London is no longer an English city

[Leafyhouse]

Said by John Cleese (he of Monty Python fame), recently. Link to story is here:

www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48451384

What do other people think? I do see London's diversity as being its great strength, but maybe it's just because I live in the London bubble - and maybe the view from the rest of the country is utter horror that the capital seems to be becoming increasingly disconnected from the country. Both economically and culturally. Hence the Brexit vote - Remain in a sea of Leave.

What's the view from others?

The Tories have never bothered about anywhere outside London much, other than the Home Counties. But that’s Tories for you.

7.2m people live in the North West. 8.8 in London. I don’t understand why people in the North West are suffering from a chronic lack of investment.

I assume she was doing round figures and non year specific.

She also said 5 million for the Tate Modern and it was over 800,000 more in 2018.

700,000 or 800,000 people is really significant because presuming that the majority of visitors are not tourists that represents about 10% of the local population.

Liverpool and Manchester have museums, art galleries and theatres that are publically funded.

They are within an hour of you.

Yes. I know that.

They are struggling to stay open though because of cuts.

Actually the worst disparity is in theatres.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2014/jul/07/arts-council-funding-regional-theatre

7.2 million people in an area stretching from the Scottish border to the Welsh one.

Its not quite the same.

Wigan is about the same size as Enfield!

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7655/CBP-7655.pdf

London receives twice as much funding for theatres as the rest of the UK. I don’t know how you can all defend this?

Publically funded theatres in London are struggling too. The Tricycle at Kilburn for example.

Manchester and Liverpool are a bit bigger than Enfield

So Zipee The parliamentary research I have linked is wrong then?

No but you seem to have ignored the point about national organisation funding.

Oh and Liverpool isn't even twice the size of Enfield.

Geography would dictate that he's wrong! Immigration has always been a part of London, and indeed various other parts of the UK and it's a positive thing, you always want to be the place people are wanting to get to, never the place people are fleeing from.

Cleese is a little england idiot who isn't living here because he doesn't want to contribute any tax to the UK, I wonder if he is trying to ease his conscience by distancing himself - it's not really the place it once was so he really isn't a part of it anyway..?

As I said earlier the NW population is 7.2m. A lot of that population live within an hour of Manchester and Liverpool, as well as other cities (Lancaster, Preston, Chester). Why are their theatres in receipt of half the funding London theatres receive?

Because the national institutions are in London. You know the capital.

As said before your 7.2 million is spread over a huge distance in comparison to London.

Population of Enfield is 330,000. Population of Merseyside is 900,000.

Capital of England.

Population of Greater Manchester is 2.8m

Capital of the UK actually.

Population of North London 1.04 million.

Population of Greater London is 8.6 millom.

So more than twice that of Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

So now Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast are all irrelevant, as well as everyone in the North West, North East, Midlands....

You don’t get geography do you? When you look at Merseyside for example you have to factor in that West Lancs and Cheshire are very close to the border. There is easy access into Liverpool for millions of people. Same with Manchester. Lots of people who work there live in Glossop, Cheshire, Lancashire. You are dismissing literally millions of people with your weird logic.

No they are not the capital of the nation are they?

Not saying these areas aren't relevant but that they wouldn't sustain the same vistor numbers for national museums.