London - on the way out?

lostinrates

adr0ck wrote: »

i predict that London house prices will collapse when it starts flooding regularly in 20 - 30 years time........thats what lovelock thinks anyway

Yes, thats when out Vile Jelly will be forced to move.

oldagetraveller

If anyone remembers those old BSM advertising posters where the UK was depicted as a person driving a car it was self evident that the River Thames is the back passage of the country and London is 50 miles up it!:D

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

My belief is that the worst hit regions will be NE England, ex-mining Wales, ex-industrial Scotland, London and SE England. Quite possibly in that order.

The first three because of their massive reliance on Government spending which I feel will come under pressure. The last 2 because of the collapse in finance industries.

There's a map from the CEBR showing regional distribution of public spend as a % of GDP on the BBC website at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/06/map_of_the_week_public_spendin.html

It's a little bit old now, but the distribution still stands even if the numbers may have changed a bit. Lots of regions hit by structural change supported by government jobs. N Ireland is an interesting case too.

Sir_Humphrey

A couple of years ago, I remember arrogant City-types writing stupid articles about how London bankrolled the rest of the UK, or should split off to become a city state.

It is a cliche, but Hubris really has been followed by Nemesis.

chewmylegoff

!!!!!!? wrote: »

From the FT:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/166e9400-f873-11dd-aae8-000077b07658.html

Definitely, London benefited massively from the boom. Will be interesting to see how it fares in the bust, logic would dictate that it will be hit harder than most places ....

i'm glad to receive sage economic advice from dominic rosso-gill, with 18 months as a junior analyst / sandwich collector, he's definately qualified to be giving such opinions.

we'll see what happens, i personally think london will lose a lot more jobs - especially people like dominic rosso-gill. they'll all just sod off to where they came from, and stop clogging up the tube. a few corney and barrows will close as a result.

if the financial services go forever then the whole country is screwed - not just london. i personally think it will just be like the previous couple of recessions, in that once we're on the other side, the city will pick up again. the factors that have lead to it being a financial centre will still be in place in the future. the banks are still going to be hugely profitable going forwards.

chewmylegoff

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

A couple of years ago, I remember arrogant City-types writing stupid articles about how London bankrolled the rest of the UK, or should split off to become a city state.

It is a cliche, but Hubris really has been followed by Nemesis.

if we can just move the rest of the civil service to manchester then the plan will be complete.

Generali

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

A couple of years ago, I remember arrogant City-types writing stupid articles about how London bankrolled the rest of the UK, or should split off to become a city state.

It is a cliche, but Hubris really has been followed by Nemesis.

According to The Times, Ken Livingstone and the London Conservative Party, London pays GBP20,000,000,000 more in taxes than it receives in Government spending. Finance is a huge employer in London. Where do you think that 20 billion was coming from if not the Square Mile?

Sir_Humphrey

Generali wrote: »

According to The Times, Ken Livingstone and the London Conservative Party, London pays GBP20,000,000,000 more in taxes than it receives in Government spending. Finance is a huge employer in London. Where do you think that 20 billion was coming from if not the Square Mile?

I doubt those figures are quite so positive now, which is my point.

Re Civil Service, the large majority of civil servants already work outside London, and most non-Ministerial departments have already or are about to be moved outside of London. It tends to be the higher level work that remains in London, with operational stuff like HR moved outside London (usually to somewhere with high unemployment).

To illustrate, one of largest Depts in headcount is the DWP. Naturally, most of the staff live outside London as they work in Jobcentres and the suchlike.

mitchaa

kennyboy66 wrote: »

Scotland to me seems to have the worst of all worlds - a large public sector, a large financial services sector (that Gordon Brown won't be able to protect for ever) and the Barnett formula which (should) dictate that as public spending falls the effects should be more magnified in Scotland than England.

Identifiable spending on public services in Scotland is £1500 higher per person per year than in England

Have we forgotten affordability index here

Prices never rose out of control in Scotland in the boom times, so bearing that in mind, the less they rose, the less they fall;)

Which is evident already, as Scotland as a whole is bucking the trend of the market and is nowhere near the 18% down that the country as a whole is claiming to be.

Scottish employment is also good at 6.95% of total unemployment

UK unemployment rate is at 1.97m
Scotlands unemployment rate is at 137,000

Take into account the 5.2m and the 60m population, Scotland accounts for 8.7%

So taking that into consideration, there are more unemployed and in receipt of state benefits south of that border line.

I wish people would stop whinging about this barnett formula, i will not mention oil and gas revenue that Westminster seems to fail to take into consideration:p

Lets not turn this into a We England support you Scotland thread:rolleyes:

michaels

Are we talking Reykjavik on Thames?