Economist.com Cities Guide: London Briefing - April 2006

News this month

The drugs don't work

Six men were left fighting for their lives after a drugs trial in a north London hospital went badly wrong. The six were offered £2,000 ($3,490) to test TGN 1412, an antibody manufactured by a small German pharmaceutical company, TeGenero. Shortly after being injected with the drug at Harrow's Northwick Park Hospital on March 13th, the men suffered massive, adverse reactions including multiple organ failure. One is still in hospital and the long-term health of the others remains uncertain.

On April 5th, after an inquiry, the government's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced that Parexel, the American company behind the trial, had run the tests correctly. It seems that TGN 1412, a stimulant not previously used in humans, was toxic in a way that had not been foreseen. The MHRA has established an expert panel to assess whether changes are necessary in the way drugs are tested.

OutspoKen

Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, had a combative start to his spring. He called Robert Tuttle, the American ambassador in London, a “chiselling little crook” in an interview with ITV's “London Tonight” programme on March 27th. The mayor was fuming over the American embassy's refusal to pay the £8 ($14) charge for cars entering the congestion zone. He claims the Americans stopped paying the charge in July 2005 when Mr Tuttle took over as ambassador. The Americans, who are not alone among embassies in refusing to pay, say the 1961 Vienna Convention exempts them from all such local taxes. Moreover, they claim the decision to stop paying was not Mr Tuttle's.

They have refused to complain about Mr Livingstone's remarks. “The way we've approached this is not to dignify that kind of insult by responding to it,” said a representative. The Standards Board for England, a watchdog for local authorities, did, however, receive a complaint about the mayor's comments from a little-known civil-liberties group, Liberty and Law. The board deemed Mr Livingstone's remarks not “sufficiently serious” to require more investigation.

This kerfuffle followed the mayor's jibe at two brothers involved in the building of the Olympic City in Stratford. On March 21st, Mr Livingstone said that David and Simon Reuben should “go back to Iran and try their luck with the ayatollahs”, a comment triggered by his fear that the brothers were holding back development plans. The Reubens, who control 50% of the consortium, were born in India to Jewish-Iraqi parents. This remark was also reported to the Standards Board, who passed the matter to the monitoring officer of the Greater London Authority.

No justice

The trial of two brothers accused of murdering ten-year-old Damilola Taylor in 2000 ended in confusion on April 4th. The pair, who are aged 17 and 18 and cannot be named for legal reasons, were cleared of murder. But the jury could not reach a verdict on the lesser charge of manslaughter. A third defendant, 20-year-old Hassan Jihad, was cleared of all charges.

Damilola was killed during an attack in a stairwell on a Peckham estate in November 2000. The murder attracted a mass of publicity, partly because of CCTV footage showing the boy skipping along minutes before the attack. The jurors' indecision means the two brothers face a retrial in late June, which will be the third trial connected to the case. At the first, in 2002, four other defendants were cleared of murder. The case was then reinvestigated and the discovery of new evidence led to the most recent trials.

Stadium of blight

The new Wembley Stadium has yet more growing pains. The £757m, 90,000-seat stadium was expected to be ready this spring. Now Multiplex, the Australian firm behind the project, says it will not be completed until September. Wembley National Stadium, the stadium owner, has confirmed that no events will take place there until 2007. Wembley was meant to host the FA Cup final on May 13th, but that will now go to Cardiff, and a string of summer concerts and sporting events will move elsewhere. Concerts by Bon Jovi and Take That in June will take place in Milton Keynes, while the Rolling Stones and the Rugby League Challenge Cup final will go to Twickenham rugby ground in August.

Responsibility for the delay is a matter of keen debate, since penalty payments for overruns are £140,000 per day after January 31st 2006. Multiplex has blamed Wembley National Stadium for introducing late design changes, arguing that the completion date should be extended until September 2006 at least. The matter will probably end up in court. Making matters worse, Multiplex has been forced to deny rumours that the stadium is sinking. The Conservative Party has called for a public inquiry into the delay.

Troubled waters

The much-maligned Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Kensington Gardens suffered another blow in late March, when the House of Commons public accounts committee judged it “ill-conceived and ill-executed”. The committee was reporting on the finances of the Royal Parks Agency, which looks after the capital's parks, including Kensington Gardens. It blamed poor co-ordination between the various groups involved in the project and expressed the hope that the lessons learned would be heeded in the design of a memorial for the late Queen Mother. Commenting on the likelihood that water will not be used in this latest memorial, the committee noted: “This seems sensible.”

The fountain, which opened in July 2004, has suffered a series of reverses. It ended up costing more than £5m to build (£2.2m over budget) and now has annual maintenance costs of £250,000 (more than twice what was expected). Other parts of the Royal Parks budget have had to be cut to meet these expenses.

Catch if you can

April 2006

Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master

Until June 25th 2006

Michelangelo was so afraid that his drawings would reveal the secrets of his art that he hid them from all but a close circle of intimates and had many of them burned before his death. Yet his fame was such that, even while he was alive, three biographies were written about him—and it's no surprise that his drawings became collectors' items, with 600 squirrelled away from the bonfire. A sixth of that number are exhibited in this exhilarating show at the British Museum and they show exactly what the artist sought to conceal: that drawing was the lifeblood and the emotional force that flowed through all of his work—sculpture, painting and architecture.
See article: Heaven on earth, March 23rd 2006.

British Museum, Great Russell Street, WC1. Booking: +44 (0)20 7323 8181. Tube: Tottenham Court Road. Open: daily, 10am-5pm (Thurs & Fri until 8.30pm). For more information visit the website.

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