The Merchant City's Market

On Saturday, my wife and I attended the open-air market in the Merchant City, getting out before the freakshow. It was lifestyle journalist heaven, elegant yet funky, English hardly spoken (and that which was far more Home Counties than West of Scotland), lashings of creative facial hair and not a single Burberry baseball cap in sight.

We had taken the bus into town, its journey taking us through Bridgeton and Dalmarnock. The disparity between the other-wordly high-end consumerism on display in the Merchant City and the civic neglect along the way along London Road and Dalmarnock Road was startling - the stretch of London Road between Bridgeton Cross and the Trongate looks as if it is returning to the forest.

This is perhaps a perfect exemplar of the model of government that Glasgow's authorities have followed since about 1980 - attract the tourists and shoppers, portray yourself as cosmopolitan (something of an uphill struggle in a city still so parochial and territorial that failing to come from 'my bit' can lead to injury), and above all else, for God's sake keep the locals away.

One wonders who has been best served by this. If the state of London Road is anything to go by, it hasn't been us.