A tale of two cities | thearticle

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” The opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities are as applicable to London and Paris today as they were when Dickens wrote them in 1859, or

indeed in 1789, when the novel is set. But which city is having which — the best of times, or the worst? In London, the mood is gloomy and the talk is of impending crisis. We are told that

we are going back to the 1970s, the worst decade that all but a few people now alive can remember, if Britain leaves the EU without a deal. “Back the clock ticks to a time when the City [of

London] was not the centre of the financial world,” writes Clare Foges in The Times. Well, I suppose David Cameron’s former speechwriter ought to know: it was on his watch that the gap

between the City and the rest of the country grew so wide that the latter voted for Brexit. Even supposing the capital survives Brexit — and it survived the Blitz, let’s remember— it has

plenty of other typically urban problems. From violent crime to homelessness, from the decay of the high street to the problems highlighted by the Grenfell Tower fire, from community

tensions to an invisible underclass: London is as much a city of contrasts as it was in the days of Dickens. And yet, and yet: this is not the whole story. London is living through a golden

age now, just as it was in the Victorian era. Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, but London town really has never had it so good. By almost any measure, life for the vast majority has

improved steadily year by year, more thanks to benign neglect than to anything done by government. Deal or no deal, London will forge ahead, just as it did in 1859 despite being in the grip

of a similarly irrational panic: the French invasion scare. The legacy of that scare is still to be seen in the ring of forts along the south coast, known as “Palmerston’s follies” after the

prime minister who ordered them to be built to deter the imaginary aggression of the Emperor Napoleon III. Perhaps the dire predictions of the terrors of the earth that will supposedly

befall us at the end of March will likewise fascinate future historians. A report published today by Lord Lilley and Brendan Chilton, 30 Truths about Leaving on WTO Terms, suggests that

these fears of no-deal have more in common with the Y2K Millennium Bug scare, or indeed King Lear’s “hysterica passio”, than with anything that is likely to happen. Peter Lilley, one of the

shrewdest ministers of the Thatcher and Major era, knows what he is talking about. What about Paris? The French capital has just suffered an eighth weekend of protests by the gilets jaunes

(yellow vests), along with several other cities across France. This time there were fewer injuries and arrests, but the St Germain district was littered with debris and one demonstrator

succeeded in crashing a fork-lift truck into the entrance of a ministry. Such constant mayhem would have been a huge story at any time in London, but now elicits little more than a shrug

from weary Parisians. An exasperated President Macron is said to be plotting to fire the capital’s police chief, but it is his own erratic conduct of the crisis that most people blame. After

initially talking tough, a month ago he caved in and promised lavish concessions to the protesters, conceding their main demand for new fuel taxes to be postponed. Then, as there was a lull

over the Christmas break, he broadcast a dyspeptic New Year address, in which he accused the gilets jaunes of disgracing their country, having morphed into a racist, anti-Semitic rabble.

There is some truth in the President’s charge sheet. Undoubtedly some Left- and Right-wing extremists have been active within the protests, which have also attracted the usual suspects who

are always spoiling for a scrap with the police. A young chanteuse, known simply as Marguerite, has gone viral with a satirical song about the global elites, “Les Gentils, les Méchants”

(“The Good Guys, the Bad Guys”). But the song is ironically dedicated to two former heroes of 1968, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Bernard Henri Lévy, both now seen as leading establishment figures

— and both Jewish. The song targets the bank of Rothschild, a dog whistle name of ever there was one. So anti-Semitism, having mutated so many times in French history, is now back yet again

— with a vengeance. It is too soon to say how the crisis in France will play out. The gilets jaunes present a direct challenge to the rule of law in general and presidential authority in

particular. But compared to the trials and tribulations of the French capital, the troubles of its British counterpart look like little local difficulties. This is the best of times in

London. In Paris? The worst for many years.