AN OXFORD EDUCATION

I have, God help me, been dealing with Network Rail and the city and county councils about the revamp of Oxford station and - of course!- the 4 day/4 year closure of Botley Road, for the past 8 years.  It was in August 2017 that we in Abbey Road  protested against the original plan, which proposed a monstrous three-story shopping center on top of the station (if it had gone ahead, it would have opened just in time for the collapse of retail in Oxford).  The whole ghastly saga has been depressing, exhausting, and taken away much of the pleasure of living in Oxford.

It has also been an education. In no particular order:

Community protest is  largely a middle class sport.  People who might consider themselves traditional ‘working class’ are much less likely to get involved. They’re likely to be older, less internet focussed (and almost all discussion and information about community politics is internet-based) and, some of them, less comfortable with directly challenging authority. It’s easy to forget about them. But occasionally, their absence is brought into sharp focus.

Local democracy can be every bit as distant, arrogant and uncommunicative as Westminster or Brussels. The city and county councils have for years done a very good job of totally ignoring what has been happening to us.  More than that, denying their own part in this disaster. Network Rail has recognised the harm it has done, and apologised, and offered some small compensation: the county council most definitely  has not. Their arrogance is a continuous insult to us.

Given their need to persuade people to vote for them, it’s surprising how some  politicians are first class shits. Liz Leffman, Leader of the county council, opined in public (for no particular reason) that the small businesses who said closure of Botley Road was driving them  to the wall, were either lying, or just didn’t understand their business as well as she did. She clearly hadn’t bothered to read the harrowing report sent her, detailing the desperate plight of these people – and their families. She must be so puzzled that Network Rail has stumped up nearly a million in compensation. Andrew Gant, the cabinet member  responsible for highways projects – and this has become almost entirely a highways project, for now – refused at first even to reply to a letter setting out in detail his own responsibility for much of this mess, then two months later sent a brief reply saying that nothing that has gone wrong is anything to do with him. Andrew Gant, cabinet member not responsible for highways. Or anything.

But thank goodness,  some politicians  do their job well.  Layla Moran has been exemplary as our MP, championing our cause in the House, persistently harrying ministers, and visiting individual businesses in trouble. She even  sent her mum to get her hair done at our local hairdresser. She is what is called a “good constituency MP”. (But what other sort can there possibly be? You are either a champion for your constituents, or a bad MP.) Our councillors, Susanna Pressel and Lois Muddiman, have also fought the good fight for us and we so much appreciate their support.

When it comes to arrogance,  callous indifference and  lack of  accountability, there is no difference  between public or private corporations. Network Rail, and National Highways, which are part of government, were no better at engaging with the community than private sector Thames  Water or British Gas or Kier. Perhaps it’s as simple as this: big  organisations tend to  rob those working in them of their common  humanity. They come to see ‘civilians’ as at best a nuisance, at worst the enemy. (As a recovering bureaucrat, I can remember that feeling.) Young radicals who believe renationalisation will make services cheaper, better, more open, more responsive will be bitterly disappointed. Power loves power, hates to share it.

Running a small businesses is the hardest job there is, and nobody, no one, is on your side. If you fail, you fail, and that's your problem. No political party nowadays cares about small businesses. Labour is deeply in love with (indeed, in bed with, and having illegitimate children by) Big Money, while the Tories, under Thatcher the champions of small businesses, today  only care about hating immigrants and the BBC. Yet there are five and a half million small businesses in this country. If they don't thrive, we don't. I've got to know some of the two or three dozen small businesses around Botley Road, and I hadn’t  appreciated  how hard they have to work how, how uncertain life is for them, and how integral they are to our community. I remember thinking, at  a meeting between a couple of dozen of these people and  civil servants from the Department of Transport in London that it was like Europeans arriving for the first time in  Africa or Australia  and peering uncertainty at these strange people. Certainly speaking  different languages!

Being disabled is tough. In theory, you have all sorts of rights. In practice, it often feels that bats are better protected. Many disabled people have had their lives seriously restricted by the Botley Road closure, and no one cares, because they’re invisible.

It is possible to penetrate the indifference of power,  by giving ordinary people a voice. That's what I did in my book NetworkHell. Done in desperation  because I couldn't think of anything else to do, but it was a good idea. The power of individual testimony shows in the inquiries into  the Post Office scandal, Grenfell  Towers and COVID. When you hear the voice of an ordinary person and see their picture gazing back at you,  it's  more difficult to turn away.

However, it’s hard to transmute momentary sympathy for victims into effective remedial action. Look at the Post Office, still dithering on compensation, decades after they conspired to ruin people, their own staff, who they knew to be innocent. Lord Hendy came in January to apologise for what Network Rail has done to us over the previous two years – then announced the road would be closed for two more years, and since his visit, Network Rail and their pals in the county council have increased their unforgivable intrusion into the lives and even homes of those near the station.

When things go really badly wrong, the people responsible at the top never suffer any consequences. Andrew Haines, CEO of Network Rail, is retiring with a knighthood. Peter Hendy retired last year as  chair of Network Rail, with a seat for life in our glorious House of Cronies plus a ministerial job, all without the need for anything as vulgar as a vote or even a competition.  Project manager Philip Morton just carries on being project manager. For as long as it takes. I’m not a fan of management-by-sacking – I worked for Michael Howard. And often, failure, like success, isn’t down to a single person. But surely, when your career path is identical whether you succeed brilliantly or fail dismally, something’s amiss?

I’m pleased to have published ‘NetworkHell’. But when you do something like this, for the community, and lots of people thank you, curiously, you don't feel puffed up or proud – you feel  humbled. I feel just lucky to be in a position to do this, to help.

But when lots of people applaud and say they support you, it's still bloody hard to get them to actually do anything. Le Vay’s law; when a community is exercised about an issue, 60% of the people are indifferent and want just to  carry on with our lives, 30% say they support you, but it won't actually do anything, 5% have lots of ideas about what you should do but won't actually get up  off their sofas, and if you're lucky, 5% will actually help. It's been like that in every such campaign or voluntary  group I've ever been involved in.

Yet sometimes you just come across natural champions. Ruth Deech for example, Baroness Deech, champion of the disabled and a  born fighter if ever I saw one. She takes no prisoners. I feel almost sorry for Lord Hendy facing her in the Lords. Whatever you do in  life, don’t get on the wrong side of Baroness Deech.

A common enemy brings a community together like nothing else. Our own neighbourhood, though not unfriendly, has always been a bit anonymous. We knew people on either side,  but that was about it. But having 500 buses a day lumber down our quiet cul de sac has brought people out, literally, in a street meeting. It is the only good thing about this ghastly saga and I hope it lasts.

Sometimes, in a long campaign like this, you get a lurking suspicion that you’re becoming one of those people who shout at everybody in the street. Well, maybe you are, but if someone doesn’t shout, no one will hear.

On the other hand, engaging in a community campaign can be profoundly rewarding in a particular way: it takes your mind off the ghastly big issues that you can't possibly  affect:  Trump, Putin, Gaza,  Ukraine, several varieties of  utter environmental catastrophe, the awful new world of zero growth and bankrupt public finances and spavined public services. Do good, it’ll do you good!

But a  point will eventually come where you've simply had enough, and then you must disengage, cultivate your garden, and hope somebody else will  pick up here you left off.