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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/19/londoners-city-london-capital-arrogant-insular
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| Relax, Londoners. It’s not you but your city that the rest of us can’t stand | Relax, Londoners. It’s not you but your city that the rest of us can’t stand |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| My dear Londoners, please do not fret. The rest of Britain doesn’t really think you’re arrogant and insular. Well, perhaps a little, but we’ll come back to that. We know that you are a city of rich depths and complexity, you are the city of EastEnders and the Notting Hill carnival, Millwall fans and Chelsea Pensioners. We know that London is Brixton, Southall and Golders Green – more than Fleet Street and Whitehall. In TV, cinema, music and comedy, we swim in your currents and bask in your culture. At the same time, if you put a very short list of adjectives to describe Londoners in front of us and ask us to pick three, well yes, we might tick the boxes marked “arrogant” and “insular”. This is less because we adhere to tired regional stereotypes, more because we adhere to the First Law of Silly Questions. | My dear Londoners, please do not fret. The rest of Britain doesn’t really think you’re arrogant and insular. Well, perhaps a little, but we’ll come back to that. We know that you are a city of rich depths and complexity, you are the city of EastEnders and the Notting Hill carnival, Millwall fans and Chelsea Pensioners. We know that London is Brixton, Southall and Golders Green – more than Fleet Street and Whitehall. In TV, cinema, music and comedy, we swim in your currents and bask in your culture. At the same time, if you put a very short list of adjectives to describe Londoners in front of us and ask us to pick three, well yes, we might tick the boxes marked “arrogant” and “insular”. This is less because we adhere to tired regional stereotypes, more because we adhere to the First Law of Silly Questions. |
| Most respondents said London may be good for the national economy, but those benefits are not felt where they live | Most respondents said London may be good for the national economy, but those benefits are not felt where they live |
| Despite the mischievous headlines, non-Londoners’ choice of adjectives is probably the least interesting or revealing finding from the Centre for London’s research, published this week. Read more deeply and the emotional relationship between broader Britain and our capital city twists slowly into focus. London is seen as diverse, expensive, crowded and chaotic. Most strikingly, nearly four out of five respondents thought that living and working in London “is not a realistic option for people like me”. | Despite the mischievous headlines, non-Londoners’ choice of adjectives is probably the least interesting or revealing finding from the Centre for London’s research, published this week. Read more deeply and the emotional relationship between broader Britain and our capital city twists slowly into focus. London is seen as diverse, expensive, crowded and chaotic. Most strikingly, nearly four out of five respondents thought that living and working in London “is not a realistic option for people like me”. |
| It’s worth trying to unpick this finding. By any objective standard it cannot be true. Every year the population of London swells with budding Dick Whittingtons from around the country and the globe – many arriving almost entirely penniless. A few will indeed discover streets paved with gold; a fair few more will find a city where the bedsheets are made of cardboard. Most will somehow muddle through in a world of long hours, low wages and high rents until finally settling into their own niche in the city’s unique social economy. An overpriced shoebox in Camden might not be everyone’s choice of lifestyle, but could hardly be considered an impossible dream. | It’s worth trying to unpick this finding. By any objective standard it cannot be true. Every year the population of London swells with budding Dick Whittingtons from around the country and the globe – many arriving almost entirely penniless. A few will indeed discover streets paved with gold; a fair few more will find a city where the bedsheets are made of cardboard. Most will somehow muddle through in a world of long hours, low wages and high rents until finally settling into their own niche in the city’s unique social economy. An overpriced shoebox in Camden might not be everyone’s choice of lifestyle, but could hardly be considered an impossible dream. |
| So when people tell pollsters that London is remote, alien, detached from our lives, I suspect we are talking less about London for what it actually is and more about London for what it represents – our administrative, political and economic capital. Most respondents told the survey that London may be good for the national economy, but that those benefits are not felt where they live. When asked which grand institutions could be moved elsewhere to make the country fairer, the most popular answer given was not the civil service, parliament, media or royalty. The most popular answer given was: “None.” | So when people tell pollsters that London is remote, alien, detached from our lives, I suspect we are talking less about London for what it actually is and more about London for what it represents – our administrative, political and economic capital. Most respondents told the survey that London may be good for the national economy, but that those benefits are not felt where they live. When asked which grand institutions could be moved elsewhere to make the country fairer, the most popular answer given was not the civil service, parliament, media or royalty. The most popular answer given was: “None.” |
| Some might read this as petulance or a kind of depressive fatalism. I would argue it is simple realism. Around a decade ago the BBC decided to move many of its operations from London to Greater Manchester, and while this has brought some benefits to the economy around Salford Quays, possibly boosted house prices in leafy Didsbury and certainly improved the BBC in many respects as a broadcaster, does anyone seriously think it has made the country a fairer place? | Some might read this as petulance or a kind of depressive fatalism. I would argue it is simple realism. Around a decade ago the BBC decided to move many of its operations from London to Greater Manchester, and while this has brought some benefits to the economy around Salford Quays, possibly boosted house prices in leafy Didsbury and certainly improved the BBC in many respects as a broadcaster, does anyone seriously think it has made the country a fairer place? |
| The truth is for the vast majority of people in Salford, the north-west or the country at large, the BBC continues to be viewed as a remote, inaccessible bureaucracy, managed and staffed by people unlike them. However true or fair this may be, it remains the perception, because the real gulf between people and power is not based upon geography, but on class and privilege, on social and racial hierarchies. We can move the mansion, brick by brick, to a different hill, but it remains the mansion on the hill. | The truth is for the vast majority of people in Salford, the north-west or the country at large, the BBC continues to be viewed as a remote, inaccessible bureaucracy, managed and staffed by people unlike them. However true or fair this may be, it remains the perception, because the real gulf between people and power is not based upon geography, but on class and privilege, on social and racial hierarchies. We can move the mansion, brick by brick, to a different hill, but it remains the mansion on the hill. |
| If this characterisation sounds familiar – remote, arrogant powerbrokers, a city that provides heralded economic benefits that are somehow never felt on our doorsteps – it could be because people have long said similar things about Brussels, with its arrogant commissioners and self-interested bureaucrats. In both cases, the charges are probably objectively untrue, yet emotionally understandable. A similar sense of alienation underpinned the American people’s rejection of Hillary Clinton and the political establishment in favour of You-know-who. Until we find ways to rebuild a sense of collective endeavour in our politics and repair the rifts in our fractured society, we will continue to endure a bitter mood of alienation and learned helplessness, and those frustrations will continue to erupt in unexpected fissures. | |
| So, Londoners, don’t take it personally. This really isn’t about you. Although while we’re on the topic, you could try chatting to a neighbour at the bus stop now and again – you never know, you might even like it. | So, Londoners, don’t take it personally. This really isn’t about you. Although while we’re on the topic, you could try chatting to a neighbour at the bus stop now and again – you never know, you might even like it. |
| • Ally Fogg is a Manchester-based writer and journalist | • Ally Fogg is a Manchester-based writer and journalist |
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