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?

One thing I can't undestand is that London, despite being a melting pot of cultures, is one of the least tolerant places in the UK for LGBT individuals:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/londoners-less-tolerant-of-gay-or-transgender-children-polls-reveals-10119183.html

So he was just pointing out that London is multicultural? No negative connotations to his tweet whatsoever? Get real.

Too many definitions one here. I'm White, British, English even, only home I've ever known is London. But I wasn't born here, god I must be foreign. I'd better start speaking the language of my birth place - shit, it's English. I've let everyone down.

I think it's bollocks tbh.

I was born and raised in London and still go there regularly for work.

When I was growing up in Ealing, five decades ago, the big immigrant community in the primary school I attended was Polish.

At my secondary school in Wood Green about half the year group was from the Indian subcontinent.

When I was at university in the early eighties I lived in north London, first in Stoke Newington (very mixed community with notably a lot of Hasidic Jews) then in South Tottenham (large Greek and Turkish Cypriot community).

Most of these communities had been in London since John Cleese was a young man. So I am not sure what he means by "no longer".

Maybe he means that there is a lot more Russian and Middle Eastern oligarch money sloshing around in the London property market?

Actually he doesn't mean that at all. He's just an old racist, dog-whistling, like a number of people on this thread.

I think PP was just quoting the census finding for 2011 that 45% of residents of Greater London are "White British".

That doesn't mean much as people who are English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish would often tick white other as they identify as their home country nationality and not British.

The assumption that English links with white is depressing.

I have numerous English friends, many of whom are not white. Many of my Scottish friends aren't white either.

Come on, is this honestly still what people believe? In 2019?

Wow.

Less than half the London population is white British (45%) so he’s right.

I didn't realise 'non white' British people weren't British? Well, every day's a school day on Mumsnet...

England has always been a nation of immigrants and a melting pot for different cultures, so London does very much represent England in this way. London has its problems, as does anywhere, but I love living here and I love having friends of different ethnicities. His comments are odd and I don’t really understand his point.

Less than half the London population is white British (45%) so he’s right

Nope.
worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/london-population/

He's wrong in every possible way.

That sort of man normally is.

London is a city in England.
The Romans expanded it from what I presume was a settlement/river crossing so for over 2000 years it has been a mixed community.
No one is a 'pure' race from ancient times and it is questionable who and where the oldest 'Brits' are in the UK. I thought they had been chased into what is now Wales but probably incorrect.
As the Romans inhabited most of Britain from about 2000 years ago and Romans themselves were a mix of races, the whole thing is rather questionable.
Is JC trying to sell a new book?

Romanes eunt domus

Oh sorry it’s:

Romani ite domum

@Manclife1 Is a non-white person who was born in England not "English"? What about a white Scottish person? I think you are confused.

You wrote Hence the Brexit vote, Remain in a sea of leave.... What about Scotland?

the rest of England, which Londoners so disdainfully refer to as “the provinces”.

Londoner here, not sure I’ve ever spoken the word provinces! I do very much value London’s multiculturalism, and find it harder and harder to understand viewpoints in wider Britain.

London is a city in England???

I've never thought of that, to me London is a UK city

This little England mentality is the reason why we have brexit in the first place

What is unEnglish about London, for all those who agree?

I live in London. I've never called the rest of the country "the provinces". I own a small coffee shop. Everyone who works there at the moment is English.

What would be different about London if it were properly English, for those who think it isn't?

The casual racism here is nauseating.
London is and always will be English. Its diversity is just as much an aspect of Englishness as the homogeneity of the small town near where I live. Both have value and both count.
No one owns Englishness. It evolves. It would hardly be healthy if it didn’t.

Of course it's English, it's the largest city in the UK and is in England.
It has big Ben, houses of Parliament and a thousand other traditionally English things.

Some absolutely appalling comments here -sounds like a few of you could do with living in London for a few years.

I was raised in Manchester then moved to a small seaside town in the south, then as an adult lived in Birmingham and London. I’d take a multicultural city over a racist backwater any day.

As for this:
“Call bullshit all you like. Every person who served us in a shop, restaurant or the hotel where we were staying did not have English as their first language. It was like going abroad. She was 4.”

1. Every person who served you didn’t have English as their first language? Bollocks. Or are you just assuming this based on their skin colour? Even then I find it impossible to believe that during several days in London you weren’t “served” (🙄) by one obvious Brit.

2. Pretty sure they weren’t expecting you to converse in Farsi or Afrikaans or Swedish were they?

I was in pret in Chichester the other day and all the staff there were foreign too.
I think if you tried to tell the good people of Chichester their town was not English you’d have a fight on your hands.

Two threads on this?

I live in central London, and I find some of the racist views that have been expressed on this thread disgusting and ignorant. I'm glad I don't live next door to some of you.

Does he have a book coming out?

Also, just because accents aren't usually cockney any more, doesn't mean they aren't English. Accents change with time and there is a very distinct London youth accent. Influenced by many other languages but still "English" because it's only spoken in England.

{London is a city in England???}
Is a correct statement.
It is a city and it is in England.
Cardiff is a city in Wales, Edinburgh in Scotland and Belfast in Northern Ireland.
London is ALSO the 'capital' of the UK, in that Westminster is the seat of much of the governance of the UK and NI.