Government Affairs Blog

Jonathan Meades: Abroad Again

The last episode of Jonathan Meades: Abroad Again will be broadcast on Wednesday 6 June at 7 pm on BBC 2.

Jonathan Meades?  Doesn’t he talk about architecture?  Why is he being written about in a blog dedicated to providing useful and thought-provoking information to communication professionals who work in public affairs?

Jonathan Meades?  Doesn’t he use architecture to survey social, economic and political trends in Britain?  Isn’t he the clever presenter who uses long words and odd camera angles to make his point?  Isn’t he the guy some people might hate but others love?  And why shouldn’t a blog dedicated to one thing take a diversion every now and again?

http://www.jonathanmeades.com/

In the second episode of the programme Meades examined urban renewal and its bizarre results.  If Meades doesn’t like something he doesn’t take prisoners.  The idea of urban renewal through large architectural projects was shot down as shallow and false.  According to Meades these projects create large buildings with dubious content and do nothing for the poor urbanites the projects are meant to be benefiting. 

In the fourth episode he took a scornful glance at garden cities.  The garden cities were the precursor to the British obsession with suburbia.  The idea came from the arts and craft movement, from a rejection of urban Victorian and Edwardian hell and the utopian vision of certain aspects of British socialism.  This legacy can still be seen.  Not only in Middle England’s desire for suburbia but in the Green lobby and the New Age craze for homeopathy. 

Some might think it is ironic that Middle England is living out a version of the utopian socialist ideal.  Meades loves irony.  But the truth he hints at is that this fabric is woven into a part of our culture and that arts and crafts are part of a mythology of Britain that the socialist philosophers like William Morris bought into.  It should come as no surprise that this mythology srpings from a conservative way of thinking as it harks back to the past.  As Meades never tires of pointing out, the gurus of garden cities were middle class escapees from urbanity.  Is it possible to get more conservative, with a small c, than that? 

He ends the programme quoting a Fabian who suggested that it would be better to improve the urban space than create new spaces based on a myth.  Sadly, as Meades showed two weeks before attempts at urban renewal can go very wrong.

The last episode is on this Wednesday.  No doubt BBC 4 will repeat the series.

Jonathan Meades, isn’t he worth watching?

Simon Goldie is Head of Communication at The Chartered Institute of Taxation – www.tax.org.uk - and a member of the CIPR GAG committee