Nick Bowes reflects on his two years in charge of Centre for London, the challenges the capital has faced over that time, and what comes next for the city and its leaders.

It’s hard to get my head around where the last two years have gone. When I took over as Chief Executive at Centre for London back in June 2021, we were still in the tail end of Covid restrictions. The recruitment process which led to me getting the job was done totally remotely, and with only a gradual return to the office, I didn’t meet many of my team in person for some weeks into the role.

Back then, Sadiq Khan had just been re-elected as Mayor of London for a second term, and Boris Johnson – riding high in the polls and buoyed by winning the Hartlepool by-election from Labour – looked secure as Prime Minister. The worst of Covid seemed behind us, and the pulse of life across London beat stronger every day.

Over this past two years, much has changed. At the same time, a lot hasn’t. There continues to be no shortage of challenges facing London. Even prior to the pandemic, many were starting to feel that London’s continued future economic success could no longer be taken for granted. A string of factors was having an effect. A buffeting by global economic winds and the uncertainties of Brexit. The high cost of living and a shortage of affordable homes undermining competitiveness. A national government focus on levelling up, which at best ignored the city, but at worst risked harming it. Then, to cap it all, along came a global pandemic, unleashing massive economic and social upheaval.

During this time of uncertainty, even our politics hasn’t been insulated from the instability – with three Prime Ministers, revolving doors at many key ministries, and the Tories now in a long period of poor poll ratings. In London, the 2022 local elections saw the Tory crown jewels of Wandsworth and Westminster turn red, a wakeup call to the Conservatives about their prospects in the city.

And this coming year, London will go to the polls to elect their Mayor. Khan is seeking a record third term, and with the polls so hostile to the Tories, who would bet against him? But with a change in the voting system, classic voter fatigue with a long-standing incumbent, both the city’s police and fire brigade in special measures, Transport for London’s finances still shaky and the forthcoming ULEZ expansion proving controversial, might there be a shock change at City Hall next May?

We also face the likely prospect of a General Election in the next 18 months. If the polls are to be believed, the country could elect the first majority Labour Government since 2005, with several high-profile Tory MPs in London looking precarious. But with Harold Wilson once uttering that a week is a long time in politics, 18 months is an eternity – a lot can still happen.

In the coming months, think tanks are in their element. This is their moment. Centre for London and others are in the ideas business. Politicians standing for office are in the market for new solutions and eye-catching policies for their manifestos. The work the Centre has done and will do over the coming months creates a swathe of ideas. These will be ripe for all Mayoral candidates and political parties to interrogate, adopt and commit to introduce, if they’re elected.

Yet those in the public policy world have to negotiate their way through a landscape that gets harder all the time. We currently live in a world where experts are rubbished, data and truth are disbelieved and undermined, and views on some of the biggest challenges we face are so charged and polarised they are thoroughly toxic. I take my hat off to all those still determined to stand for public office, despite all this swirling around them.

London is an endlessly restless city, and that is what makes it so fascinating. It isn’t easy to describe London in a sentence or two. To oversimplify its internal geography is to do a disservice to the huge contrasts between rich and poor, north and south, old and young, suburbs and the centre, and so on.

The latest incarnation of this ever-changing city can be seen in how outer London boroughs are taking on the characteristics of inner London, with inner London boroughs witnessing sharp falls in school age children and some even depopulating. While fascinating for policy makers, responding to the needs of a global city that never stands still makes the job of our political leaders even harder – particularly when so little decision making is decentralised, and the response of Whitehall is sluggish at the best of times.

I remain resolute in my view, just as I did two years ago, that agility and innovation in public policy, and the tailoring of solutions to London’s problems, will only come about through large scale devolution to the Mayor and the city’s local authorities. The way we run our country is broken, yet central government still refuses to acknowledge this, and let go.

I wish everyone at Centre for London the best of luck with the challenges ahead. It has been one of the greatest professional privileges of my life to be able to call them colleagues and friends. I know they’re up for the scale of work needed to come up with solutions and new thinking to make London a better place to live and work. And given the uncertain world we live in, this work is more important than ever.