Everyone needs a Willie – that was Margaret Thatcher’s naive remark about how much she depended on her deputy Willie Whitelaw to keep her government out of trouble. Thirty-odd years later, the word has taken on a new connotation north of the border. A “Willie” is someone who “works in London [but] lives in Edinburgh” and their number is increasing.
The collapse of RBS and HBOS, two large banks headquartered in Edinburgh, as well as the economic downturn, has led to an increase in the numbers of people doing a 400-mile commute twice, or sometimes more, every week. After the takeover of NatWest by RBS in 2000 and the 2001 merger of Halifax and the Bank of Scotland, there was a significant transfer north of high-powered bankers. In 2008, many of them disappeared – some to admire their redundancy cheques; others back to London.
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