Britan’s bureaucrat problem.

[Insert Lamé pun here]

If a man is tired of London, wrote James Boswell, then he is tired of life. Or, perhaps, he is simply tired of having to drink at home if he wants a session.

Not being able to get a gin and tonic in zones 1 to 5 after 11pm is one of the biggest gripes of those under retirement age living in the city – after, of course, housing costs.

Who exactly is to blame for the decline In London, nightlife? The responses vary; some blame NIMBYish residents who complain about the noise after having bought a house in the once thriving nightspot of Soho; others, blame high housing costs, which have forced low-wage London service workers to live further and further away from hotspots, which makes journeys on London’s sparse nighttime travel network difficult. Some have blamed councils for reversing popular Covid measures such as outdoor seating.

But one figure that has come in for particular criticism is Sadiq Khan’s ‘Night Czar’, Amy Lamé.

The former radio and TV presenter - and performer of the one-woman shows Gay Man Trapped in a Lesbian’s Body and Cum Manifesto - was appointed in 2016 as an ostensibly non-political appointment to promote and safeguard London’s nightlife.

In a recent BBC appearance she claimed, as Sadiq Khan put it, that ‘London is leading the world in its 24-hour policy.’ Given that over 1,100 of London’s bars and clubs have shut in just three years - including landmark venues such as Printworks and Space – this was considered a somewhat controversial claim. But this is not the first time she has come under fire, as Luke Black has noted;

She has been the subject of several petitions to be sacked – or have the role scrapped entirely – with leading industry groups and businesses describing her as ‘non-existent’ and, despite often boasting about her connections in the media, accusing her of failing to be a “powerful, vocal and visible voice for the industry”.

Aside from questionable results, of particular concern are her massive salary – close to £120,000 – whether she is a truly apolitical figure – she is a former Labour PPC and friend of Gordon Brown - and whether she is in any way accountable for the fact London’s nightlife being on life support. In fact, there are even questions about whether she is really doing anything about it; an FOI request by Colm Howard-Lloyd showed her diary to be remarkably sparse, featuring no meetings with nightclubs, venues, industry groups, hospitality groups, licensing committees, or local councils – particularly concerning given that Khan stated ‘it is really important to have someone who can win the trust of the industry, councils, residents, businesses and the police.’

All too often, unelected positions like Czars deliver negligible benefit at huge public cost whilst offering politicians an opportunity to offshore responsibility to an arms’ length position; it is the same calculation that sees more and more responsibility offshored to Quangos. This was the basis of New Labour’s political settlement, which Peter Burnham called ‘the politics of depoliticisation’. He described it as ‘the process of placing at one remove the political character of decision-making’, in which ‘state managers retain arm’s-length control over crucial economic and social processes whilst simultaneously benefiting from the distancing effects of depoliticisation’. But for anyone interested in the basic concept of representative democracy, the outsourcing of political power & responsibility away from those we hold directly accountable – politicians – is bad news.

The debate was almost unique in the sheer breadth of people concerned at her failure to arrest the decline in London’s night life, wide enough to include Politics Joe’s Ava Santina and former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick. Given her ability to unite such a disparate, broad and unlikely political group in concerned at the prospect of unelected bureaucrats making policy decisions they can’t be held accountable for whilst receiving an insane amount of taxpayer’s money, said insane amount of taxpayer’s money may not yet be wasted. Lamé may present a unique opportunity to highlight the growing danger of Britan’s bureaucrat problem.