Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
As a Londoner do you welcome the new focus on the north?
As a Londoner, I'm quite comfortable with our city sharing the limelight with other regions that's currently being occasioned by Burnham. I'm somewhat apprehensive that political expediency will overcook the cake, but I hope that our city's importance will protect us against that. In the meantime, the rebalancing seems appropriate to me.
Am I a lone voice or are Londoners generally more fair-minded that some in the press would have us?
Map from "Northern England", Wikipedia
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by adamvietnam
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In my experience, Sunderland had a pretty good bus service up until Covid - reasonably often and surprisingly punctual.
Since Covid - terrible. One bus an hour in the evening on prime routes ( E1 / E2 etc) and even they often just don't turn up. It's like Stagecoach just gave up.
Bring back The Jolly Bus !
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson
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My family are way out near the Nissan factory. If you don’t set off home by 6pm you may as well forget it.
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Permalink Reply by kas
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I am looking at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's UK Poverty Report 2026. They issue these annually and are considered one of the leading voices on Poverty. According to the report, "London consistently had one of the highest rates of poverty among UK nations and regions..." Indeed, their "Average number of people in poverty and poverty rates by UK nation/region, 2021–24" shows London top (not North East or North West etc) with 26% said to be living in poverty. The high and higher rate in London is put down to the cost of housing in particular. Take out housing costs and London would fare better. Of course, London may also have a higher percentage of wealth but I haven't got those figures to hand, but to suggest moving resources from South to North to even things out, fails to recognise from whom in the South those resources are being taken and to whom in the North those resources are given. If it's on the basis of poverty, we should expect more resources for London.
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It’s useful to look at overall deprivation as well as poverty. The Indices of Multiple Deprivation does that.
Yes, London has some pockets of deep poverty, Tower Hamlets is ranked 68th most deprived out of 296 local authorities. But sticking to the town I know best Sunderland is ranked 20th with over a quarter of neighbourhoods in the highly deprived category. Unless you have visited areas like Hendon, Southwick, Redhouse, Town End Farm, Hylton Castle, Downhill, Pennywell, Marley Potts, Millfield, Pallion, Monkwearmouth and the East End in Sunderland it’s hard to appreciate what this deprivation looks like. In those areas child poverty stands at 40% of all households.
Just down the road is Middlesborough which is ranked the most deprived town in England, with half of all neighbourhoods classed as highly deprived.
Every single one of the areas with a third or more neighbourhood experiencing high deprivation levels is north of the Humber Estuary.
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Permalink Reply by Jamie Harper
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Kas and Michael
Statistically they appear to capture very similar things. Using the child poverty measure (as it has a far more useful and granular data series), and plotting against the deprivation data by Local authority, it's remarkable how similar Sunderland and Haringey are! The link below should open an interactive version of the chart so you can see each local authority. Plenty of northern and London names in the upper right. https://brilliant-alpaca-85d71f.netlify.app/
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But what is he actually planning to do? And, more importantly, how is he going to pay for it?
At the moment, it's just empty and vague rhetoric or what the young people call 'just vibes'.
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside)
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Although seemingly a good idea, it will simply mean one thing - more tax. The Northern towns (apparently) pay more proportionally in council tax than we do in London, but the cost of living in London and the South is disproportionately higher also. Council taxes will be one of the first things to get hiked (calculated on 0.48% of the property value is one figure being bounded around), and these will be passed onto already struggling tenants in private rentals on top of the burgeoning rents they pay already. Even for those in social housing who pay council tax will be expected to stump up more. I am lucky enough not to have to pay rent or a mortgage so I should be able to absorb it, but unfortunately there will be those on fragile budgets whom it will break.
Be careful of what you wish for.
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Perhaps time to get rid of property based charging and replace it with local income tax with an equitable redistribution formula?
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Local income tax? In addition to national/HMRC income tax? We pay enough as it is thanks Michael.
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As a replacement to council tax.
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Unless you simply get rid of council tax altogether, and adjust it with income tax increases where the government allocates it to every borough, may be a fairer system, and wouldn't attract the riots that the poll-tax did. Maybe a tax (as I previously mentioned) on the value of the property might be a better option.
Local tax based on income will mean that a high proportion of properties will pay more and others will pay nothing, this would particularly apply to HMOs where the owners live abroad and the transient tenants are below the tax radar.
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The models I’ve seen are a tax on individuals living in the area, not on ownership.
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