Simon Jenkins: London can’t cope with Boris’s craze for a Grand Prix

Boris Johnson gets more like the emperor Nero every day. We were sitting fuming in the shambles of his “rolling closure” of Hammersmith flyover last week when we heard on the radio that he would be “privileged to host” a Formula 1 Grand Prix in London. Was this a joke? He wants to career about the city at 200mph while ordinary mortals suffer ongoing chaos.

If Johnson gets to Downing Street there is clearly no public extravagance in which he will not indulge to his greater glory. There will be water cannon fêtes on the Thames, winter sports at Crystal Palace, money-laundering fests in Hyde Park and an 80-storey buy-to-leave phallus looming over Sloane Square. No indignity is too outrageous in the banana republic of fair Johnsonia. London is becoming a vast Bullingdon Club prank.

The catalyst for the latest bout of “London grand prix” hysteria is a proposal from the Prime Minister to ease outdated rules on public thoroughfares. Britain’s roads have long been “nationalised”, their traffic regulated by Parliament. It is why they are so boringly identical and why fairs, markets and special events are enveloped in bureaucracy, health and safety.

Cameron’s idea is a good one, that local councils should be able to decide how best to make use of their space. It was unfortunate that he launched this de-regulation at the Oxford headquarters of Formula 1 car manufacturer Williams. His message was to allow “local communities to make millions from motor racing”.

The only person who makes millions from motor racing is the Formula 1 mephisto Bernie Ecclestone, now facing bribery charges in Germany. He claims a London grand prix has been his “lifelong dream”. Such is his plutocratic glamour that he has successively dazzled Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone and now Johnson to let him get his way.

Even so, he has not got far. Discussions were held in 2004 when the motor racing industry staged a one-day “Formula 1” event down Regent Street. It was great fun but caused chaos. The then Mayor Ken Livingstone was desperate for a glamour project — however noisy, polluting and un-green. But the prospective cost of safety barriers, stadiums, policing, weeks of preparation and three days of racing dimmed even his enthusiasm.

When the idea was resurrected in 2007 even Ecclestone was sceptical. He said staging a London race would simply be “too expensive”. He certainly was not going to pay. He added that such a race would “turn central London upside down for six weeks”. A YouTube fly-through shows a London circuit as little more than a Cresta Run tunnel, its turns as dangerous as Monaco’s.

Then, in 2012, Ecclestone was so moved by the billions of pounds that taxpayers gave to the London Olympics that he renewed his request for a circuit, taking his cars past Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Nelson’s Column and Piccadilly Circus. Millions would watch and it would “put London on the map”. Johnson claimed a race would “bring jobs and growth”, the all-purpose Hail Mary of the Cameron set.

I am sure most businessmen would like their products publicised in front of famous London landmarks. That does not mean London is up for sale. I am sure the powerboat industry would like to race past Tower Bridge and horse racing take over Kensington Gardens. I vaguely recall a promotion for London Zoo that had Regent’s Canal converted into a tropical lagoon for hippos and crocodiles.

The only British city to have staged car races is Birmingham, which turned its centre over to Superprix 3000 on August bank holiday in the 1980s. It livened up Birmingham during the summer but was discontinued in 1990, largely on grounds of cost and inconvenience. Special events are fine where, like rock concerts, they are staged in the country and do not impinge on the lives of others. They just do not fit into cities.

The tourist economy is only just returning to its pre-Olympics level, despite an avalanche of official mendacity promising 2012 would be a “tourism bonanza”. All attempts by sponsors to claim that mega-events are profitable must resort to such vacuities as “giving a boost” or “raising the profile”. The reality is these events cost taxpayers a fortune, as Athens and London learned over the Olympics, and Rio de Janeiro is now discovering.

In London the cost of grand prix infrastructure does not bear thinking about. West End streets would need massive walling to resist potentially disastrous crashes. That cost would be minor compared with the disruption caused to a working city in lost business and congestion to ordinary citizens.