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?

Where is your evidence to back up your claim that ‘the idea that London absorbs all the funding at the expense of other regions is false’? I am really interested to see it.

And just to illustrate the problem the whole of West and South West London is without water this morning because a main has burst.

As to the idea that policing is better, the whole of London is currently vulnerable to moped gangs who are taking advantage of the lack of police on the ground to go into affluent areas and commercial areas and ram into restaurants, shops and individuals to steal their phones, laptops etc Even government departments are warning employees to take off their lanyards and conceal all valuables when they leave the building and a neighbour and her children were rammed when sitting outside a cafe. So no policing is not better in affluent parts of London....

Really? A pipe has burst and there are moped gangs in Kensington. That’s your evidence?

Where is the evidence?

That London is a net tax contributor of course, it pays more in tax than it gets in funding.

"the privileged around you pay high council tax are vocal in their local demands."

Yes that really worked in Kensington and Chelsea, the wealthy got a tax rebate. The poor burned to death in Grenfell for lack of a sprinkler system ( due to council cuts).

The idea that London absorbs all the funding at the expense of other areas is false. There is not enough regional investment

London does produce a disproportionate amount of wealth for the country though. In 2016 about £408 billion (over 22% of UK GDP). By contrast our EU membership fee is 0.7% of GDP.
The wider London metropolitan area generates 30 per cent of the UK's GDP.

That's not to say personal wealth is equally distributed though:

•The bottom 10% of households in London have negative wealth, meaning their liabilities outweigh their assets.
• The bottom 20% of households in London own only 0.1% of London’s total wealth.
•The bottom 50% combined own only 5.3% of total wealth in London.
•In contrast, the top 10% of households own over half of London’s wealth at 52%. •The top 20% own 70% of London’s wealth.

www.trustforlondon.org.uk/data/wealth-distribution/

No it is just anecdote! and cross posted at that! I am glad you now agree with me that deprivation and the effects of austerity have affected us all badly and that the real issue is that areas like Wigan have been deprived of economic opportunity.

The problem with investment disparity is not with public spending, that is broadly similar, it is private investment. The governments economic strategy focusing on services created in London a hoover for private investment, not just in the service industries but in property and other areas too.

The massive amounts of money flowing into property has done little to benefit ordinary Londoners, foreign companies are building luxury properties for overseas buyers, cash strapped local authorities are selling up public housing for profit and forcing ordinary Londoners in traditional working class areas like Tower Hamlets to move out of London, often hundreds of miles away. Copper says people should not be forced to move away from their communities but that is happening now....

This is the picture on public expenditure - the north west are not actually far behind London, it is the north east and south east who do worst researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04033

lonelyplanetmum the wealth generated in London is not disputed. London has city traders doing whatever they do to make the rich richer. Other areas of the UK cannot compete with the SE because of a chronic lack of funding (infrastructure etc) over decades. These areas, already on their knees have had their council budgets cut, disproportionately to other areas of the UK. That’s my problem.

Emilyontmoor The report you have linked says that public spending is 10% higher in London than the average public spending in the rest of the UK. I think that kind of proves my point.

What infrastructure do you want?

Mass public transport?

No where has the population density of London to justify it, and it would have to be heavily subsidised, none of the actualy infrastructure of the tube or over ground is!

Even Cross Rail is being paid for in the vast majority by increases to London business rates, TFL investment, and some investment from the Government. It will be breaking even in 4 years after it becomes operational!

But it also shows that public spending in London is only 5% per head above that of the North West. Which is very low considering the North West's much lower living costs.

howwudu Where is your evidence that Councils in the north have had their budgets cut disproportionately? All Councils have had their budgets cut to the bone and are struggling to fund even the essentials like special needs education and social care. All state schools are now at the stage where cuts are affecting the chances of their pupils. This is a national issue not a north versus south one.

I am in London and it certainly does not feel like an English city.
Well that’s very odd because I’ve lived here all my life and it feels quintessentially English.
Not everyone is English though, or white, if that is what you mean by ‘English’, which is one of the things I love about it.

Tatiana, I came on to ask Copper to define what they mean by 'English' but I think you've nailed it. It's the Cleese definition.

In absolute terms the North West is only 5% behind London and actually ahead of the South East. I don’t regard that as a yawning disparity. Certainly compared to the massive disparity in private investment which is the big issue and entirely the result of the governments economic policy, or since Thatcher, lack of it.

I don’t particularly like what Thatcher did to the country but you have to give it to her, she had a plan, and one that actually worked spectacularly well for the affluent in London. Since then successive governments just coasted with it, enjoying the tax revenues and doing nothing to help the rest of the country catch up.

All Councils have had their budgets cut to the bone and are struggling to fund even the essentials like special needs education and social care. All state schools are now at the stage where cuts are affecting the chances of their pupils. This is a national issue not a north versus south one.

I don't know what is gained by debating if Northern local authorities are worse than Southern ones? Surely the point is that neither have enough?

The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. More wealthy people live in London and the South East but that does not mean public services are better.

I know of schools in London and Eastbourne where TA's have been reduced or removed entirely. In one school IT sessions were ditched as a luxury. In another the head arranged some classes to be taught in the school hall to three classes (90 kids) to reduce staff costs. Another where parents have been surveyed on possibilities of contributing financially, or reducing to a 4 day week. Another where the head was donating her own increment for supervising another school
back into the school budget.

The fifth richest country in the world could have managed this differently - it's absolutely nothing to do with the EU. It's to do with successive governments and their priorities. There are still too many people who think that Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson are the people to rectify this inequity.

Poverty needs addressing everywhere -north and south

www.trustforlondon.org.uk/data/poverty-across-london/

But there were things for the rest of the country to catch up!

During the Labour government regional development spending increased in a large way. Its been cut since 2010.

As I said before, a lot of the problems are caused by people not understanding the size of London.

Take public transport, there are 1.35 billion passenger journeys a year.

Seven Sisters station which has one overground line and one underground line has more journeys starting and ending at it than Manchester Piccadilly which has far more destinations and is a local hub.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-46988310

Urban areas in the north have suffered cuts of 20% compared to 9% in the SE.

I could present all the facts in the world. The Thatcherites on this thread won’t ever believe me. Their only argument seems to be that ‘we’re bigger’...

Zipee I t was pissing in the wind though wasn’t it? Tinkering at the edges. All the while London was mushrooming exponentially and drawing up ever more of the economic activity. Just look at the problems affecting Cambridge and Oxford as well as London now. In the face of no government management of infrastructure science and tech firms have been attracted there but there has been no corresponding development of transport or housing. Employees face brutal rents and in Oxford and Cambridge’s case served by little more than farm tracks. All it would have taken is some proactive investment to attract them north....... and now we are going to actually kill off the fatted calf completely by starving those industries of the EU networks and international movement of people and knowledge they need.

I agree that austerity is not a north / south issue but the way in which London and the South East was allowed to run away from the rest of the country economically is. That is the root of the resentment that Farage is exploiting.

{Seven Sisters station which has one overground line and one underground line has more journeys starting and ending at it than Manchester Piccadilly which has far more destinations and is a local hub.}

Equating an inter city station (Manchester Piccadilly) with Seven Sisters where most of the journeys are local and represent an area that is not covered by Manchester Piccadilly.
There is also a danger of using the North West figures which include Cheshire which has many ridiculously expensive areas, with Bootle, Toxteth and Moss side at the 'cheap' end, and comparing them with other areas in the UK.

Howwudu from your link - London came 18th out of 62 cities studied for the percentage drop in funding. The article actually highlights that with cuts of nearly £600 per head it has suffered greater cuts than the average of nearly £400. Even our —obnoxious— Tory grandee former local Council Leader can be heard admitting the Council cuts have gone too far in London as he pontificates in the Lords.

In fact in the last round of cuts some formula was found which disproportionately took money away from London authorities and directed it to Councils outside London. I will google the details.

" The Thatcherites on this thread won’t ever believe me. "

Definitely not a Thatcherite.

We are bigger, and more concentrated, and pay more in tax than is spent in the city. This brings benefits and costs.

. "All it would have taken is some proactive investment to attract them north"

Newcastle has a thriving Phrama industry, there are tech hubs in Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds. Liverpool has had major investment from the financial services sector, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester all have significant public agencies offices/Government departments in them. Manchester has the BBC and Granada, Liverpool has its Knowledge Quarter.

There has been lots of investment, it ain't just tinkering at the edges.

You talk like a Thatcherite Zipee.

I used seven sisters to make a point.

The busiest station in the North West has fewer journeys starting and ending at it than one local station in London that has two lines.

I could have been less generous and compared it to Highbury and Islington which with Overground and Underground has twice the number of journeys starting and ending at it than Manchester Piccadilly.

Want another comparison? Highbury and Islington has more journeys starting and ending at it than are completed on the entire Manchester Metrolink system.

"You talk like a Thatcherite Zipee."

Nope, ad hom fail.

I keep trying to tell you that your ideas about fairness are incorrect is all, you have a victim mentality.