Why the UK Economy is Too Reliant on London

In this video, we’re going to take another look at the UK’s London problem, how it’s creating a sort of “jobs crisis”, and why this presents Labour with a difficult dilemma.

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[ecclesiaandune]

Reminder that this was due to to direct government suppression of other cities via legislature, Birmingham in particular had its industry stripped away, infrastructure and gov projects all centralised on London, this wasn’t an accident, it was policy

EDIT : Wrote the comment hastily on my lunch break - have a look at the West Midlands Plan of 1946. A quote from an article describing it. 'In 1946, the Government commissioned the West Midlands Plan, which attempted to constrain Birmingham’s growth – local government was obliged to achieve a target population of 990, 000, lower than its actual 1951 population of 1, 113, 000.'

'The Government wanted Birmingham to shrink.'

[Consistent-Nerd]

I'd like to move to a more affordable area but once you leave London you have less opportunities for work. This is a major issue in the UK. Glad this is being covered.

[Ikol]

What really is sad is I had this discussion with my dad 15 years ago. My dad used to complain that Blair moved a bunch of public services to the north and that the south east was paying for the rest of the country. I agreed and said that the government should make policies to encourage private industries to create jobs outside the south east, to which my dad said no one is interested in starting a company or investing in anywhere other than London so it would be pointless to try. This lead to a circular argument when I asked how could he expect the people in the north to do anything other than public sector work to which he would still complain the north were free loading. It is sad that I, someone who has never studied economics, could see the issue a decade ago yet our leaders either could not or allowed it to get worse.

[BlackDjin]

It's honestly so disappointing when you compare our regional "capitals* with similar EU ones - the complete lack of infrastructure connectivity of public transport is so lacking

[spacetime]

What is crazy is that people cant see that uplifting the rest of the UK is the best bang for buck investment, having rest of the UK being so far behind we should have relatively easy gains to be made, investing london more than we already do is wasteful because you don't gain as much as spending the equivalent in the rest of the country. Once we've leveled this somewhat we then have cities which can contribute well to each other.

[SaintGerbilUK]

The problem is that even large infrastructure projects like HS2 which was designed to connect the north started by connecting London to the north and then abandoned (for now) providing no benefit to the north and only benefits London.

The same was true of Cross-Rail connecting the south west to London instead better connects east London to west London, with most outside of London improvements abandoned.

[johnburrows]

The sign of a weak economy, lack of geographical wealth distribution. This is a feature of third world countries

[potatohead]

If I have a pound every time I hear someone say UK is too reliant on London. I'll have enough to live in London comfortably

[davidh]

I work in the academic sector and I have essentially been forced to work for a uni in the south east. There just isn't any money elsewhere. The majority of funding is in what gets called "the golden triangle" of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. I'm from up north and am managing to get away with working remotely. Other than just not wanting to live in the south east, I also just don't want to contribute to the regional inequality. Even if it is only my wage, which isn't much in the grant scheme of things, at least I'm funnelling a bit of that south east money back up here.

It's grim up north.

[owensilvant]

This is why the cancelation of phase 2 of hs2 is so annoying, improving transport links between cities, particularly London would go a long way to spread that wealth out.

[brownstone]

The problem is that there's too many industries in London. In the USA, government is based in Washington, banking is in New York, tech is in Silicon Valley, the party capital is Miami, the film industry is in Hollywood, etc. But in the UK all of those industries are based in the capital.

Also, with each American state being running semi-independently from government, they're able to set their own regional laws & taxes. If Yorkshire had the power to set the lowest income tax in the UK, people would move there in the same way that Americans are flocking to Texas due to it's low taxes. Or if the Midlands had the lowest corporation tax, businesses would relocate there from London. Can you imagine how many people would move to Wales if they could set the lowest stamp duty on homes?

The UK tech industry should have been set up in one of the old seaside towns, like Skegness, Great Yarmouth, Hastings, etc as a way of reviving their local economies. Silicon Beach sounds way more appealing than the awfully named silicon roundabout in east London.

Alas, the UK will never have a forward thinking leader willing to implement the changes necessary to reduce the UK's reliance on London.

[Leshaun]

It's SO hard to get a job here (outside of London). It's mainly care home, factory work, or teaching assistant and for minimum wage. It's making me want to relocate outside of the UK

[devanman]

They completely stripped the other cities of everything they had. Birmingham in particular was a powerhouse once

[maxresdefault_]

Living in the Southwest can be frustrating at times. Sure, lots of people live in the Southeast and the North does need investment, but Cornwall is among the most deprived regions in Western Europe

[EnzoRandomBK]

Worst part is that the Londoners with higher pays move to Bristol or Manchester working remotely, inflating housing prices and further fucking the situation up.

[СовиныйТеоретик]

As a Russian, we have the same problem with Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. Putin has built hypercentralized model, where all key decisions are passed in the Kremlin. Moscow has a quality of life like in the West, meanwhile, the rest of the country looks like Latin America or Africa. We definitely need more powerful local and regional governments to make them compete against each other for investments and development.

[hellomynametoby]

Worst part of this personally is being in a low-income household in the South East, you're essentially stuck with no opportunity to leave due to financial limitations of outgoing costs for your area, as well as massive competition for any job openings.

[roguebanana]

I remember when they spent billions on facilities for London 2012, stating that everyone would benefit from their use after the games. I live in Aberdeen mate, cant just nip round when I have a free afternoon

[Pedanta]

0:12
North easy

I didn't know we had an easy mode, I need to adjust my settings

[Tommyleini]

Why did TLDR News move their headquarters from Loughborough to London? Would love if you had included that.