Is this our Waterloo?

The tower, they argue, will be a "marker", helpful to anyone who has difficulty finding Waterloo Station. It will create thousands of jobs without any need for car traffic, as everyone can arrive there by train. It is, moreover, "such a sculpted shape", according to Mann, and so "very carefully considered" that "we can't slice it about without starting again".

And if any curmudgeons in the planning system should dare to suggest modifications to the designs, P&O threatens to impose a terrible penalty: it will either retain the shabby buildings already on the site, or go ahead with a smaller, by implication, mediocre, scheme for which it already has planning permission.

The earlier project was also designed by RHWL for P&O, so the company seems to be arguing that it should be allowed to build a much bigger building in order to save the world from something it had previously proposed.

As for the threat to do nothing at all, this is a hoary developers' favourite. "Give us permission or the neighbourhood gets it" is the gist, and no one should fall for it. If P&O is serious about improving the district quickly, it is doubtful that it should embark on a risky all-or-nothing tower project at all.

Sadly (as Mann, Wise and LeBrun are all likeable people), many of the arguments for the tower are bogus. The idea that the proposed building has such artistic integrity that it cannot be changed does not stand up, since the perfection of LeBrun's maquette, with its balance of verticals and horizontals, would be partly obscured by other buildings.

In some views the tower would protrude from the roof of County Hall and other landmarks like a huge tumour, creating compositions of which no artist would be proud. If built, it will loom behind Big Ben, an eloquent symbol of the power of money over democracy.

Odder is the idea that it would "float". One million square feet of office space does not float, and no amount of artistry in P&O's computer visualisations, with the tower glinting in the westering sun, can disguise the fact that it would look much more like a tombstone than a sail.

Strange, too, is the idea of a "marker" for the station, as if people in search of a rail terminal scan the horizon for towers to tell them where they are. Consulting a Tube map is usually more effective.

Oddest of all is the idea that some alterations to the environs of Waterloo should be fair trade for the occupation of a hefty chunk of London's skyline by a P&O rent slab.

So here's the deal: a footbridge, a relocated road, and a big conservatory, at a cost of trashing city views for the rest of our lifetimes. This is to say nothing of the vast shadow the tower will cast, the massive wall it will erect between Waterloo and the river, the blank walls it will create at street level, and a block of affordable housing - included in the scheme as a sop to the Mayor - that would stand completely surrounded by traffic.

Londoners are being sold a pup, as are Ken Livingstone, English Heritage, the London Borough of Lambeth, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and all the other parties who will ponder P&O's planning application.

There are plenty of reasons to refuse permission, including its effects on listed buildings and the World Heritage Site at Westminster. They should just say no.