Will Big Money End Up On The Guillotine?

A visit to London’s Docklands spotlights darker sides of regeneration

Superyachts are Big Money at the ultra-visible end of the spectrum

Just over 50 years ago, at around 06.30 on a dark winter morning, I climbed over a dock wall in London’s West India Docks—intending to shoot photographs of derelict warehouses, cranes and other harbor installations for a project I was doing at UCL on the ins and outs of urban regeneration.

Happily firing away with my trusty old Leica M3 camera I was suddenly on high alert as I detected movement behind me. Luckily, as it happens, I have always had acute peripheral vision. Behind, and offset on both sides, three dogs—two Doberman Pinschers and an Alsatian, or German Shepherd—had silently triangulated on me. Check mate.

Having read a few weeks earlier about precisely this mix of breeds tearing apart a young girl at her home, I froze and held my position—for almost an hour, though, as these things do, it seemed much longer. Eventually, a half-asleep security guard ambled up and, after a difficult exchange, I was allowed to go on my way.

Life of Phi

Such memories churned through my brain as I walked around West India Docks yesterday—particularly when I stumbled across the impounded superyacht, Phi. I was waiting to do a podcast on a very different approach to tomorrow’s capital markets, but more on that in a later post. In any event, I discovered that this huge private vessel is registered to a company based in the Caribbean twin-island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and sails under a Maltese flag.

Phi in the dock

Hardly a configuration that speaks of innocence, indeed it struck me as blatant symbol of how extreme wealth now seeks to achieve the uncomfortable combination of look-at-me extravagance and stealth.

Half a century ago, I was trying to understand how much of the physical fabric of urban areas like Docklands, Covent Garden and Venice could be preserved without dispossessing all the original population as property prices soared. In the end, I concluded that it was always extremely challenging—and ultimately depended on visionary and hard-edged planners serving the interest of the community, not just of money.

In the case of Docklands, had the planners and local and environmental interest groups not stood their ground, the docks themselves would probably have been filled in to create more land for development. And yet so much of the character of the area today, in places like Canada Water and Canary Wharf, reflects the continuing presence of the water-filled docks.

Elizabeth Taylor’s taps

When I was doing the UCL project, I often wandered around the area, talking to local people, recording oral histories and even, on occasion, talking to security guards. One of them was standing guard at St Katharine’s Dock, hard by Tower Bridge. When we got talking, it turned out that he from the area and resented the way this development for the ultra-wealthy had turned physically and psychologically its back on the original communities. He told me that Elizabeth Taylor’s apartment had gold taps, in stark contrast to the plight of many of the communities round about.

Money doesn’t just talk, they say. Sometimes, it screams—or, at least, it builds skyscrapers from which the screams of normal people cannot be heard. As you walk through the Canary Wharf area, you spot the give-away names on the buildings: Bank of America, Barclays, Chase, Citigroup and so on through the alphabet.

As it happens, I once found myself on the top (32^nd) floor of the Barclays HQ, One Churchill Place, to talk to their then CEO, John Varley. More or less at the time when he found himself (though acquitted) at the center of yet another scandalaffecting Barclays. All I can say is that the views from the 32^nd floor were out of this world—and I could easily see how being elevated above the rest of the world in this way might go to one’s head.

An economic powerhouse

Ask AI how much the Docklands economy is worth, and it replies: “According to information available, the London Docklands economy, primarily driven by Canary Wharf, generates a significant portion of London's GDP, with estimates placing its economic output at around £28 billion in the Tower Hamlets borough alone, largely attributed to the financial businesses concentrated in Canary Wharf.”

Across the Thames, the Millennium Dome (now The O2), where I was on the advisory board

The complexity of urban regeneration was underscored for me as I took a photo of the once-upon-a-time Millennium Dome on the south bank of the river. When it was being designed and built, I was on an advisory board alongside people like James Lovelock, though I doubt we had much influence on the eventual outcome.

Looking the other way, on the other hand, I could almost make out the building where I served for six years as chair of the advisory board for the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), now rebranded as UK Export Finance. There were frustrations there, too, but I think we made real progress over that time in influencing money flows from the UK to other parts of the world. One of the most powerful spurs for progress was Nick Hildyard’s The Corner House.

Big Wealth is about control

But now Big Money is going into overdrive. The West may have tried to rein in Russian oligarchs, as in the case of Phi, but outgoing American President Biden warned of the looming risks associated with an American version of oligarchy, threatening the future of the nation’s democracy.

As the world has watched North American banks withdraw from Mark Carney’s Net-Zero Banking Alliance and tech billionaires elbowing one another side to bend the knee to the incoming Trump regime, the role of Big Money in politics has been very much in the spotlight.

Spotted in a Docklands apartment this week

Then, at this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, an extraordinary grouping of wealthy people—the Patriotic Millionaires—sent a letter to world leaders warning that “the phenomenon of concentrated and extreme wealth” is hurting the world, urging them to “draw the line”.

As The Guardian reported, the letter is signed by more than 370 millionaires and billionaires spanning 22 countries, including the film producer and philanthropist Abigail Disney, the musician Brian Eno and the film-maker Richard Curtis. “Wealth is no longer simply about worth. It is about control, the letter says. “If you, our elected leaders, continue to neglect the crisis of wealth extremism, the fractured foundations of our hard-won democracies will face further harm,” the letter said.

“Across the world,” the letter continues, “some of those who enjoy the same economic status as us also enjoy untold levels of influence and power. A handful of extremely wealthy human beings control the media, which cajoles, persuades and sometimes misinforms; they unduly influence our legal systems, transforming justice into injustice; and are helping manage our democracies into decline.”

For those of us who talk about the need for system change, we should understand that the system is now changing, profoundly, and in the wrong direction.

And to end where I started this post, with superyachts, I am currently reading a book by Grégory Salle, translated from French by Helen Morrison. Its title is Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and Ecocide. And its concluding lines run as follows, quoting a convicted fraudsters speaking from aboard a superyacht:

“If the rest of the world learns what it is like to live on a yacht like this, they’re gonna bring back the guillotine.”

John Elkington is Founder & Chief Pollinator at Volans. His personal website can be accessed here.

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