London does not feel English, as JD Vance says. It’s always been more than that.
If you were born, raised and went to school in Ohio, London might be scary to you. The city that was founded two thousand years ago by a couple of meddlesome Italians is much smaller, but has about the same number of inhabitants. It has a lot more to offer.
Columbus, the capital of Ohio, is named after one of the boldest men in history, but the city does not really show how open-minded and ambitious Columbus was.
I worked as a reporter and once visited the state to make a TV programme about fast food. London, like the rest of the world, had good people living good lives, but most neighbourhoods and many streets give more away than this so-called city.
Of course, London had a head start and many other great advantages. Here, all the clocks in the world go by time. Because we are here, we can trade in most time zones. English is the main language in business, politics (sorry, Macron) and pop culture. The rest of the world looks up to our restaurants, shops, theatres, museums, galleries and universities. And even after Brexit, our financial industry is still the best. When he was mayor, a big blonde winner of the City used to say: “We sell cakes to France, bicycles to China and tea to China.”
Some of the most energetic and committed people in the world are drawn to London, which is key to its success and continued dominance. You are dealing with the best people, whether you are selling shares, serving drinks, operating on people or playing sport. Life is tough there, but this Darwinian force has kept the city at the top for a very long time. Pulling up the “drawbridge” to freeze the city in whatever time period JD Vance has in mind would have ruined that. It’s never good for the gene pool to breed with the same things.
I did not grow up in London like most people do today. For me it was just a 160 mile drive down the M4, but London has a great track record of helping people to fit into society and move up, no matter where you start. My husband’s father moved here from Mumbai and made the city his home. He now has a set of grandchildren whose main roots and reference points are not in South India.
We are very pleased that our mayor is the son of a Pakistani bus driver.
And then there are the flag-waving stars of the second generation. Mo Farah was brought here from Somaliland by people smugglers. He later became one of the best runners of all time. Johnny Boufarhat was born in Sydney to a Lebanese father and an Armenian mother who was born in Syria. He decided to study in the UK and later founded a £5bn company here. Adejoké Bakare came to us from Nigeria, changed her major from microbiology to cookery and quickly gained a Michelin star for her restaurant in Fitzrovia. Evelyn Suna worked as a nurse in Sierra Leone before marrying J.P. Cleverly. She raised her son James to become Secretary of State. I hope you understand what I mean.
There are many more, but I picked these because I think what JD Vance is saying has less to do with how London looks and more to do with how it “feels” It has a lot to do with skin colour when he says someone looks “English” When I saw him with Donald Trump the other day, they were both wearing blue suits, white shirts and red ties that matched. I wondered how a great country built by immigrants could have such a limited choice. It’s almost funny to listen to him preach about what true diversity means, considering how bland and boring many Midwestern cities are, like Columbus, and how they’ve sent out bland and boring fast food chains to colonise the world.