All London underground ticket offices to close by 2015

amigafan2003 said:
Rubbish.

London is a blood sucking parasite on the rest of the UK. The whole country will be better off when London PLC starts it's long overdue rapid decline into obscurity.
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You're right, the imbalance is totally unfair and every city across the country should be doing equally badly to make you feel better.

If other cities want to try to compete then they are welcome, but this shouldn't be done by discouraging people from London. You could try launching your new tech startup in Newcastle if you want, let me know how many quality people are willing to relocate there.

People who have a strange jealousy at the success of London to the extent that they want it to fail are literally biting the hand that feeds.
 
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He wants us to work hard in London to pay for the rest of the country - that would only work with a good business plan and a payback policy - London shouldn't be supporting other cities without being paid back for it.

I'd be happy for London revenue to give to other parts of the UK to inject growth, but the caveat must be a return on investment, else it's just giving money away.
 
Caged said:
So you're convinced that taking the contribution that London makes to the economy and investing it in Manchester would provide the same returns on that investment?
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I get your point, but perhaps some people feel it's not all about ROI's etc, but maybe equality. I'd personally take a hit on GDP to make the country more equal in wealth distribution, just look at many of the Scandinavian countries. Studies have shown that more equal countries are happier overall.

But anyway, this is off topic. I feel sorry for everyone in London who takes ages to get to work on the tube, I feel more sorry for those in the West who have had their railway washed away and homes flooded.
 
Caged said:
You could try launching your new tech startup in Newcastle if you want, let me know how many quality people are willing to relocate there.
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Rofl - you do know Hewlett Packard have culled 518 jobs in Bracknell and relocated them to their hub in Newcastle don't you? Reason give? "Higher quality graduates and general skills of the indigenous workforce".

I personally think it's the lower wages ;-0 they can get away with paying in Newcastle but meh ;-)
 
el_dazza said:
You forget that the south west isn't important to the rest of the country as we're just a bunch of farmers with funny accents. Spare a thought for those poor rich folk that had to walk a few hundred yards this morning :(
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And where does the rest of the country get its milk and farm produce from.

Oh right the South West (one of them at least)

No Cornish Pasties or Clotted Cream for London!
 
amigafan2003 said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25444981
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21934564

London may contribute a huge amount to the countries GDP but the trouble is it nearly all gets reinvested there, draining life out of the rest of the country.

Without London we could finally move away from a financial services based economy towards a more tech/manufacturing economy - an ecnomy that would benefit much more of the UK.
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I'm starting to think the south east should campaign for independence. We could become a glorified city state and the rest of Britain (possibly minus any oil revenue if Scotland get independence) can become a manufacturing haven... Win win! The collosal devaluation of the pound if that happened would help exports, possibly not importing goods though...;)
 
Klo said:
I get your point, but perhaps some people feel it's not all about ROI's etc, but maybe equality. I'd personally take a hit on GDP to make the country more equal in wealth distribution, just look at many of the Scandinavian countries.
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You have to be very careful though. There's a huge amount of income tax paid by people working in London, and corporation tax paid by the companies based there that already goes into the general pot to be spent across the country, it's not its own little nation where those things are ring-fenced off.

I'm all for encouraging wealth distribution but there is simply no point in doing it to try and force an undesirable option to happen. You could divert billions of pounds into developing transport links to another city, building commercial districts and housing and providing tax incentives to relocate there, but it doesn't matter if nobody wants to work and live there.
 
Caged said:
People who have a strange jealousy at the success of London to the extent that they want it to fail are literally biting the hand that feeds.
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But that's the point - London doesn't feed the rest of the country - it feeds off the rest of the UK, only benefiting London itself and degrading the rest of the UK in the process.
 
Caged said:
You have to be very careful though. There's a huge amount of income tax paid by people working in London, and corporation tax paid by the companies based there that already goes into the general pot to be spent across the country,
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It doesn't get spent on the rest of the country though - the majority gets spent on London - which is why London is growing so rapidly as because of the reinvestment.

For example, the Arts Council allocated £320 million to the arts last year, with £20 per capita going to London, while just £3.60 per head went to the rest of England.

It's the same with the National Lottery, with £165 per head in London and Just £45 per head for the rest of England.

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/busi...e-times-funding-london-regions-claims-report/

Caged said:
but it doesn't matter if nobody wants to work and live there.
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I used to live in London - couldn't wait to move out and ended up in Lancashire - much nicer :-) Plenty of people willing to live and work outside London, esp when my 5 bed detached house with double garage cost me £220k :-P
 
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That's a very bold claim to make. Do you believe that if London disappeared overnight that employers and the workforce would spread themselves out around the country to benefit all of it? Or do you think another city would appear as the replacement, ready for people to be upset about?
 
Caged said:
That's a very bold claim to make. Do you believe that if London disappeared overnight that employers and the workforce would spread themselves out around the country to benefit all of it?
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Yes, although I still think it would be centered in the south.

Or do you think another city would appear as the replacement, ready for people to be upset about?
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Well, Manchester seems one of the most competitive (ranked 2nd for growth in the UK after London), esp in the tech sector, so maybe the focus would shift there, although Birmingham makes a lot of sense in relation to transport links.
 
London doesn't need to be doing badly for those cities to do well though. You don't want to end up with less overall once you've tried to artificially move prosperity around.

Manchester is looking good for technology and media firms, but lawyers and finance are married to London. And that's such a lucrative market to provide services for that it draws in everything else.
 
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