The idea that London is the polar opposite of the rest of Britain in almost every way has taken a firm grip on Westminster. It’s perhaps a species of overcorrection. In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, Westminster’s forecasters tended to suffer from a London bias — they did not notice the way the rest of the UK was leaning. Now SW1 suffers from the opposite prejudice: the idea the “metropolitan bubble” (London) has almost nothing to do with “the real world” (everything else).
From the Government, there is the strange idea that London’s fortunes and the fortunes of everyone else are in direct competition (they are, of course, linked). In this month’s local elections, politicos mused that Labour doing well in the capital was a bad omen for its general prospects (it’s not).
