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| How to escape the elite power of London | How to escape the elite power of London |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| In his account of the damage London elites have wrought on British political and cultural life (The metropolitan milieu's disdain poisons our politics, 23 April), John Harris calls for a federal UK. I approve of this, but for reasons in addition to those cited by Harris and with a vision of a federal state that breaks England down into constituent regions. | In his account of the damage London elites have wrought on British political and cultural life (The metropolitan milieu's disdain poisons our politics, 23 April), John Harris calls for a federal UK. I approve of this, but for reasons in addition to those cited by Harris and with a vision of a federal state that breaks England down into constituent regions. |
| The peculiarly English configuration of class privilege, historically focused on London, with its exercise of economic, political and cultural power, has ensured that in its relation to the rest of Britain, London is a little like the upas tree – an Indonesian plant whose branches produce a toxic sap, so that beneath it nothing grows. The concentration of elite power in London has certainly constrained political and cultural development elsewhere in the country but, crucially, it has also stymied regional economic development. The interests dominating the British state (irrespective of governing party) have neither the intellectual vision nor the political will to help drive economic development beyond financial services and the metropolis. This is why the regional development agencies of the past were ultimately ineffective and the city mayors of the future will be a joke. | The peculiarly English configuration of class privilege, historically focused on London, with its exercise of economic, political and cultural power, has ensured that in its relation to the rest of Britain, London is a little like the upas tree – an Indonesian plant whose branches produce a toxic sap, so that beneath it nothing grows. The concentration of elite power in London has certainly constrained political and cultural development elsewhere in the country but, crucially, it has also stymied regional economic development. The interests dominating the British state (irrespective of governing party) have neither the intellectual vision nor the political will to help drive economic development beyond financial services and the metropolis. This is why the regional development agencies of the past were ultimately ineffective and the city mayors of the future will be a joke. |
| What we need is a full-blown federal system composed of regional states – the north, midlands, south-west etc (together with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) – with the financial and political autonomy – and legitimacy – that will allow them to orchestrate economic rejuvenation in their own backyards. Professor Jeffrey Henderson University of Bristol | What we need is a full-blown federal system composed of regional states – the north, midlands, south-west etc (together with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) – with the financial and political autonomy – and legitimacy – that will allow them to orchestrate economic rejuvenation in their own backyards. Professor Jeffrey Henderson University of Bristol |
| • Now that the head of the national air-traffic control system has said the Thames estuary is the worst possible place to build a new airport (Report, 14 April) can we forget Boris Island and look seriously at the idea of a hub airport in South Yorkshire where an ideal site awaits development. Can Tories think outside the triangle? Alan Marsden Penrith, Cumbria | • Now that the head of the national air-traffic control system has said the Thames estuary is the worst possible place to build a new airport (Report, 14 April) can we forget Boris Island and look seriously at the idea of a hub airport in South Yorkshire where an ideal site awaits development. Can Tories think outside the triangle? Alan Marsden Penrith, Cumbria |
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