Ill feeling towards London is only going to get worse
by Ben Rogers
London can't go on like this. With the latest city banking scandal dominating the headlines, it needs to do more to understand how the rest of the country views it, and it needs to do much more to demonstrate that it is going out of its way to ensure that the rest of the UK benefits from London’s standing as a world city.
The UK already has the greatest regional inequalities of any European country, and the city has long been viewed with deep misgivings through much of the country. Last month a Northern Labour MP told me that it was 'hard to over-estimate the resentment' his constituents feel towards the capital.
Everything suggests that public ill feeling towards London is only going to get worse. In the short term the Libor scandal is likely to confirm many people's dim view of the city, which many people outside the capital equate with it. The Olympics won't help matters either. The further you are from the capital, the more likely you are to say that the games have been a waste of money.
In the longer run, as a fascinating new McKinsey report argues, London is well positioned to retain its place as a leading global city, and will probably continue to pull ahead of the rest of the UK and much of Europe. Yes, other cities will grow and compete with London, but the metropolis is well positioned to benefit from the continued expansion of the world’s economy, with a billion people entering the ‘consuming class’, between now and 2025.
Of course you can argue, as last week's Economist London supplement does, that London is the best thing that that the UK has going for it - without it, the whole country would be poorer. But it just comes across as a boast.
The capital does almost nothing positive to demonstrate its commitment to the rest of the UK. It has an agency dedicated to selling itself to the rest of the world – London and Partners - but makes no effort to sell itself to the regions.
Once the Olympics are behind us, that has to change.
Kevin Lloyd
It is indeed telling but hardly surprising that the orientation of the powerful lobbies in the London is towards protecting the financial services sector and international economic integration; as the LSE have shown, any renaissance of London since the 1980s has been due to the shift to service sector industries, deregulation (particularly in respect of financial services) and integration with the international economy. To the extent that London bothers to sell itself to the rest of the UK it does so rather grudgingly by emphasising that it bankrolls spending elsewhere. It also offers employment to some slices of the UK population. But as far as I am aware no one knows precisely what the net trade is between London and the rest of the country in terms of goods and services nor the way that the interactions between the economies of the different regions and London work in detail (although Centre for Cities had a good go at making some estimates a few years back). In very broad terms, London offers a market for manufactured goods and exports financial and other services. It might be a good time for the Centre for London to consider doing some work, perhaps with the Centre for Cities, on just such an analysis particularly as the Government pushes City Deals and some associated powers for the major local and sub-regional economies. Of course, the regional apparatus that was supposed to take an interest in such matters is now discarded.
Paul Walker
It 'hard to over-estimate the resentment' of a northern MPs constituents. Indeed. Living in the north of England between a rejuvenated Scotland and a triumphalist capital increases this resentment further. Unlike Paris, another dominant capital, London is not geographically central to the country. And yet...
Firstly the games: London is the first city in the world to host the games three times, unlike Germany with Berlin and Munich, Australia with Melbourne and Sydney this country of ours could not offer the world another city. That may say positive things for London, but it rather makes the country look like an over large Luxembourg. There is a constant refrain that these games are for the entire nation and yet that seems to add up to womens football and a torch!
Secondly: this year has witnessed the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen. Street parties happened throughout the country but the big events were an enormous flotilla down the Thames and a pop concert outside Buckingham Palace. It rather looked as if we were celebrating the Queen of London.
Thirdly regional pay: The dominance of London and the South East has had dramatic effects on the local economy there. The Government response is to tell the rest of us that we may be paid less than that part of the country, which will further increase the divide.
The regional divide in Britain is now greater than that between the former west and east Germanys. That is probably the greatest factor which will lead to independence for Scotland and I would predict ten years later for Wales. Our Government is dominated by a party which is officialy known as the Conservative and Unionist Party. And yet that party is increasingly only representing a corner of the country which is likely to result in the very opposite of why it claims to exist.
Michael Edwards
Excellent. You could add that there is a heavy downside for London (Londoners) from this unbalanced development: the impoverishment of half the London population, the congestion, the commodification of everything... And even people on the right should realise how badly it affects the competitive position of London through the appalling rental costs of being here. We do need to develop this line of argument. Maybe you would like to join a seminar which Just Space is planning about alternatives for the London Economy. http://justspace2010.wordpress.com