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The United Kingdom is one of the most centralised nations in the developed world. Our politics, economy, culture, media and tourism are overwhelmingly concentrated in the capital, London. As a result, the rest of the nation is overlooked – on the global stage, and by our own elites. But what if we did something radical? What if we followed the example of Myanmar or Kazakhstan or, most recently, Indonesia, and relocated our capital? We asked various contributors to cast their eyes over the vast swathes of the UK that feel worlds apart from London – and nominate a city to capitalise.
“New York, New York (so good they named it twice).” But what about old York – so good they named it over and over again across the millennia? It was Everwic to the Normans, Jorvik to the Vikings, Eoforwic to the Angles, Eboracum to the Romans. But the Celts named it first: Eburakon, which means ‘the place of the yews’. Those long-lived, melancholy trees are ancient markers of the sacred – so perhaps York’s name hints at an even older, undocumented history.
One thing is for sure: the roots of York are sunk deep into English soil – deeper, indeed, than the idea of England itself. But perhaps such considerations don’t matter to you. Perhaps you’re a thorough-going rationalist who’d pick an alternative capital on the basis of population size or economic productivity or some other bean-counting consideration. But if that’s your game, why move the capital at all? On just about any conventional measure, London beats our other cities by an insurmountable margin.
Other nominations in this series are based on familiarity not rationality – a town or city where the author was born or has come to love. That’s admirable, but a capital city has to stand not just for one person but for everyone; not just for one lifetime but many lifetimes.
In this regard, York has experience. It already is, or used to be, a capital city. Most obviously, it’s the capital of Yorkshire – England’s biggest county and God’s Own Country. In medieval and early modern times, it was the seat of the Council of the North. Earlier, it was the greatest city of the Danelaw and the capital of the Jorvik kingdom. Earlier still, it was one of the Roman capitals of Britain – ‘Britannia’ being divided into two (or, at times, more) provinces. To this day, the Church of England is divided into two ecclesiastical provinces – Canterbury and York. Hence the grandeur of York Minister and the existence of England’s other Anglican Archbishop.
It has to be said that this history also exemplifies the long subordination of the North to the South. The Archbishop of York is junior to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Council of the North represented the King in London. The independence of the Danelaw was eventually extinguished, and the North harried by William the Conqueror. The Roman province that Eboracum was the capital of was called Britannia Inferior (and, later Britannia Secunda). Even in the 20th century, it was Whitehall practice to refer to the country beyond the South as “outer Britain”.
There can no better reason for choosing a new capital than to re-empower the North. Here are three scenarios in which it could happen:
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