Government dinner: Capital’s leaders call for end of “anti-London” rhetoric in keynote speeches
London’s most high-profile leaders last night called for a reset of relations with central government in speeches at the Mansion House.
The City’s elected chief – the Lord Mayor of London Vincent Keavney – told business and political leaders at the London Government Dinner that the words “metropolitan” and “London” have been used “as though they were an insult.”
“When we talk about ‘levelling up’ let’s make sure this includes levelling up across London, rather than against London,” he said.
Meanwhile the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan condemned a “strong undercurrent of anti-London sentiment from many politicians” and called on London’s business elite to help him “persuade a sceptical public and parliament that London is an ally, not an adversary, of our great towns, cities and regions.”
Many London political leaders have complained since Boris Johnson’s 2019 election victory that the government has pursued an anti-London stance alongside its agenda to level up the Midlands and the North.
This has been perpetuated by the government’s decision to not give Transport for London (TfL) a long-term funding settlement after its revenues were decimated by Covid-19 and by Whitehall’s refusal to fund long touted infrastructure projects in the capital. Khan has warned that a failure to deliver a longer-term settlement will leave few options but to reduce services and cancel necessary maintenance on the network.
There also remains bitterness amongst some in the City that financial services was all but left out of the withdrawal agreement with the European Union, meaning further negotiations will be required to plot the future relationship between the Square Mile and the bloc.
The calls came ahead of the release of a new study into foreign direct investment in the UK, with London remaining the most attractive destination in Europe. London’s share of the UK’s FDI market sat steady at around 40 per cent in 2021, according to number-crunchers at EY.
Analysts at EY said that overall funding levels into the capital remained subdued on pre-pandemic levels, as a shift in investor sentiment towards manufacturing projects had sparked a slowdown in London’s digital sector.