Are Londoners more intelligent?

[tothinkofsomething]

My Dad made a big thing when we moved out of London ( Zone 6 type expensive green Commuter belt area). We moved into North Hampshire. He basically was saying that outside the magical barrier of the M25 that the level of education is a lot lower. My Dc are just at the start of their school journeys and I have nothing to compare to. But his thoughts were that if my DC was top of their class in Hampshire that would be lower than in London. I'm guessing this depends on area of London? Also our estate agent said we shouldn't move out as we would struggle to get back in.

What you want to ask yourself is, if Londoners are so intelligent why are they willing to mortgage themselves to the hilt to buy a poxy property (which would cost 1/5th of the price elsewhere) in a city where the air pollution is so bad you can actually see it? The only thing I am jealous of in London is the underground.

The air pollution here must knock off a few IQ points at least!

The replies on this thread are absolutely hilarious 😂😂😂

Seriously though, I absolutely hate people who think that London is some sort of magical utopia where everything is so much more important and any outsiders just wouldn't understand. It's ridiculous. I personally think you've got to be stone raving mad to live in London and pay more for absolutely everything, especially if you're in a job you can do from anywhere, just because you want to be in London.

@tothinkofsomething

I'm talking generally, general level of intelligence, obviously there are intelligent people living all over. Is there statistics on this ?

Is there?

Well, erm... What Gretna said!

Again, as others have pointed out, more intelligent than what? An amoeba? Chaka Khan?

But this 'brain drain' theory kind of implies the intelligent people were originally not from London, right?

Yes of course they are ,i really want to move to London and pay three times what I pay for a two bedroom house here up north for a single room in London .

As a northerner who has lived in London most of my life - I can’t believe you are even asking the question!
Maybe I don’t understand because I’m a thick northerner and 30 years of London intelligence hasn’t rubbed off on me...

As someone who lives up north I find it’s funny that people in london have a larger salary but more outgoings so less disposable income and say they are living the life....to me this will never seem intelligent when people can’t do basic maths.

Not sure on actual statistics, but there is some data in the paper. 1 whole point on the IQ scale isn’t a big deal and I like to think there is many different forms of IQ of than the standard IQ scale

@x2boys

Yes of course they are ,i really want to move to London and pay three times what I pay for a two bedroom house here up north for a single room in London .

And also become cleverer. Amazing idea!

Absolutely Londoners are brighter in every way and if you leave you will automatically lose 50% of your intellect. Absolutely no innovation has ever been undertaken in say Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh or the Midlands at all. Please do not think of leaving. You absolutely need to keep paying inflated house prices to live in tightly enclosed spaces with high pollution levels. Please do not think about moving outside...

I beat my London born cousin at chess once and I'm from Bristol so I dont think so

Im frum the north off Ingerland and I realy strugel with redding and rtiting

YABU to even ask this question.

It proves that Londoners are thick. HTH.

Yeah, Northerners can’t even read and write. We still work down the mines and send kids down chimneys.

Lodoners must be cleverer than the rest of us -how else would they be able to find a brass band whenever they make a film about anything north of Watford ?

This is fact.
Every clever person elsewhere in the country will be able to trace their ancestry to a connection with London somewhere.

Does the fact that I'm confused about how intelligent I'm supposed to be because I have lived half my life in London and the other half ooop Norf, have a northern accent and consider the north my home and where I chose to live, prove or disprove your dad's theory?

This is hilarious!
I think by posting that in the first place OP you have answered your own question - you sound simple! That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard

@sprockerdiles

I beat my London born cousin at chess once and I'm from Bristol so I dont think so

The best thread, can’t stop smiling. (I’m a thick northerner so that’s all I can do).

We are all pretty thick up here in Yorkshire but our clean air, beautiful scenery, good schools and cheap property is at least some compensation for our intellectual deficits

I live outside London and I am so clever I have managed to do a quick google search and found this. analytics.ofqual.gov.uk/apps/GCSE/County/

I was born in Bedfordshire but moved to London, does that mean my IQ increased soon as I started living within the magical M25 belt?

Whenever I go back home my family comment on my drooling so I guess that must be the case.

Might be a one way street on house prices unless you're happy to go from a 4 bed detached to a 2 bed flat a bit of a schlep from the tube. Until recently London prices have gone up quicker than commuter belt and further out. Might not continue given move towards WFH.

Schooling, I'm on the fence - the best London schools full of pushy parents are probably "better" academically than the average to good schools further out. If you can get into one of them you'll struggle to find an equivalent somewhere like Hampshire/Surrey where a number of the brighter kids with the pushy parents will go private. In Kent with the grammar system not so much. The "best" academic private day schools are in London - consistently top of the league tables eg St Paul's, Westminster, City of London.

In my old commuter town there were 4 decent sized private secondary schools with decent bursary availability - the local state schools' results suffered as a result. Conversely somewhere with good prestigious grammar schools (Stratford upon Avon) the private schools were seen as being for the "rich but thick" kids but there were lots of prep schools pushing the 11+

Oh, indeed.

There was a great to-do a few years ago when Oxford and Cambridge tried to compete for most intelligent city. As a result, the entire population of the UK was IQ tested and it was agreed that Londoners are definitely the most intelligent. If you want to move to London now, you must prove your high intelligence or they will not allow you to rent a flat. If you are stupid, you may commute to London but cannot live there.

English people are the most superior. Everyone knows that.

My IQ has gone down at least 20 points since I moved out of London. My kids are really thick.