POST MORTEM 1: DON’T COUNT ON THE OLDIES DYING OFF

COULD LONDON BE NEXT FOR A 'YES' STYLE UPSURGE?

Scotland’s constitutional battle has now moved to Westminster.  And already Labour and Conservatives are at odds over how to fulfil the last-minute ‘Better Together’ campaign pledge of more powers.

A furious political explosion would erupt in Scotland if the pledges of more devolution are snarled up in Westminster party politics. 

Meanwhile neglected and socially-deprived regions in England are now clamouring for more spending powers of their own. 

Throughout the referendum campaign, “London” was demonised for all manner of Scotland’s ills. It was the focal point of Scottish anger and frustration. 

But might “London” be the next to experience a political explosion of the type experienced here? Tens of thousands of people not previously involved in politics and without a voice clamouring for change?

Deprivation and poverty levels in the UK capital are appalling. Young people have been shut out of the property market. Income inequality is far worse in London than in Scotland. And the ground looks fertile for a populist revolt. 

Media attention till now has focused on mega-rich and the astronomical levels to which house prices in London’s West End have soared. 

But there is another, much larger, London. 

A majority – 57 per cent - of the Londoners who live in poverty are in families with at least one wage earner, but their wages are now insufficient for them to survive with dignity.

A quarter of all Londoners rely on housing benefit. More people in poverty in London rent privately than live in social housing. 

 And although London has seen the greatest mean average increase in salaries and wages in recent years of any European city, it is also the most economically divided and remains the ‘poverty capital’ of England.

Meanwhile, there are more so-called ultra-high net-worth individuals (UHNWI) in London than anywhere else on the planet. These are defined as people with $30m (£21m) or more in assets apart from their main home. 

They make up the top one per cent, or super rich. The estate agents Frank Knight recently reported that 4,224 “Ultra” families were living in London, with the number expected to reach 5,000 by 2024. 

London is leading the rest of the UK into accepting gross inequality as almost inevitable. No other UK city has as many squatters as London.

The city is the ‘unpaid intern capital’ of Europe. But might it now prove home to a new resistance among the young, the unpaid and the underpaid? 

Oxford University professor Danny Dorling has set out the many negative effects of the one per cent on the remaining 99 per cent in his new book Inequality and the 1% being published this week.

In the last 15 years, he says, inequality has spiralled.  London’s wealthy elite also includes the largest concentration of Russian millionaires found outside of Moscow – at least 2,000, many of whom are also “Ultras”. It is impossible to accurately assess their wealth because so much of it is hidden.

And the ‘home grown’ rich are no longer rich in London. Those that previously sat comfortably at the bottom of the one per cent are no longer part of that group.

 The top 1% no longer includes most doctors and head teachers; their incomes have been far outstripped by those of the financiers above them.

And it has become increasingly difficult for young middle class people to find affordable property in London.  

The book is a contentious and disturbing portrayal of life beneath the glamorous surface of this “global city state”. It poses searching questions about social stability in the capital. And it is particularly thought-provoking now as divisions open up on what is – or was – the United Kingdom. 

Professor Dorling’s book is due to be published by Verso on Friday.