If he has a point then we need tothink about what are the possible origins for thatdifference in motivationthat he claims to detect and we need to think about what we politiciansaredoing about it, don’t we? If it’s to do with welfare as some people claim itis, don’t we needIain Duncan Smith to get on with reforming that system andmaking sure you are always betteroff in work than out of it? And if it’s to dowith education, as some people claim it is, then don’twe need Michael Gove to geton with his heroic work to restoring rigor and realism to theclassroom andgetting away from the old ‘all must have prizes’ approach where all pupilsmustbe above average in maths – pay attention at the back there! – which is notpossible. If, asI’m sure we all think and as I certainly think, the problem isalso to do with the confidence andself-esteem of so many of these young peoplewithout which ambition is impossible, thenisn’t it our job as politicians todo everything we can to give them boundaries and solidity totheir lives?
That’s why I have spent a lot ofmy time as Mayor on projects like the Mayor’s Fund forLondon and Team Londonand encouraging volunteers to read to kids across our city andmentoringprogrammes which we are expanding and the support of the uniformed groups,theScouts, the Guides, all those kinds of fantastic organisations, bringingsporting facilities toschools that don’t have any, mobile pools we’ve beensending around London, beautiful glorifiedsheep dips we send round, they loveit. They work brilliantly well and we’re helping to gettalented youngmusicians to cross that barrier that they confront when they reach the ageofeleven and have to go through into secondary school and so many of them give uptheirinstruments and it’s a real, real tragedy and we are setting up funds tohelp with creation ofexcellence in our schools and to improve standards allround, to support the work that MichaelGove is doing.
It’s when I look at the hugerange of projects that we’re engaged in now at City Halltogether withhundreds, if not thousands of other projects, many of which are supportedbypeople in this room, I do think we are making a difference to the lives ofthose young peopleand we have got loads of them into apprenticeships, about118,000 over the last couple of years,we’re going to get on to 250,000 by 2016and thanks to the police, thanks very largely to theirwork, we are seeingsignificant falls in crime as Jane was just saying. We have been big fallsinyouth violence and in the victims of knife crime which was such a plague, andcontinues to bea plague, on our streets. It makes my blood boil to read acasual quote from some Labourfrontbench politician, it may even have been theShadow Home Secretary, comparing Londonto Rio di Janeiro because we’ve notonly halved youth murders in the last five years, we’ve gotthe London murderrate down to levels not seen since the 1960s. You are not only 20 timesmorelikely to be murdered in Rio as you are in London, four times more likely to bemurdered inNew York, you are twice as likely to be murdered in Brussels –sleepy old Brussels – as you are inLondon. Presumably with lobster picks.
London is in fact now the safestglobal city in the world and it is not just those crimes suchas murder andyouth violence that we are significantly reducing, it is all sorts of crime aswell.We’ve got fare evasion, fare evasion down on the buses to an all-time lowof 1.1%, whatever1.1% means, mainly thanks to getting rid of the bendy buses.That I think is the way forward.You’ve got to tackle that complex of problems,crime well frozen, educationalunderachievement and you’ve got to make surethat kids growing up in London are able to takeopportunity that our cityoffers and at the same time we must make sure they don’t dismisssome jobs asquote/unquote ‘menial’, which is a word I sometimes hear, and that theyseethem, those jobs that London creates in such abundance, in the same way thatJamieOliver’s East Europeans see those jobs, as stepping stones, as abeginning to a life in work thatcan take them anywhere.
Now I’m conscious today that I amspeaking very frankly about this issue, I have probablygot myself as usualinto trouble, that’s my job, because I think there is a vast and latentgeniusin these young people and if we could harness their talents more effectivelythen theywould not only have fulfilling lives but we could drive even fasterthe great flywheel of theLondon economy that is now the most diverse in Europeand we not only lead the world as thefinancial centre, artistic centre,cultural centre, we now have, we now have the biggest textsector anywhere inEurope, we have a growing NED city of academic health scienceinstitutionsalong the Euston Road and in ten years, in the next ten years it is forecastthatLondon’s media industry will produce more film and TV content than eitherNew York or LosAngeles. I can scarcely believe that but that’s what I amassured. That is an extraordinarychange that is taking place in the Londoneconomy and it is this prodigious, pulsating demandof London that helps todrive the rest of the country.
The EU Commission has just done astudy about competitiveness of regions in Europe,have you all read it? Youshould read it, you’re in it folks. They have discovered, they havedetermined,the EU Commission – and I dare not dissent – has concluded that Surrey andWestand East Sussex – anybody here from Surrey and West and East Sussex? Well done,welldone Surrey and West and East Sussex, you belong to the fifth mostcompetitive region inEurope. They have looked at Berkshire, Buckinghamshireand Oxfordshire – anybody here fromBerkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire?Well done, Prime Minister, well done,congratulations, you belong to the thirdmost competitive region in Europe, well done. And whyare those regions sofizzing with competitiveness according to the EU Commission? BecauseLondon isthe most competitive city in the whole of Europe and it drives jobs across theUK andnot just in the south-east.