JOHN McTERNAN: An act of union would steal London’s thunder

These articles are a regular, and predictable, phenomenon in the national broadsheets - the consequence of the London media elite having to visit another part of the country and finding, somewhat to their surprise, that ciabatta, red pesto and latte can be found north of NW3.

We can brace ourselves for similar breathless coverage of Edinburgh in August as, in the manner of a medieval court, London comes north to enjoy the festivals and our cooler climate.

However, amusing as it is to observe London’s middle classes panicking at the thought of the state of their local schools and wondering at the energising quality of fresh air that is not a toxic soup of vehicle emissions, there is a real undertone of despair now detectable in the words and thoughts of Londoners.

The truth is that London isn’t working - it is grinding to a halt as its social and physical infrastructure collapses under the twin pressures of under-investment and population overload.

London’s long boom in the 1990s has made it a magnet for mobile and ambitious workers from across the United Kingdom and around the world - to take two examples, it is currently estimated that there are half a million young French people living and working in London, and that at least a quarter of a million asylum seekers denied leave to stay in the United Kingdom have disappeared and been absorbed into the London labour market.

The dynamism and growth which have flowed from this migration made London in the mid-90s almost certainly the most exciting city in the world.

But public investment failed to match the increase in population and roads, tube, schools and hospitals alike cannot cope with the demands on them. This crisis has been long in the making and it will take decades to resolve, but London’s problems are Scotland’s opportunities. It remains an article of faith in London that however unpleasant life becomes in the capital no major enterprise will relocate out of London because it the capital (and a world city to boot).

In reality, that has not been true for a while. Witness the growth of London’s satellite cities such as Colchester, Reading and Bournemouth; and the growth and consolidation which has made Edinburgh and Glasgow, taken together, the fifth largest financial centre in Europe.

The time has come for Scotland to take this game up a gear and embark on the most ambitious border raid of all - to bring major company headquarters north.

The sell is obvious. An improved quality of life with better education (Scottish schools outperform English ones at primary and secondary level), a cleaner environment (with rapid access to hill or coast) and a health service able to treat patients like people.

As financial services workers who have relocated here have discovered, Scottish bourgeois life is very, very comfortable.

In our globalised and increasingly weightless economy, location in the south-east of England offers little material advantage. High-speed communication abolishes distance, and there is instant access to transport nodes when handshakes and face time matters, though it may not be necessary to leave Scotland to do business in person as it is apparent that people actually like coming up here - look at the number of ‘international’ conferences held in Scotland nowadays. However, there is one big challenge that has to be met head-on if Scotland is to profit from London’s troubles - and that is transcending the age-old, petty and pointless conflict between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

To wrest major enterprises away from London it will take the combination of the historic capital with the former Second City of the Empire.

Dr John Knell of the Work Foundation has made a study of successful cities and, citing Sydney as a case study, has observed that history, heritage, character and self-confidence are critical factors.

Together Edinburgh and Glasgow have those in super-abundance - enough to compete with any world city - let alone London.

There are indications that some already get the need for co-operation, not competition. Michael Kelly’s willingness last week to see Edinburgh Airport get the second runway (albeit at the price of hundreds of millions of extra in subsidy for Glasgow) was a positive sign. But a wholesale reconceptualisation of central Scotland is required.

In the United States the whole of the Central Belt would be instantly seen for what it is - a metroplex - a single urban organism, a single labour market. And that recognition is key to managing it successfully.

We may think that Iain Gray has a massive transport problem to solve, but 10 minutes trapped underground in a stationary Tube train in mid-summer gives the lie to that.

What we need is obvious, graspable and deliverable. The Waverley line to open up the Borders and bring workers to Edinburgh. The Stirling to Alloa freight line to free up the Forth Railway Bridge and double the frequency of trains to Fife. A non-stop ‘bullet’ train from Edinburgh to Glasgow slashing journey times.

Most workers in London spend at least an hour getting to work. In contrast, we could set an aim of making it possible to get from one part of central Scotland to another in less than 45 minutes.

This may seem a pipe dream to the commuter sitting fuming in the permanent traffic jam that is the A8/M8. Yet imagine the transformation that could be wrought if that transport corridor was properly developed. Say that the road and the surrounding land was vested in an Urban Development Corporation tasked with transforming road and rail links.

We would see (finally) a motorway all the way between our two great cities. And, cutting through the overcomplicated proliferation of planning restrictions we could see the development of a real ‘strip city’ along the M8. (We are not, after all, talking about areas of outstanding natural beauty).

There is a fantastic opportunity for Glasgow/Edinburgh genuinely to be the new London. For the next month hordes of Londoners will be enjoying our hospitality and day-dreaming about how much better their lives could be if they could get out of London.

This sense of desire for change will be accentuated when they return to the daily grind of London life, but, as with all holiday resolutions (learning French, taking more regular exercise and so on) it will fade away. Unless we seize the day.

Can we be big enough to see how small the distance really is between Forth and Clyde?