In their conclusions, the authors recommend Northern Ireland – which remains relatively poor and heavily reliant on public sector spending and employment – embark on major reforms to improve its residents’ standard of living.
“Even though Ireland has a much higher national income, funding the needs of the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland would put huge financial pressure on the people of Ireland, resulting in an immediate major reduction in their living standards,” the report says.
This is a weird way to phrase this seeing as NI is very much part of the UK, and that anyone with even the most cursory understanding of the UK economy knows that London and South East of England is where most economic activity is concentrated and so most other areas are “subsidised” by them.
Also, the Barnett formula.
This is the simple reality of capital city focus. People want to be where the other people are, therefore they move there, and the cycle continues. Whether is proximity of existing industry (i.e. Finance, Film), statutory bodies (i.e. Parliament, Regulators), or just the higher density of people making a de facto larger scene (i.e. Arts), there’s nothing evil about this per say. However, there is a huge rotation of exterior talent through these areas as a result; meaning that the education system of Nottingham (as an example) contributes a great deal to the continued growth and stability of these sectors in London. It’s only right therefore that London somewhat repays that pattern.
It’s not just an ancient cities thing. You can look at funding in Scotland and see that Glasgow though relatively young in its current wave of economic prosperity (due reasons that aren’t worth going into) is already having it’s own version of this effect on the rest of the nation. Glasgow is slurping up a huge quantity of talent from the rest of Scotland.
As a Glaswegian in London it’s clear to me to see how the economics and impacts of these comparatively large cities are so similar (though surely at different scales).