If I Ruled London by Tara Palmer-Tomkinson

Novelist, former columnist, TV presenter, charity patron and socialite, she would have won the very first I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! if it hadn’t been for Tony Blackburn. She once replaced Victoria Beckham as the face of Walkers Crisps and there’s a waxwork of her at Madame Tussauds, but one thing she hasn’t tackled yet is politics. So we asked Tara how she would run London if she was in charge…

“If I was given several million pounds to build something for London, I would love there to be an icon like the Eiffel Tower, but I would prefer to dream of a man like Mr. Eiffel sweeping me off my feet and building it for me, not for money but for love.

I would persuade more tourists to visit by taking the best bits from Danny Boyle’s opening and closing ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics and playing them on every airplane in the world. There would be no need to describe anything then as tourists could see for themselves; those ceremonies were so well done and really showed the best bits of British heritage.

I would put one of the Queen’s corgis on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square, definitely.

Every single Londoner should be entitled to a parking space outside or beneath their home for free.

I would ban litter in all its forms. I just can’t stand it and we are really put to shame by countries such as Singapore where the streets are spotless.

If I could start an awards ceremony, it would be for the people who make London work. By this I mean the people whose jobs involve what many consider to be menial work, but I really don’t agree with this term because we would be lost without them. I’d definitely give awards to the people who clean our streets at night for minimum wage to make sure they know how appreciated they are. Without them we would be living in chaos.

I think we should all be more passionate about protecting ourselves from flu and airborne diseases. I would even go as far as to say that we should start wearing masks like many Asian countries, as they really do make a huge difference.”


Tara is a patron of Speur-Ghlan, a charity that uses music and play to treat autism in children. Find out more here.