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Mind The Gap: London V The Rest


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HOLA441

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xhcjg

While much of the UK still struggles after the financial crash, London is thriving like never before. In the first of two programmes, Evan Davis explores the economic forces that are polarising Britain and asks what the rest of the country can learn from London's success.

I wonder if he will dare make the conclusion the rest of the country is being slowly sacrificed to drive the London "economic miracle", although if London house prices keep rising will it ultimately destroy it's own pre-eminence in the UK economy?

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HOLA442

London is thriving like never before..

It'll be interesting to see how Evan Davis measures "thriving".

It can't be because of most people being priced out of reasonable forms of home ownership - or the shanty townism that's been starting to develop - or the displacement of people who previously lived in London - or the general cost of living there - or so much congestion meaning that travel into London has to be rationed by congestion charges.........................................

That's thriving? He can keep "thriving" if that's it.

Maybe he just means the bailed out "City" and the bailed out financial sector.

London's "success" :lol::lol::lol: He can keep that.

He can stick it up his jumper.

Edited by billybong
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HOLA443
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HOLA444
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HOLA445

The one that annoys me is "Silicon Roundabout"

There are developers all over the country. If they put that money into creating a Birmingham/Liverpool/Manchester tech hub I could understand it but a London one is just bizarre. Especially given Cambridge is 45 minutes away and is already the tech hub of the country.

But they have to be in London, because that is where the financiers live, apparently.

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HOLA446

I'd cut London out of England in a heartbeat - lets the rats drown I say. Manchester/Birmingham/Liverpool would all be better off without the London tax mega leech. To be honest, London's turning into a ghetto now anyway and doesn't appear to be owned by UK residents anymore.

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HOLA447

What, like bending the entire economy to bail the City and its banks out so it can carry on raping the rest of us?

Like focusing the entire political and media circus on it and then spending 95% of all govt. capital spending in the country on London itself. Then paying 25% of all London households housing benefit from general taxation so they can carry on living there. Like paying London weighting and higher benefit payments. Like crashing the pound and ultra low rates so that house values in the city rise creating a localised credit boom?

You are such a cynic....we all know that people in London are uniquely talented and BBC picks up on this...talent goes there, therefore the money goes there.

And the high wages makes people feel special...better than their country peers...and quite rightly so, as Money is the key indicator of value.

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HOLA448

http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b03xhcjg

I wonder if he will dare make the conclusion the rest of the country is being slowly sacrificed to drive the London "economic miracle", although if London house prices keep rising will it ultimately destroy it's own pre-eminence in the UK economy?

Evan was on a show last night, and went off topic to mention that the London market was over heating and certainly where he lived. Then he was steered back on topic. I'm optimistic, providing he's allowed to stick to his own script.

Edited by Starla
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HOLA449

What, like bending the entire economy to bail the City and its banks out so it can carry on raping the rest of us?

Like focusing the entire political and media circus on it and then spending 95% of all govt. capital spending in the country on London itself. Then paying 25% of all London households housing benefit from general taxation so they can carry on living there. Like paying London weighting and higher benefit payments. Like crashing the pound and ultra low rates so that house values in the city rise creating a localised credit boom?

Success? :lol::lol::lol:

Just lock yourself into a currency union with 50 million other people who have no choice, run a negative real interest rate relative to the other suckers and watch the £££££ roll in.

Evan Davis is trolling surely........

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HOLA4410

The thing is, the other lie is about it being a 'magnet' for the rest of the UK.

The only group where they see an influx is in the 20-29 age group in an extension of the post graduation party for a while.

A magnet for exactly the population demographic you want isn't it ?

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HOLA4411

The one that annoys me is "Silicon Roundabout"

There are developers all over the country. If they put that money into creating a Birmingham/Liverpool/Manchester tech hub I could understand it but a London one is just bizarre. Especially given Cambridge is 45 minutes away and is already the tech hub of the country.

But they have to be in London, because that is where the financiers live, apparently.

My sentiments exactly.

These tech guys should be au fait with broadband and Skype. If ever there was an industry that didn't need to be in the centre of London, it is this one.

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HOLA4412

A magnet for exactly the population demographic you want isn't it ?

One group cashing in their London chips and taking elsewhere to spend......the other bring their innovation, youth, energy and drive plus debt and hopes for the future..…..businesses can and do use either. ;)

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HOLA4413

The one that annoys me is "Silicon Roundabout"

There are developers all over the country. If they put that money into creating a Birmingham/Liverpool/Manchester tech hub I could understand it but a London one is just bizarre. Especially given Cambridge is 45 minutes away and is already the tech hub of the country.

But they have to be in London, because that is where the financiers live, apparently.

Silicon Roundabout types are predominantly hipsters, at least the ones I've met, and they started up there for no other reason than because they think that it's cool...

Ironically they've priced alot of the common people out of the area.

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HOLA4414

Silicon Roundabout types are predominantly hipsters, at least the ones I've met, and they started up there for no other reason than because they think that it's cool...

Ironically they've priced alot of the common people out of the area.

The seed capital for most UK start ups is derived from the housing market. Silicon Roundabout is just a fall-out from Osborne's London bubble.

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HOLA4415

What, like bending the entire economy to bail the City and its banks out so it can carry on raping the rest of us?

Like focusing the entire political and media circus on it and then spending 95% of all govt. capital spending in the country on London itself. Then paying 25% of all London households housing benefit from general taxation so they can carry on living there. Like paying London weighting and higher benefit payments. Like crashing the pound and ultra low rates so that house values in the city rise creating a localised credit boom?

Yep.

I have a lot of sympathy with someone from Middlesbrough or Durham complaining about the lack of employment - and not cos Im northern.

I have f-all with someone from Tower Hamlets complaining that they cannot earn enough to pay their rent.

Lazy f0ckers could walk to a walk.

I spent some time in the SE/London - before all banks suddenly became public 'assets'.

I was genuinely shocked how many people depended partially or wholly on state funding. Enterprising my ar5e.

Inner-London benefit claimants makes Middlesbrough look like SIlicon Valley.

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HOLA4416

The seed capital for most UK start ups is derived from the housing market. Silicon Roundabout is just a fall-out from Osborne's London bubble.

Silicon Roundabout was already a thing when I was at uni in the area a decade ago, expansion is definitely down to Osborne's bubble but not the initial small cluster of tech companies that earned the location the reputation that is attracting these new start ups. I don't recall there being any drive to create a tech industry in the area until after the term was already in common parlance, so I assume the original companies chose the area of their own accord. It's certainly a good fit for the hipsters they seem to comprise of.

Supposedly there are now 5,000 tech companies in the area expanded from 15 just 5 years ago http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/06/silicon-roundabout This looks like a dot com bubble level of expansion to me, so I would guess that the fall-out of Osborne's London bubble for Silicon Roundabout will be its own eventual implosion. Of course maybe this startling new number of start-ups have long term commericial viability and are helping to rebalance the economy :lol:

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HOLA4417

Silicon Roundabout makes sense, although it's just a label on what was happening anyway.

A proper startup / tech hub, needs to be in London. That's the point of a hub. It's in the centre of things where everyone meets and comes together. Not just nationally, but internationally.

Sure, you can probably find great programming and engineering talent all over the UK but you need more than just developers. You need marketing people, project managers, designers, and sales people, and you want them on short term contracts. There's plenty of all the talent you might need in London, and it's available immediately.

And then you need customers. If you're selling a B2B product, all your biggest customers will have a presence in London. If you're selling to consumers, you have every demographic you can think of right there. And if you're just networking, searching for ideas you'll meet more people in less time in London than anywhere else in the UK.

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HOLA4418

I guess finance people are like media folks - they don't like traveling outside of London except on their holidays.

Small startups and hipster types have been based in Shoreditch for at least a decade. Nathan Barley had it spot on in recognising a trend that was already well established. It has slowly gentrified as a result. I guess there were several reasons for this; it was originally the cheap alternative to Soho for creative type companies yet had good transport connections as well as being close to the City and central London. People could, just about, be persuaded to come that far east to look at the startup's wares.

The Silicon roundabout stuff is a relatively new invention, but has obviously increased the momentum. I'm not sure there was anything deliberate about setting up a tech hub there - just putting a name to something that was already happening.

Unfortunately for other parts of the UK, London is big enough to have the critical mass for this and many other areas of endeavour. And so it attracts more to it. Not impossible to do the same outside of London, but a lot more difficult and often vast amounts of money are wasted trying to do so - especially when you aren't amplifying something that already exists. I see it all of the time in my area of Wales. Lots of capital going on building new industrial, science, innovation parks which are abandoned when the funding runs out - and then a new proposal is got up for yet another one and so the cycle begins again.

Edited by StainlessSteelCat
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HOLA4419

I guess finance people are like media folks - they don't like traveling outside of London except on their holidays.

Small startups and hipster types have been based in Shoreditch for at least a decade. Nathan Barley had it spot on in recognising a trend that was already well established. It has slowly gentrified as a result. I guess there were several reasons for this; it was originally the cheap alternative to Soho for creative type companies yet had good transport connections as well as being close to the City and central London. People could, just about, be persuaded to come that far east to look at the startup's wares.

The Silicon roundabout stuff is a relatively new invention, but has obviously increased the momentum. I'm not sure there was anything deliberate about setting up a tech hub there - just putting a name to something that was already happening.

Unfortunately for other parts of the UK, London is big enough to have the critical mass for this and many other areas of endeavour. And so it attracts more to it. Not impossible to do the same outside of London, but a lot more difficult and often vast amounts of money are wasted trying to do so - especially when you aren't amplifying something that already exists. I see it all of the time in my area of Wales. Lots of capital going on building new industrial, science, innovation parks which are abandoned when the funding runs out - and then a new proposal is got up for yet another one and so the cycle begins again.

That would be our "build it and they will come" approach to wasting all of the European funding.

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HOLA4420

Worth pointing out London is a major internet transit peering point. Over ten years ago I had to move to London to setup infrastructure for an ISP, in one of the data hotels, of which the East End is awash. So you are going to find a lot of 'talent' and skills on hand there.

However Leeds and Manchester now have decent peering/transit/fibre arrangements, and a lot of ISP's and web hosts are located there too. I'd have thought with cloud hosting, there was less need for physical presence, and the start up would be better based where office/housing costs are cheaper.

Anyway was shocked at figures Self Employed Youth found, and about the dearth of young people in Northern Cities like Sheffield. They are gravitating towards London in their hoards it would seem, whilst the older boomers/commuters are cashing out.

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HOLA4421

I guess finance people are like media folks - they don't like traveling outside of London except on their holidays.

Small startups and hipster types have been based in Shoreditch for at least a decade. Nathan Barley had it spot on in recognising a trend that was already well established. It has slowly gentrified as a result. I guess there were several reasons for this; it was originally the cheap alternative to Soho for creative type companies yet had good transport connections as well as being close to the City and central London. People could, just about, be persuaded to come that far east to look at the startup's wares.

The Silicon roundabout stuff is a relatively new invention, but has obviously increased the momentum. I'm not sure there was anything deliberate about setting up a tech hub there - just putting a name to something that was already happening.

Unfortunately for other parts of the UK, London is big enough to have the critical mass for this and many other areas of endeavour. And so it attracts more to it. Not impossible to do the same outside of London, but a lot more difficult and often vast amounts of money are wasted trying to do so

That is all fine. especially if it all happens organically.

However what I object to is public money being given to Telefonica's VC arm to give to firms in this specific location grants. When that happens firms in this location are being subsidised directly against their competitors from outside London.

From what I've read all that has happened from this cluster being hyped is that rents have gone up.

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HOLA4422
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HOLA4423

That is all fine. especially if it all happens organically.

However what I object to is public money being given to Telefonica's VC arm to give to firms in this specific location grants. When that happens firms in this location are being subsidised directly against their competitors from outside London.

From what I've read all that has happened from this cluster being hyped is that rents have gone up.

Drop in ocean compared to the money spent relocating public bodies to create artificial centres away from the South East DVLA, BBC , HMRC. Then the development boards in Wales, Scotland and NI that have wasted billions on failed inward investment Delorean anyone ?

Not to say the millions wasted in the DVLA's case operating in one world language and one dead one.

The UK would miss the big fact brash kid in the corner, bit like the world would miss the US.

Edited by Greg Bowman
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HOLA4424

Funny. What you describe as key ingredients are the exact opposites of the attributes of silicon valley when it started. I would also hazard a guess that most cities have what you describe - you think Edinburgh or Manchester couldn't support such an industry if supported in a similar fashion? In fact, why did Silicon Valley not spring up in New York instead of San Jose?

Because the Silicon Valley of today is based on the research labs based on the West coast from the 50's and 60's fuelled by the big military contractors, aerospace company's and uni's.

As stainless Steel Cat said, sticking a name on a crappy roundabout hardly amounts to massive market intervention, without a penny of government money the area created itself.

The exact opposite of the miserably failed build it and they will come fantasy' so beloved of our country cousins

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HOLA4425

http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley

History

Stanford University, its affiliates, and graduates have played a major role in the development of this area.[5] Some examples include the work of Lee De Forest with his invention of a pioneering vacuum tube called the Audion and the oscilloscopes of Hewlett-Packard.

A very powerful sense of regional solidarity accompanied the rise of Silicon Valley. From the 1890s, Stanford University's leaders saw its mission as service to the West and shaped the school accordingly. At the same time, the perceived exploitation of the West at the hands of eastern interests fueled booster-like attempts to build self-sufficient indigenous local industry. Thus, regionalism helped align Stanford's interests with those of the area's high-tech firms for the first fifty years of Silicon Valley's development.[6]

During the 1940s and 1950s, Frederick Terman, as Stanford's dean of engineering and provost, encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies. He is credited with nurturing Hewlett-Packard, Varian Associates, and other high-tech firms, until what would become Silicon Valley grew up around the Stanford campus. Terman is often called "the father of Silicon Valley"

Stanford Industrial Park

After World War II, universities were experiencing enormous demand due to returning students. To address the financial demands of Stanford's growth requirements, and to provide local employment opportunities for graduating students, Frederick Terman proposed the leasing of Stanford's lands for use as an office park, named the Stanford Industrial Park (later Stanford Research Park). Leases were limited to high technology companies. Its first tenant was Varian Associates, founded by Stanford alumni in the 1930s to build military radar components. However, Terman also found venture capital for civilian technology start-ups. One of the major success stories was Hewlett-Packard. Founded in Packard's garage by Stanford graduates William Hewlett and David Packard, Hewlett-Packard moved its offices into the Stanford Research Park shortly after 1953. In 1954, Stanford created the Honors Cooperative Program to allow full-time employees of the companies to pursue graduate degrees from the University on a part-time basis. The initial companies signed five-year agreements in which they would pay double the tuition for each student in order to cover the costs. Hewlett-Packard has become the largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, and transformed the home printing market when it released the first thermal drop-on-demand ink jet printer in 1984. In addition, the tenancy of Eastman Kodak and General Electric made Stanford Industrial Park a center of technology in the mid-1990s

Likely Silicon Valley land was relatively cheap in its early days (and it was close to Stanford University that had a strong interest in encouraging its growth). Even if land there isn't so cheap now but it has all the necessary knowledge. skills and resources etc to balance that and to maintain its momentum.

What does the UK do. The UK expects one of its Silicon Valley versions to "thrive" in one of the most expensive places on earth and getting more expensive by the day. Well it's not impossible of course and some might indeed succeed but the best of British luck with that.

It might even get some government support and maybe even some bank support but it's a fair bet that just with the basic overheads there's going to be no real risk of competition to the UK's financial sector or risk to the politicos future/present jobs in the financial sector. Is that intentional.

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