson used to ride round London on his bike. Ken Livingston rode the Tube. Khan has a bullet proof chauffeur driven diesel range rover that cost londoners 400 grand. He's a greedy, grasping little shit and the sooner he's gone the better.