Liverpool players celebrating after winning the UEFA Champions League. Credit: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
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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.
Today, Liverpool is in the papers for the right reasons. Liverpool FC’s long awaited victory in the Champions League doesn’t just feel like a triumph on the pitch – it’s a validation of Jürgen Klopp’s inclusive, hard-working and always-improving culture; it’s a celebration of a football team that reflects the best parts of the city that (give or take a few Everton fans) loves them.
This victory and the efforts leading up to it reinforce my belief in Liverpool. It makes me all the more convinced that it’s where the future of the nation could and should lie. But I’m also aware that, in spite of today’s headlines, if you want to understand Liverpool’s appeal, you have to slough off a long history of bad press. As long ago as 1849, Herman Melville was complaining: “Of all sea-ports in the world, Liverpool, perhaps, most abounds in all the variety of land-sharks, land-rats, and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their prey.”
And then, towards the end of the twentieth century, people really began to stick the boot in. The city endured long stagnation and then a sharp descent into the mass unemployment and deprivation of the 1980s, the Toxteth riots and the infamous Derek Hatton years – when the Militant tendency took control of Liverpool City Council.
Liverpool became a byword for urban decline, bad planning, and hatefully ugly modern architecture. It was the butt of endless bad jokes about moustaches, tracksuits, accents and thieving. A few good jokes too. Bill Bryson took a train to Liverpool in Notes from a Small Island. “They were having a litter festival when I arrived,” he wrote:
“Citizens had taken time off from their busy activities to add crisp packets, empty cigarette boxes, and carrier bags to the otherwise bland and neglected landscape.”
You get the gist. I’m as guilty as anyone for making people think ill of Liverpool. The city made the top 10 of Crap Towns, a book about the worst places to live in the UK, which I edited in 2003. Back then, when I was canvassing opinion, hundreds wrote in to complain about the city and the rut it was in. They were especially frustrated because the city had fallen so far.
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