The referendum on Scottish independence is not a vote about Scotland,” Danny Dorling writes in his essay on page 26. “It is a vote about London.” More than for any other comparable European country, the capital of the United Kingdom – Europe’s only true megacity – dominates national life. With just 13 per cent of the population, London produces 22 per cent of the UK’s wealth; through major projects such as Crossrail, it swallows a disproportionate share of its infrastructure funding. The Institute for Public Policy Research estimates that per-capita transport spending in London is 500 times as much as that in the north-east of England.
London’s economic dominance ensures that investing in the capital will produce a higher return than doing so in other regions. That makes it difficult to justify investing elsewhere. This logic merely tightens London’s stranglehold. Consequently, when the Yes Scotland campaign warns Scots of the dangers of voting No, it makes references to being ruled not by the English but by London. Indeed, in his New Statesman lecture in March, Alex Salmond likened London to a dark star, “inexorably sucking in resources, people and energy”.
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