Quote:
Originally Posted by Waterways
You are deluded. How much government money is going towards the Olympics? Crossrail? How much government money is going towards Liverpool and the 2008 European capital of Culture? Zero.
The UK is the most centralised country in the western world - government, financial and media are all peeing in the same pot. Germany splits financial and government, so does the USA, Australia, etc. The capital is in the wrong place, in the bottom right hand corner.
Over the past 100 years London and the south east has done everything it can to base everything there - the power is there and financial aspect too.
For 40 years the world's two largest liners were owned by a Liverpool company and had Liverpool on the sterns - not once did they sail up the Mersey. Strange eh? Liverpool being the largest port in the world at one time too. A government mail contract said they must use southern ports. Yes, true. Everything being pushed south. Most of HM Customs was in Liverpool. The Customs House (looked like St. Pauls) was fire bombed in WW2. Instead of renovating, they demolished this wonderful building and moved operations to London. Bit by bit London did this. Many other cities can tell similar tales.
The country was raped to the benefit of London and south east. Under Thatcher local authorities were reduced to being responsible for collecting the garbage.
The port of Hamburg is a city state and wealthy city too. Similar to Liverpool in many respects. If Liverpool has been made a city state after WW2 it too would be one of Europe's richest cities, instead of being bled and downtrodden by London. Notice how the port Felixstowe received government tempters - a fishing port 40 years ago to now a large port. Felixstowe is in the south. BTW, Liverpool for a long time was the worlds second richest city and was rivalling London at one stage. To the southern based power establishment that was a no. no. After all Liverpool was city that ignored London - the Confederate Navy in the American Civil war was based in Liverpool. Liverpool supplied the southern rebels with supplies, ships and crews against London orders. London seized some ships bound for the south being made at Lairds shipyard. The London government gave compensation to the USA after the war because of Liverpools "aid".
The naïve south of England regarded Liverpool as a bunch of Irish and prone to rebellion. Which is untrue as most people are not of Irish decent with more Welsh than Irish. Most are of English decent, with a mixed population over the past 150 years.
You have been reading the Daily Mail - and worse believing it.
Yes, you are indoctrinated by the Daily Mail. The country slid under because of an idiot called Mrs Thatcher, who squandered the greatest legacy we had, North Sea Oil. She spent it on unemployment payments instead of investment in education, training and assisting industry in transition.
The worst place for a national stadium is London. Full of cars and traffic and in the bottom right hand corner of the country. A daft idea.
About 1/3 don't like living there as well. They hate it. Economics forced many into that cess pit. Because the country is over centralised. Look at the road system. It was cetralised on a city I the wrong place.
That should reversed ASAP by de-centralising.
"distributed poorly"? The south east has 7.1 % of the land settled, while the north west over 9%. The Home counties are under populated - Kate Barker.
Since Blair released some of the London ropes, have the cities got some control over their own affairs. Whitehall stopped a 51 floor tower in Liverpool. Imagine that happening in Germany. Never.
No, Portmouth is. London second then Liverpool. Barcelona, Paris and Athens are way above everything else. See Kate Barkers final report released this week.
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Well heres the crunch - London looses
£13bn to the north every year in the form of subsidisation. London could easily fund the Olympics within 3 months or Crossrail in 9 months if it didn't have to prop up the likes of Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, etc....
Also most of the mess was Liverpools' own doing - Fourth Grace anybody....that wasn't Whitehall, that was Liverpool.
The UK is the most centralised? Ever looked across the English Channel to a country called France? And what is wrong with having one core centre....last time I looked, Germany has no equal to London because the functions are diffused around the country. Either way I don't see how you can complain....Whitehall jobs have been going north for years and most of the north is already employed in public services unlike the south.
And the same hasn't happened to London? Most back room jobs for government departments are in the north. Get a grip, London hasn't conspired or done anything that hasn't been northern cities own un-doing.
....tell me again exactly how Thatcher benefited
London and the GLC....
Felixstowe makes more economical sense because it is only a slight de-tour for container ships travelling to the major port of Rotterdam. You might like those port functions in Liverpool, but it wouldn't make sense to go up and then back down to Liverpool, when Felixstowe is not only in a more favourable location for container ships but for access to the northern and southern markets because it isn't hemmed in by a city.....look at a map...
London also had a port industry, that went into decline, but you won't see many blaming Felixstowe, so why should it be London and Felixstowe's problem that the same happened in Liverpool?
I'd be more inclined to believe that you read the Daily Mail simply because you can't take it that some of the problems have been of your own making....a true northern response. Perhaps if the south stopped that £13bn, we'd built our Crossrail, we'd host the Olympics and you can go on about your merry little lives.
This 'bottom right hand corner' so happens to also have the highest concentration of people in the country...I mean technically the direct centre of Britain is in a field somewhere...doesn't make it a logical place for running Britain.
Well surely then, why would you need the extra £13bn, when as you say is a "cess pit" and surely needs it to correct the problems!
What does land % settled matter, when population density is far greater in the south.
That's strange, I'd swear that it was Liverpool Council that rejected Brunswick Quay....again accept that it was a Liverpool problem created by NIMBY's in charge of running Liverpool from LIVERPOOL. I also don't recall that many 51 storey towers being approved outside Frankfurt....infact most of Europe!
If you're going to rant, you could at least get a few facts right....
London - 4,761/km²
Portsmouth - 4,711/km²
So hang on, you want to take the seat of government which is in 'one corner' and take it to another by putting it in Liverpool, despite the fact that it is further away from the centre of Britain than London is (ie population wise). And who would pay for this move? London? Could London then get the £bn's it has given to the north over the last few decades in return for this move?