London vs the rest of the UK, current situation…

For those on here who spend time in London and around the rest of the country regularly, does it feel like London is carrying on as normal economically, and compared to the rest of the country it’s thriving? Or is that a myth?

I moved out of London to the North West last August and thinking about moving back, partly because I lost my job and I’m getting the feeling there’s more work in London than around here…

London sucks. The rest of the country is much nicer.

HTH

Here we go again. Cue all manner of chippy Northern monkeys banging on about how terrible London is, ad nauseam.

Londons booming!

I’m getting the feeling there’s more work in London than around here

Unless you work in a few select industries that is always the case.

What’s London?

I read somewhere (probably daily mail) that a large portion of London council tax is distributed up North.

The Government of the day will always implement economic policies which favour the SE and London. Therefore, I’d expect the impact of any “recession” to be felt less there and for that area to recover quickest.

I live in Hampshire, which seems to be doing pretty well recently. I’m sure I heard unemployment was actually dropping slightly round here recently. Can’t remember the facts. House prices are stable or possibly climbing a tad too I think

The rest of the country is much nicer.

You obviously haven’t gotten around much if you think the est of country is much nicer. Many areas on curtain metrics are “nicer” than London but the entire country? You must be mad.

Have a look at which councils the Gov hit with the biggest cut backs and those that it hit with the least.

I knew this would turn into a North/South STW-special!

been sunny down here for the last 6 weeks too!

Have a look at which councils the Gov hit with the biggest cut backs and those that it hit with the least.

Biggest cuts = Liverpool, Birmingham, and Hackney
Least cuts = Dorset, Westminster and Chelsea

Make of that what you will

curtain metrics

do the windows in the poor areas not have curtains – or do they sell them down south when times get rough?

Make of that what you will

Dorset, Westminster and Chelsea don’t waste as much money and are more efficiently run and therefore need less cuts, perhaps….

London seems to be doing ok. All of my family and friends who work up there are doing ok and safe in their jobs. It’s hard to generalise though with a mega city that has more people living in it than Scotland.

Deary me flashy, I think you’ll find that regional bureaucracy and wasteage runs through local government per say. I’d save your political points scoring for a real issue. Like the environment, or the NHS, or the privatisation of the forests…. 😉

Dorset, Westminster and Chelsea don’t waste as much money and are more efficiently run and therefore need less cuts, perhaps….

I suspect that’s exactly it Flashy. Nothing to do with which way their populace vote at all. In the latest weeze from Dave and chums, They’ll soon be allowed to keep all their business taxes soon too, greatly increasing the already massive funding gap. Again, not at all a case of the Tories looking after their own, to the total exclusion of everyone else, at all 🙄

Biggest cuts = Liverpool, Birmingham, and Hackney
Least cuts = Dorset, Westminster and Chelsea

Make of that what you will

Thought Manchester was one of the biggest cut areas too.

I’d imagine the situation is worse up here, as local govt traditionally employs a bigger proportion of people, and that’s being hit hard. I’d still rather live up here though thanks, money isn’t everything.

Very hard to generalise I’d imagine – I suspect people’s perceptions are going to be more skewed by what people and their friends/ family are seeing and doing, rather than real local or regional trends which are quite subtle in the great scheme of things.

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Here we go again. Cue all manner of chippy Northern monkeys banging on about how terrible London is, ad nauseam.

Attitude like this is a large part of why we dislike London. Chippy? You’re not important enough to designate anyone as chippy. If you were, and did so, you’d still be a poor excuse for a gentleman.

From a Northern monkey in That London.

Leaving aside the aspects of life that you didn’t ask about.

London appears to relatively unaffected by the economic downturn. I visited friends in Sheffield and Cornwall recently and both areas appeared to have been hit far, far worse. Put it this way it’s easy to forget that there is a problem at all in London.

If you were, and did so, you’d still be a poor excuse for a gentleman.

And that is a direct hit

🙂

northern monkey living and working in Central London
there is a distinct feeling that we’re protected here in London, but that might be the lack of media reporting on things outside of the M25 which I just assume is doom and gloom, but the reality may be different.
the company I work for is doing ok, there were job cuts a couple of years ago, about 5%, which mainly went through attrition/ stop on new hires, so nothing major.
property prices have gone up where I live – at seemingly similar rates to 2007/8 – but that may have been down to a wise choice 8)
job availability seems to mainly be in banking, but then I do work in the city

+1 duntmatter

Another Northern monkey living in the South – CFH keep your Northernist comments to yourself!

Interesting how a significant part of the debt was used to shore up the financial institutions based in the Square Mile.

Anyway back to the OP – I would imagine that there are many more job possibilities in London and the South East – about a third of England’s population live there and like it or not its where most investment has taken place and probably will take place in the near future. Again it largely depends on the sector you work in and what you do.

I’d still rather live up here though thanks, money isn’t everything.

Here, here I couldn’t agree more.

brooess – I know that you’ve really enjoyed your time up here. Is It worth staying and go job hunting a little further a field?

Much of the London economy is driven by the city – which has bounced back very quickly from recession – and money/tourism from abroad – which given the exchange rate – is doing well too.

It’s certainly a bubble from the rest of the UK.

It’s all the antipedeons(sp?) working in bars that keeps London afloat.

That and the M25 is a huge financial tractor beam.

Bunnyhop – Member
I’d still rather live up here though thanks, money isn’t everything.
Here, here I couldn’t agree more.
brooess – I know that you’ve really enjoyed your time up here. Is It worth staying and go job hunting a little further a field?

If I could I’d live in Manchester and London (and Pembrokeshire) all at the same time, they’re all ace in their own way. Northern quality of life IMO is calmer and more friendly. There’s the small matter that most of my friends are in London, and there’s less drizzle. Drizzle = inside, sunshine = out riding.
And a much better chance of a the kind of work I do and therefore an income in That London…

My view is that much of the private sector is turning a corner, while the public sector is in a pretty parlous state and will be for another 3 years.

It may be hubris, but there is a certain reassuring permanence about the heart of London although it can feel detached from the rest of the country. During the worst of the meltdown you’d be hard pushed to spot any tangible differences, at least superficially.

However, whilst some in the City may have said ‘crisis, what crisis?’ this is certainly not true for all. I heard some pretty rough tales of people being laid off from grad schemes one day into the job along with a significant amount of redundancies across industries.

Things do seem to have changed recently though and my soliciting and banking friends certainly have no current cause for concern. The major consultancies are also doing well with a desperate public sector to prey on.

Construction also looks to be okay. Even in a recession it’s good to see a decent number of cranes about and buildings like the Shard coming on a pace. Perhaps press coverage is excessively sanguine – I read recently that the City will be looking to fill 11,000 jobs over the next two years – but I’m a glass half full kind of person. 🙂

Much of the London economy is driven by the city – which has bounced back very quickly from recession

Yeah funny that, I wonder why?

Things do seem to have changed recently though and my soliciting and banking friends certainly have no current cause for concern. The major consultancies are also doing well with a desperate public sector to prey on.

Great! 😐

Tbf it does rain a LOT in Manchester.

Dorset, Westminster and Chelsea don’t waste as much money and are more efficiently run and therefore need less cuts, perhaps….

Stop talking like a c*nt flasheart. It’s obvious that the councils that are getting bigger cuts are the ones with a much higher percentage of poor and thus a bigger requirement for council services.

Westminster tried to ship its oiks out a few years back. Westminster, Chelsea, Holland park and the surrounding areas are doing very well, since these areas are awash with middle eastern money brought here by individuals who “felt the need” to be somewhere else with someone else’s money while their countries regimes are being toppled by their own country’s oiks.

Some properties are going for many tens of millions in these area at the moment. As you can imagine these sort of people won’t be using the full range of council services available.

Attitude like this is a large part of why we dislike London. Chippy? You’re not important enough to designate anyone as chippy. If you were, and did so, you’d still be a poor excuse for a gentleman.

And that is a direct hit

I’d say so. Can Flashy recover from such a body blow, I wonder?

Not if he posts nonsense like this he won’t:

Dorset, Westminster and Chelsea don’t waste as much money and are more efficiently run and therefore need less cuts, perhaps….

Because of course you are such an expert on the social and economic problems suffered by many people in places such as Liverpool, Birmingham and Hackney, aren’t you Flashy?

That’s as naive and ignorant a thing as I’ve ever read you’ve said on here…

Well, as a Northerner of sorts(from Cheshire) and having lived in London Village for the past two years, there is a difference.

There are certainly differences between the two areas, house prices are about the only real difference I can see on that front – the rest of the cost of living is pretty much the same.

There are a fair few pubs closing down once you get out of the village center, but the middle doesn’t seem to have really been affected that much.

There are more jobs in my industry, but thats hardly surprising considering it’s construction of the rail variety. Certainly more permanent jobs as opposed to relatively short term contracts – which is pretty much all thats been on the Radar in the North West for the past 12 months or so.

You’re not important enough to designate anyone as chippy.

When did I say I was? Merely my opinion that such threads tend to descend in to the normal chippiness of many Northerners who resent London. Many, not all, thankfully. Having lived in all manner of places, thankfully the vast majority in any place are welcoming decent folk. There do, in my opinion, seem to be a fair number who get very vociferous with their anti-London bile, which is what tends to manifest on these threads. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Westminster tried to ship its oiks out a few years back.

I live in Westminster. It has many of what you term “oiks”. I call them Londoners. I call them neighbours. I like it here. Oh, and if you have to resort to calling me a c**t, I’d say you’d lost already.

living in London alot of us thought London would suffer most cos it was a financial recession and not manufacturing like in 1980s but its turned out the opposite. Financial services seem to have bounced back silly quick and tourists have kept the west end hotels, shops and restaurants going really well the whole time due to the weak pound. Despite being wildly overpriced by most common sense yardsticks the house mkt here has not fallen and with low interest rates we all seem to be OK. Pubs are rammed! Rightly or wrongly London benefits from its internationalism. Even the crap stuff in Greece and middle east has helped in an odd way by diverting money over here where it is supposedly safe.

its pretty crap for graduates though. some lawyers are struggling. some builders are struggling. Overall we have been lucky for sure.

It’s no use flashpants, that armour piercing shell from duntmatter has set fire to your engine room

You are listing heavily, make for port.

I live in Bournemouth (in “efficient” Dorset) but spend a few days a month in that London. On recent visits I’d say that there seems to be more energy about the place then back home. In my industry there is a better choice of jobs in London and the world appears much less recession weary. Thriving not the right word, but bouncing back is perhaps right.

However, in the worst of the credit crisis, London felt much much more depressing and the cuts were certainly deeper there. [Again, in our industry, and just from my perspective, before someone pipes up with an axe to grind.] Whole offices with half or more of the desks cleared out.

I note that only a few of the posts above are actually from those able to answer the original question. From my perspective London is now thriving vs rest of country, but rest of country tends to be insulated to some extent, less expansive growth when good, but less savage cuts when bad.

I’m happier by the sea, for the record.

You are listing heavily, make for port.

None in at the moment, will just have a beer instead. From London’s Famous Greenwich. 🙂

She’s holed below the waterline. Sinking fast.

MAN THE LIFEBOATS!

Cooduv bin a bit more thoughtful before posting something provocative like ‘Chippy Northern Monkeys’, Flashy. And Duntmatter, believe it or not, is a fayn of London, as well as being a totally nice feller. And it’s true you do display a woeful naivety when it comes to socio-economic issues that affect many people in the Capital, and in fact the whole country.

I am not a racist. Some of my best friends are Northern. 😯