There's an element of us talking at cross purpose I'm afraid and that's probably my fault.
On the city, the original point seemed to have been with regard to beneficial effect of a city financial sector to the UK economy and I would tend to go with govt taxation figures which state that we do tax city workers and those taxes contribute to paying the costs of running the economy. Our cities have economies, those economies are part of and contribute to the country as a whole so to answer your question, I think it may not be easy to trace a £ coin spent in London directly to show it benefits us here in the north but I strongly feel if you did take that economic sector out of the equation that we would feel the cost up here.
We are an interlinked economy so while I would not rabidly support the theory of trickle down and suggest that paying bankers millions in bonuses means they will buy british and spend exclusively on British goods and services but I do see that the housing, services and exclusive products that can be bought in London are part of the expenditure that bankers will spend some of their bonuses and salary on. Like I said to Andy elsewhere - to suggest otherwise is to suggest these people are paid and either squirrel all their earnings away or spend exclusively overseas and somehow spend little in the UK.
Now - to intermix that separately with the Brexit / Bremain argument - I'm not arguing anything to do with the city beyond that I feel the city would adapt if we left, there would be a shrink to the economy but the city is too well established to suffer to the extent that the city would uproot and move wholesale to Frankfurt and or Paris. Although a lot of Eurozone wholesale financial trading would shift pretty quickly, I feel that the city of London has established itself on the global scene and
could develop elsewhere.
You accept the dominance of the city as part of the source for out GDP, it is in fact not as huge as some might feel. I posted for Pete a while ago stats showing that even though our manufacturing had shrunk from the 70's, it was still approx. Figures and contribution to the UK economy Parliament briefing.
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06193/SN06193.pdf
Anyhow, yes the primary economic benefit affects the London area but I would add that life in the other areas of the UK are comparable to many parts of Europe. You ask a difficult question though regarding better living standards - how does a slower pace of life in a sleepy French small town compare with a similar town (if there is such a thing) in the UK? Weather and wine apart, does life in a backwater in France fare better than life in a similar backwater in Yorkshire or Aberdeenshire? Housing costs apart, I would say yes.
Finally, you're obviously not a Thatcher fan from how you describe her affect on the UK but from our conversations I guess you are familiar with the 1970's which although a vibrant period of culture in the UK were also a period when we produced goods the world
didn't want. I remember seeing Allegro cars returned from Japan, failing to get through borders because of shoddy production. I remember poor production, unionised labour and battles at the workplace just to get goods produced. You may disparage Thatcher's deregulation but it was something that many other countries also did after us. Some in the EU and others elsewhere. I also think you disparage her educational success - she did not learn all she needed above her father's grocer's shop - she went on to Oxford too.
The sick man of Europe is not a tag I hanker for.
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