London's Olympic Legacy

The Inside Track

Gillian Evans

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137290731
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia urbana

This book provides a unique perspective on the behind the scenes planning of London's Olympic legacy. The author had unprecedented access to the legacy organisations, institutions, and individuals involved with the 2012 Games. This has allowed her, in a highly accessible and engaging style, to capture a sense of the unfolding drama as attempts were made in London to harness the juggernaut of Olympic development, and its commercial imperative, to the broader cause of meaningful post-industrial regeneration in East London.

The book argues that London will become the test-case city against which the legacies of all future Olympic Games, and other sporting mega-events, will be judged. The author provides the first in-depth case study of a mega-event legacy planning operation, and sets out a constructive conclusion, which details the lessons to be learnt from London's experience.

Exploring the relationship between mega event planning, and post-industrial urban regeneration, this book will appeal to scholars across Sociology, Sport and Olympic studies, Anthropology, Urban Studies and Geography as well as policymakers and practitioners in urban and sport planning.

Part I
The Old World

© The Author(s) 2016

Gillian EvansLondon's Olympic Legacy10.1057/978-1-137-29073-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Enter the Labyrinth

Gillian Evans¹

(1)

Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

End Abstract

When London won the right to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games we promised to create a sustainable legacy for London and the UK. We are committed to ensuring that this legacy—the imprint that the 2012 Games make on the UK—begins to take shape now and lasts until well after 2012.

Staging the Games has meant different things for different host cities—for Barcelona the driving force was regeneration, for Sydney it was about putting itself on the map as a global destination, for Athens it was about redefining itself as a modern European city.

Our ambition for 2012 is different again. We will not only regenerate one of the most deprived areas in the UK but we will also seek to spread the magic of 2012 outside the Olympic Park so that all communities in the UK feel the benefits of hosting the London Games. If everyone joins in and takes part, we can make the following happen:

1. Make the UK a world-leading sporting nation

2. Transform the heart of East London

3. Inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural, and physical activity

4. Make the Olympic Park a blueprint for sustainable living

5. Demonstrate the UK is a creative, inclusive, and welcoming place to live in, visit, and for business

These are ambitious aims. Government alone cannot deliver them… This document is therefore a call to action—we have five years to make these commitments a reality, but only your imagination, commitment, and involvement can make it happen.

Tessa Jowell, Olympics Minister, June 2007

Our Promise for 2012

For the Blairites, Canary Wharf was the high temple of aspiration where you could arrive with nothing, and leave with everything. The trick for them was to open up the channels that could allow that to happen for anyone who aspired. Going there and praising it was to purge yourself of Old Labour: redemption.

David Ryner,

Assistant to the Special Adviser of Tessa Jowell, Olympics Minister

November 2008

Canary Wharf, 21st floor: the Barclays Building. Double-sided banks of computer workstations form the digital production lines of the tripartite London 2012 Olympic planning operation. Here are LOCOG,¹ ODA,² and the Legacy Directorate of the Mayor of London’s Development Agency (LDA).

One hundred metres below in the vast, light-filled marble foyer of the Barclays headquarters, hip-hugging pencil skirts and stiletto heels clamour for attention as women-who-mean-business cut a swathe through a stream of men in sharp suits. Among people who still believe they are going up in the world, I wonder what I might wear to work. It is the autumn of 2008, and, in bad taste, I long to embody what seems most exotic—the swagger of women-in-banking-in-four-inch-heels, whilst only a few skyscrapers away Lehman Brothers comes tumbling down.

Here, in the Legacy Directorate, the women are smart-casual, prepared to be colourful; they dress down The Wharf’s more formal mode of attire, and I follow suit. These are public sector professionals, who break with bureaucracy in the powerhouse of private enterprise and hope for urban development as usual even though a financial crisis is a shock wave in their world. At first, this seems like a strange marriage: Olympic planning wedded to high finance at Canary Wharf, but the Games cost £2 billion to stage and, of course, Barclays is in bed with sport.

Surprisingly softly spoken, of gentle demeanour, and somewhat embarrassed about the heights from which he surveys his domain, which lies to the east, as far as the eye can see—from the towering offices at Canary Wharf to the valley of the River Lea—almost at the limit of London, Tom Russell, Group Director of the Legacy Directorate, worries, at our first meeting, that the perspective, from on high, is somewhat ‘colonial’. He knows full well that the local population is not enamoured of Canary Wharf, and he is anxious to bring the legacy operation down to earth, to take it to the East End where he feels it belongs. Tom emphasises that unless the people who are to be affected by it feel a sense of ‘ownership’, the project of urban regeneration will fail.

Equally as surprised as I am by the encounter between us, Tom gracefully plays the game of pretending that a range of strategic manoeuvres, and contingent circumstances, do not underlie the possibility of our meeting. My requests for research access have already, twice, been rejected lower down the managerial hierarchy, but I have been stubborn, and refused to take no for an answer. Against all the odds, and third time lucky, here I am: foot in the door, trying to reassure Tom that I am a manageable risk. Neither of us declares it, but each knows full well that London 2012, and its legacy, are highly politically sensitive projects. The Games are a huge gamble, and the legacy stakes are high; billions of pounds of public money are in the combined pot, and reputations of senior political figures hang in the balance. After a few weeks of sporting spectacle, no matter how successful, London simply cannot afford to be left with a mountain of debt, a white elephant for a stadium, and a set of sporting ruins to add to its urban landscape.

Tom is polite. He does not mention that were it not for the whisper of support for my research from the office of Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Olympics, this meeting would not be taking place. Tom spares me from having to explain the connection, but David Ryner, an assistant to the Olympic Minister’s Special Adviser (SPAD), is a fan of my work, and a ‘friend in high places’. Our conversations about his lifelong interest in politics and my research about working-class London have left a caffeine trail through the parks, and gallery cafes of central London, and grown a friendship out of the sociological imagination.

Introducing me to the concept of ‘legacy’ over a cappuccino at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), David tests my concentration with labyrinthine drawings of connections between vested interests and describes a complex world condensed in a surplus of acronyms. He refers to the Olympic legacy as ‘the holy grail of Olympic politics’, something elusive, and never before seen; I am confused, but intrigued, and David is amused. He wonders what sense an anthropologist might make of it all.

Whitehall and Westminster

Inspired, but always exhausted, David complains of late nights and ridiculously early mornings. These are dedicated to digesting books, reports, and other documents so that, in turn, more documents can be produced in a never-ending supply of up-to-the-minute ministerial briefings. Concisely expressing the who-is-who and what-is-what in a constantly changing and potentially hazardous political terrain, the briefing papers are part of the stuff of government, a kind of sculpting material, if you like, which creates structure, form, and a degree of stability in an unpredictable and ruthlessly competitive environment. The papers prepare Tessa, or TJ, as she is affectionately described by those closest to her, to tackle forthcoming speaking engagements, committee meetings, and appointments, and to stand a chance, therefore, of sustaining her position in the Cabinet at Whitehall where she is currently not a voting member and only ‘attending’ when her responsibility is on the agenda.

David explains that since 2007, when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Labour leader and Prime Minister, Tessa has already been demoted twice. This is no surprise, since Tessa is renowned for having been an ultra-Blairite, but with Gordon Brown now at the head of the Cabinet table at Whitehall, and control over the Olympic budget spread across government departments (and ring-fenced), it is going to be a long climb back for Tessa. Because of this, her political instinct and charismatic competence must appear effortless; it is vital that Tessa is seen to act with certainty, and to speak with confidence and diplomacy about the issues she is accountable for.

Hoping for constancy, if not political advancement, Tessa relies on her SPAD, and the small team of civil servants in her private office, to help her to adapt to the constant change of events in and outside of Whitehall, and Westminster, and to maintain equilibrium in her immediate environment. Up to speed, one step ahead, on top of the game, Tessa’s team must keep her ‘on message’, supplied with the right ‘lines’ at the right times, speaking the right words to the right people. This is either to court media attention, so that Tessa can accrue status, and prestige unto herself, or to keep the press and its constant critical scrutiny at bay. And, the Diary Keeper must do her duty: David describes her as the sentinel who guards Tessa’s power and influence; she juggles appointments, keeps time-wasters at bay, and ranks those who would be in conversation with Tessa.

Giving me a taste of what it is at Whitehall to thrive on behind-the-scenes machinations and ruthless competition not just with rival political parties, but also with politician-colleagues and other government departments, such as the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), led by fellow ‘Blair-Babe’, Hazel Blears, David intimates at the intrigue through which any minister’s closest team maintains a delicate balancing act; like medieval courtiers (or, in their own minds, the career operatives akin to US political drama, West Wing), SPADs must toe the party line, be seen to be collectively, even fiercely, loyal—in this case to the Labour Party, and within it, to some extent, to its deposed Blairite faction—and, at the same time, they must advance the minister’s individual political career, supporting Tessa in her efforts to cultivate relations with key allies. Her fortunes are those of her team too, which, David explains wearily, keeps those closest to Tessa labouring tirelessly, like devoted workers, for a queen bee.

David describes how dependent Tessa is on being fed the right information at the right time. She, like all ministers, worries about not being able to keep her own finger on the pulse and relies completely on a trusted team to keep her in the know about ‘what is happening now’ and to maintain a meaningful boundary between herself and clusters of non-partisan civil servants lower down the hierarchy who comprise, for example, the Government Olympic Executive (GOE) housed at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) where Tessa was once Secretary of State. All information that is fed up the chain of command is filtered, and the dreadful, somewhat paranoid job of double-checking everything wears David and the SPAD down. Nevertheless, they are relentless in their determination to decipher what Tessa needs to be informed about. At any moment her political reputation could be jeopardised, which means no stone can be left unturned. Whatever Tessa decides to do or say reflects not just on the reputation of the projects she is responsible for overseeing, but also on the collective government of the UK, which makes for a tense, but thrilling atmosphere, a heady mix of power and political passion. And still, David stresses, Tessa is not satisfied: like all ministers (and perhaps members of inner courts everywhere), she dreams of being more in touch with the reality that exists beyond Whitehall and Westminster, external to the busily prepared briefing papers that interpret the ‘outside world’ for her.

Distant from, but desperate to gauge the overall public mood, ministers yearn to know more about how their policies are received and what their standing is, as personalities, in a media-driven world. Externally, popularity equates with political influence—adding up to more votes for the party and the chance of staying in power, or gaining national decision-making powers—and internally, it leads to a greater likelihood of personal promotion and the perpetual promise of a place as a voting member at the Cabinet table. David explains how the quest for popularity and political relevance leads to a determination in Tessa to find ways to gauge the ongoing reaction of East Enders to the London 2012 project. She is adamant that this development should not, like Canary Wharf, become ‘an oasis of wealth in a sea of deprivation’; this has to be, Tessa insists, a project that is ‘being done with and not to’ the people of the East End of London. The problem, though, which David and I are all too aware of, is the long history, in the UK, of less-than-successful attempts to transform the fate of post-industrial urban neighbourhoods suffering from chronic decline. And, worse than this, there is the lesson to be learned from development projects the world over, which, no matter how well meaning, most often fail miserably to achieve their goal of improving the lives of people living in relative poverty, whilst succeeding, nevertheless, to secure the middle-class mortgages of those who manage the proliferating structures of bureaucracy that projects like these tend to reliably produce.

The Holy Grail of Olympic Politics

The more David helps me to understand about how things work inside the world of central government, and how precarious the task is of trying to build political influence, the more I come to appreciate how putting her name to the London Olympics, and their legacy, has been a huge political gamble for Tessa. Hence the metaphor of ‘holy grail’—heroically, Tessa has committed herself to a seemingly impossible quest and started down a treacherous path, littered with pitfalls. Needing to resurrect her political fortunes, she had no choice but to strike out boldly, hoping to inspire confidence in her mission and win allies to her cause. The trouble, however, is that everyone in Whitehall knows the uncomfortable truth, which is not just that the unthinkable has happened—the failure of the financial markets, and everything that implies in terms of the withdrawal of private investment, and the beginning of an era of extreme caution about credit—but also that the recent sporting and cultural history, in London, of Labour’s support for recent mega projects tells a tale of doom and disaster that cost Tessa’s predecessor his career. The Games too have a problem-prone backstory, and every post-Games analysis of Olympic legacy tells a tale discouraging enough to dampen the enthusiasm of even the most ardent sporting fanatics.

Tessa’s rhetoric about the Olympic legacy raises a rallying cry to London, and the nation, to which cynics in the press are expected to respond raucously, as if politics were no more than a Punch and Judy show, but from inside Whitehall itself, it is obvious too that the odds are stacked against Tessa. It is going to be an uphill struggle for her to convince other ministers, politicians, and even her own civil servants, never mind the British public, that an Olympic legacy is a realisable ambition. One senior civil servant spells it out for David, emphasising that ‘the overwhelming majority of civil servants live in the suburbs, are conservative with a small c and would not be seen dead in East London’. It is hard to imagine them being optimistic about, or fully ‘on board’ with the legacy direction of travel Tessa has so wholeheartedly committed herself to.

Although Tessa is in denial about the growing list of reasons not to feel optimistic about Olympic legacy, David admires her for her idealistic insistence that London 2012 must not be just another story about the futility of top-down government intervention. Not just because her own popularity depends on their success, but because Tessa believes in what ought to be the transformational potential of The Games, she desperately wants people living local to the emerging Olympic Park, in East London, to be amenable to the Olympics, and for the event to deliver a long-term positive difference. This is true even though all the evidence about the gains from previous Games suggests that the Olympics makes a minimal social or economic difference to the populations living locally to their staging and indeed is often more likely to be destructive, for example, in terms of the disruption caused by population displacement.

Undeterred, Tessa hopes against hope that a successful Olympic Games and a meaningful legacy might provide part of the solution not just to the seemingly intractable problems of poverty in East London, but also to the problems of the Labour Party, as it begins to work out what it might mean to stay in power. Post-financial crisis, David and I discuss how after more than a decade in government, and just over a year into Gordon Brown’s leadership, the question that currently vexes the Labour Party, at the end of 2008, as it begins to turn its attention to the next General Election, is whether or not Gordon Brown’s bailout of the banking system can be turned from a liability into political capital for the party.

Here is a Labour government working out how to hold the centre ground and to go on courting the middle-class without further alienating its traditional working-class voters. Despite its best efforts at fiscal fixing, the financial crisis has thrown into stark relief the folly of New Labour’s refusal to turn back the tide of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative legacy of an abandoned industrial and manufacturing economy, deregulation of the financial markets (a sector of the economy that is now going into global recession, causing private investors to flee from high-risk public projects, like the Olympic Games), and a wholesale switch to the knowledge and service economy. This has left many of those urban, predominantly working-class populations for whom industry, and manufacture, was once life’s blood, floundering and struggling to adapt to a future whose promise is yet to be realised. Feeling abandoned, or taken for granted by New Labour, these are the people whose problems now define the post-industrial condition of Britain and whose great lament about Labour explains the phenomenal rise, in this first decade of the twenty-first century, of the far-right British National Party (BNP). Such are the economic and political challenges of the current moment whose contours define the cultural landscape and provide a less-than-beautiful backdrop against which will unfold the glittering spectacle of London’s Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to regain power, the Conservatives, in the person of David Cameron, are ramping up the rhetoric. Keen to stake their claim to the centre ground, they are presenting themselves as ‘One Nation’ Tories—’Caring Conservatives’—concerned not just about preserving the profits of big business, and shoring up the privileged position of the establishment and the country’s elites, but also about developing policy solutions for the problems of poverty and disadvantage.

Because the civil servants are impartial, they are, David explains, largely indifferent about the prospect of a change of government. It matters to them only insofar as it would be harder for them to serve a Conservative minister who might be leading on a downgraded Olympic agenda. For the SPADs, in contrast, the very thought of conceding power to the Conservatives fills them with dread. David describes how it makes them determined to find even more time and energy in the effort to rally to the cause. And so, at the end of 2008, with a brand-new Conservative mayor already ascendant, this year, over Britain’s capital city, the drama of London’s Olympic legacy unfolds on a stage set by an eternal war between mortal enemies. If Labour loses a General Election before 2012, it hands over to its rivals, like booty to pirates, all the potential prestige to be gained from groundbreaking projects, like the Olympics, initiated under a Labour watch.

London Government

The first sign of a change in the political tide, and the reason for new confidence in the Conservative Party nationally, has been the election of Boris Johnson as the Mayor of London this year. David stresses the importance of the political articulation between central and regional governments, in this case London government, which has become more complicated this year because the Olympics is a London project, but it has central government backing and oversight. This means that with Labour in power nationally, and a Conservative politician leading over London, the tussle is likely to intensify over which party, and which leading personality, will be able to lay claim, should things go well, to the political prize of the Games, their London legacy, and after that, to London itself.

As early as 2002, Ken Livingstone, London’s first, and controversial, elected mayor had thrown his weight behind the idea for an Olympic Games in East London. He was backed from the beginning by his right-hand man, Neale Coleman, who David ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. The Old World
• 2. The New World
• Backmatter