Yesterday was a sad day for London. After it seemed as if Michael Gove might have half a spine when it comes to big new developments in London, he signed the approval for the so-called Slab, the biggest of them all. I suppose he is thinking of the forthcoming election and all those developers and city financiers who will have to bankroll their campaign. He will have been lent on by a host of lobbyists. At every fundraising dinner, party donors will have sidled up to him and made clear that they expected to be able to count on his support. So, I hope with a quivering hand, he will have signed the approval for the biggest development of them all – a set of towers which will overwhelm not just the local neighbourhood and the National Theatre, but will change the relationships of scale in buildings between the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s and including especially Somerset House on the other side of the river. It will be too big, full of offices which may no longer be needed. But Gove will be long gone. Gove Towers. It will be a monument to the end of effective planning controls.