BE L GRAVI A RE S I DE NT S J OURNA L 015

Z
acs politics arent of the variety made famous in
the BBCs The Thick of It which showed lofty and
ego-burdened MPs getting shafted by bitter and
parochial constituents. Instead he builds his vision up from
the roots of the neighbourhood. We live in a big city, and
cities are invariably places of alienation. The only way we
can guarantee immunity to the anonymity, the anomie, of
the high street, is by demonstrating that our shops here are
an extension of our community. He sees his role as being
the seal and symbol of a communal whole that wants to
support the independence of each of its parts.
Its a community spirit he wishes stretched further
than the boundaries of his constituency in Richmond
Park. I ask if he had the power to change just one thing
environmentally, what it would be. The oceans, he
replies without pausing. Our sheries have collapsed at
a catastrophic rate. One per cent of the worlds shing
eets account for more than 50 per cent of the worlds
catch. We are talking nets the size of the 02 arena here.
What seems to frustrate him most is that the solution
is simple. It would put very few noses out of joint,
politically, just to demarcate and protect some of our
giant overseas territories areas like the Pitcairn Islands,
or Ascension, South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Islands, for example and costs would be minimal.
Locally, he is more concerned about air quality,
especially with an election manifesto looming on the
horizon and the fact that his own party has not yet
come off the fence on whether Heathrow should be
expanded. If it went ahead you would nd there would
be 25million extra passenger journeys to Heathrow per
year. His eyes turn to the middle distance ruefully. And
thats not to mention the pollution coming from the
planes themselves.
The recent events in Scotland have us hitting
everything from the West Lothian question (I dont think
having English MPs voting on English issues should be
controversial) to devolution within the EU and parties
such as the Five Star Movement (I dont know enough
about them but it sounds like a party committed to
environmentalism and direct democracy, which can only
be a good thing).
Goldsmith had come to me after trying to secure
amendments to his Recall Bill (designed to make MPs
more accountable to their constituents) which, going to
press, Nick Clegg seems to have fudged, so I leave off
the sensitive subject for now, but he is keen to ag the
fact that If you look at recent British political history,
there have been four or ve great increases in the
franchise after a lot of prevarication and resistance. We
are overdue the next movement and I believe the crisis
of legitimacy in our current parliament is because we
have failed to lock our politicians into the people in any
meaningful manner. Elected in an open primary in 2010,
transparency is one of his watchwords.
Zacs ideas are remarkably judicious and consistent
in a political world that can most charitably be summed
up as dysfunctional. His ability to shift through lenses
from local to international and back again seamlessly,
with a vision that works in each, is no mean feat. The
Belgravia Residents Journal wishes him well as the
General Election looms.
Conversative MP Zac Goldsmith explains his vision
of what Britain could be to Henry Hopwood-Phillips
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Goldsmith
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