London Centric?

I keep seeing the term. "London Centric" which, as I understand it, means that the power, prosperity and influence is, mostly, in the capital, and that all diminishes the further you get away from that Capital.

At first, it seems like a major issue (not John Major!).

Then, if I think it through, I can't come up with any country which isn't "Capital Centric".

If that's true, then it's the norm, surely?

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London is no longer the capital city of the UK. It doesn't even feel like a place in the UK any more. It's a foreign country. What's worse is that our parliamentary representatives are far more concerned with games playing in the London cesspit than the rest of the UK.

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Yes I agree, I know I'd not recognise London if I was to pay a visit. BUT I will never go back again.

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The BBC spotted the problem.

They moved a big chunk up to Salford.

That seems to have had some success.

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Australia's federal capital, Canberra, is roughly half way between Australia's two largest cities. Each of those cities has a population well over 5 million people. But greater Canberra which has it's own territory (ACT) has only half a million. It is a nice little city. Very neat and organised with a well planned and small CBD on the shores of a pretty lake. It is dominated by a parliament house that rivals the Sydney Opera House in "amazingness" But it is hardly the centre of Australian finance, business, culture and anything else. Not even politics arguably. It is the State capitals that rule in any real sense. So there you go. Canberra. Our capital but hardly our centre.

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I used to visit London quite often as a courier and I drove down on the M1 and then took the A5 through Cricklewood, Kilburn High Street, St Johns Wood and past Lords Cricket Ground, where I had the occasional delivery. Kilburn High Street [or road I forget] was always vibrant, heaving with people, and seemed full of every nationality under the sun. It was like driving through Mombassa....

I would drive through London, A to Z (no such thing as satnav in those days) on my lap and seek out my delivery destination and find somewhere to leave the van. Nightmare springs to mind, deliveries would be quick, cheap (hopefully) and incident free, then it was back in the saddle and retrace my steps out of the city.....

I would arrive at the beginning of the M1, and a services named the 'London Gateway' I would collapse back in my seat, and feel like I had just been thrown off a roundabout, it was exciting and challenging, but I was glad to be out of there, and looked forward to my long drive home.

We visited London shortly after I had my first Heart Attack (just ten days later) I had already booked the two night stay and was determined not to cancel, Mrs Fox had been so looking forward to it. We took the train down and the weather throughout the stay was glorious. We saw all the usual stuff, and even visited the science museum at my request, even though it was a decent walk.

I enjoyed London, seeing all those places I didn't have time to visit while delivering or when running the marathon, and I would like to return sometime in the future, but two or three days would be quite sufficient. I'm a country boy at heart....

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I've just googled London Centric and top of the list comes a winge Andy Burnham had in the Guardian last year. That's alright then.

The BBC did an excellent piece in 2015 called London-Centric, fab photos:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources...a-8d3b435857a8

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When we moved from Rome to Hertford, we would go "up" to London at least every couple of months for dinner and a show but stopped after about 18 months because it got too unsafe in our eyes and that was 20yrs or so ago. I still had to go up for the occasional meeting during the day but never felt comfortable doing it. I wouldn't bother going back either.

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Excellent link, Dood!

Thanks

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I love London. And yes that is a good article.