Better Together Ehh? Many Scots, indeed millions of people in other parts of the United Kingdom, would insist that the telescope ought to be turned around. It is London, they would argue, that effectively seceded from the U.K. during the Thatcher Revolution of the 1980s, leaving the rest of the country de-industrialized. Employment in shipbuilding, steel and other basic manufacturing sectors was decimated in Scotland during the Thatcher years. Once “the workshop of the world”, Britain has become an enormous net importer of manufactured goods, leaving the financial sector to keep the country solvent. Effectively, London is now a City State, whose wealthier residents often have very little to do with the rest of Britain. They work in the City, educate their children in London and the Home Counties, and play in the south of England or abroad. When I spent a month there in the spring, Londoners to whom I spoke wrote off the Scottish referendum with a yawn. “Most of my friends don’t give a toss,” one man who works in the City told me. The Scots ought to consider themselves fortunate to be linked to the great economic engine of London, according to many who dwell in the metropolis.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 18:29:26 +0000
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