{"id":4049,"date":"2026-07-23T15:11:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4049"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:11:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:11:01","slug":"all-hail-london-whatever-the-u-k-s-new-prime-minister-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4049","title":{"rendered":"All hail London\u2014whatever the\u00a0U.K.\u2019s\u00a0new\u00a0Prime Minister says\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>It would be easy to mock \u201cManchesterism\u201d as little more than a marketing slogan.\u00a0Running a city region is radically dissimilar from running a country, however good the publicly owned bus service is.\u00a0Burnham knew he had to signal a change of gear after the troubled premiership of Sir Keir Starmer\u00a0and being \u201cfrom the north of England\u201d seemed as good\u00a0an option\u00a0as any\u00a0(the British are\u00a0oddly\u00a0obsessed by the\u00a0relative\u00a0superiority of the part of the country they are from). The only northern element of Starmer\u2019s CV is that he lives in north London, a part of the U.K. joked about by those who\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0reside\u00a0there\u00a0as being obsessed with\u00a0house prices,\u00a0Tuscan\u00a0extra-virgin olive\u00a0oil,\u00a0and sourdough bread.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4047\">Teneo &amp; Thoughtworks CEOs: the AI race will be won with governance, not speed<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The new PM is, though, onto something. Unbalanced growth (major global\u00a0cities doing\u00a0well, towns and rural areas\u00a0struggling) is an economic reality, whether you come from New\u00a0York\u00a0or Gary, Indiana, London or Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Paris or\u00a0Roubaix, Hauts-de-France.\u00a0If \u201cleft behind\u201d means\u00a0anything,\u00a0it means the unequal sharing of the economic benefits of growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Whether you are President Donald Trump, President Emmanuel Macron or Prime Minister Andy Burnham,\u00a0tackling\u00a0such discontinuities is a worthwhile project.\u00a0Investment in transport and digital infrastructure\u00a0outside the flashier urban centers, support for\u00a0education and workplace apprenticeships and tax breaks for business investment in key high-tech and service sectors\u00a0are all helped by carefully targeted state activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But\u00a0Burnham needs to be careful\u00a0that he\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0sacrifice the baby while\u00a0draining the\u00a0bathwater.\u00a0In a world of intense global competition,\u00a0it is vital to\u00a0make the most of your\u00a0global\u00a0crown jewels\u00a0and be grateful that you have any at all.\u00a0Macron enjoys nothing more than a glittering reception in France\u2019s capital, a place foreign power brokers and business leaders like to spend time. Trump is a proud New Yorker, whatever he may think of that city\u2019s mayor.\u00a0Burnham\u00a0needs to\u00a0ensure\u00a0that his \u201cpro-Manchester\u201d narrative\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0become confused with an anti-London one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>London\u00a0is one of the world\u2019s\u00a0few\u00a0global cities, and therefore essential to the prosperity of not just the U.K.\u00a0(and Manchester), but Europe and the rest of the\u00a0world\u00a0economy.\u00a0If it were a country,\u00a0the city\u2019s\u00a0total economic output would put it just outside the top twenty global economies in the world. It accounts for 22% of total U.K. economic output\u00a0and has an average GDP per person\u00a0of \u00a369,000,\u00a0well above the U.K. average of \u00a339,400.\u00a0When it comes to\u00a0labor\u00a0productivity,\u00a0London\u00a0was 29% more productive than the UK average in 2023,\u00a0based on the measure of output per hour worked.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4045\">The hidden cost of AI: Why your town is negotiating with Amazon and Microsoft<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>London is\u00a0also\u00a0a leading location for foreign direct investment.\u00a0Investors ranked London\u00a0ahead of New York and Paris\u00a0as the most attractive\u00a0global\u00a0city over the next three years, according to the\u00a0.\u00a0Alongside the powerhouse sectors of financial services, insurance,\u00a0legal and\u00a0technology\u00a0in which London leads,\u00a0it is a cultural and tourism\u00a0honeypot. Nine of the top ten visitor attractions\u00a0in the U.K. are in London, and\u00a0Windsor Great Park (the one outlier) is a short train ride away.\u00a0Fiscal transfers from London to the rest of the UK are\u00a0substantial.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It would be an unalloyed good if places like Manchester were supported to improve their economic performance. But that will\u00a0not be helped by taking your eye off the U.K.\u2019s greatest asset\u00a0as you search for some political advantage from a \u201cnorth versus south\u201d narrative\u00a0similar to\u00a0the \u201ccoastal\u00a0versus\u00a0heartland\u201d\u00a0story often told\u00a0in the U.S. Economic growth is not a zero-sum game.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cGreater\u00a0Manchester remains 35% less productive than London, a demonstrably larger gap than between France\u2019s second city, Lyon, and Paris, which stands at just 20%,\u201d a report by the Resolution Foundation, a think tank, said. \u201cIf productivity in both the Manchester metro area and London continues to grow at its 2004-2019 pace, it would take\u00a0nearly a\u00a0century\u00a0to close the productivity gap to that\u00a0observed\u00a0between Lyon and Paris.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Burnham does not have that long to wait. If he really wants to make a difference to the economic fortunes of the U.K.\u00a0and Europe (from which the U.K. hugely benefits),\u00a0he would be well advised to\u00a0focus on its greatest asset, a city\u00a0of global significance\u00a0in a world where scale players are any country\u2019s superpower.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4043\">The GLP-1 paradox: too expensive to cover, too effective to cut<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Burnham does not have long to wait. If he wants to make a real economic difference, he should focus on the U.K.&#8217;s greatest asset: a globally significant city whose scale is its superpower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letter-from-london"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>All hail London\u2014whatever the\u00a0U.K.\u2019s\u00a0new\u00a0Prime Minister says\u00a0 - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4049\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"All hail London\u2014whatever the\u00a0U.K.\u2019s\u00a0new\u00a0Prime Minister says\u00a0 - Cross Country Moving Team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Andy Burnham does not have long to wait. If he wants to make a real economic difference, he should focus on the U.K.&#039;s greatest asset: a globally significant city whose scale is its superpower.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4049\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cross Country Moving Team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-23T15:11:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/1b8121bfb9a1c55d1fff3fca675fceaa\"},\"headline\":\"All hail London\u2014whatever the\u00a0U.K.\u2019s\u00a0new\u00a0Prime Minister says\u00a0\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-23T15:11:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049\"},\"wordCount\":793,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/f12d92a4e2afc5472a78ea99c5ba76e3.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Letter from London\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\\\/?p=4049\",\"name\":\"All hail London\u2014whatever the\u00a0U.K.\u2019s\u00a0new\u00a0Prime Minister says\u00a0 - 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