Edinburgh doesn't do badly, to be fair.robmatic wrote: Tue Apr 04, 2023 8:59 amIt could be done, but we will focus all our investment on London instead.Biffer wrote: Tue Apr 04, 2023 8:52 amYeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.inactionman wrote: Tue Apr 04, 2023 8:40 am
I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.
I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.
I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.
Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.
I's say the issue is more to do with sectors, although the choice of sectors to back is is pretty much nailed on to benefit the landed gentry and City financiers and not the poor railway factory worker from Crewe.