I am sure an earlier Porter would have deplored the
sprawl of Metroland, the supercinemas, the Great West Road facto- ries and the garden suburbs that he now places in the warp and woof of London his- tory. He would have opposed the gated Georgian estates, no different from the for- tified townships of modern Los Angeles. He would have damned the grasping cos- mopolitan bankers of Dickens and Trol- lope. He would have seen nothing but decay in the hooligans, the `unemployed', the migrants, the tramps, the Sam Wellers who have trodden London's streets throughout its existence. London had no Golden Age but it always has its gloomsters, from Pepys through Cobbett to Porter. It is not a Great Wen. London is just a city well-adapted to the task of minding it own business. As for i London's 'death' in 1986, the corpse s in good heart. In his old age, Porter might even retire here.
Simon Jenkins writes for the Times.
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