Another country | 14 April 2012

London’s separateness from the rest of Britain becomes more pronounced every year

London has always been different from the rest of the country. But in recent decades the differences have widened to the point that, economically and socially, the capital now has little in common with the rest of Britain. The city may be hosting the Olympics in July, but none of those attending should kid themselves that they have visited Britain. London has effectively left the UK; it belongs instead to a loose international federation of global cities united by their economic dynamism and cosmopolitanism and the people who flit between them.

This leads to a big problem: Londonitis. The politicians, civil servants and journalists who make up Britain’s governing class have had their world view shaped by living in the capital and its wealthy satellites. They run one country, but effectively live in another.

The priorities of the people they know are often different: London is the only part of the country where polls show that improving public transport is seen as more important than reducing fuel duty. The problems of Britain are often invisible to Londoners. Even during the debt-fuelled boom, we had around five million people on out-of-work benefits. But places like inner Rochdale, where 73 per cent are on benefits, were simply out of sight and out of mind for the Londonised political class, who live in the parts of the city where unemployment is zero.

People talk about politicians living in the ‘Westminster bubble’. But the real bubble is London itself. Unusually, all our elites overlap in one place. London is effectively New York, LA and Washington all rolled into one — the capital of finance, culture and politics.