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Fortress London
- Why We Need to Save the Country from Its Capital
- Narrated by: Sam Bright
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
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Fortress London
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Summary
A vividly written and timely polemic tackling the burning injustices shaping British society today.
Journalist Sam Bright is a Northerner living in London. He is just one of the millions of people clinging on to the coattails of the capital, sucked in by the prospect of opportunities that the rest of the United Kingdom does not enjoy.
Our capital is a vast melting pot of languages, cultures and ideas, and rightly celebrated for it. For many, though, there is no other option. The only place to access the opportunities this country offers is London. Banking, law, politics, advertising, architecture, the arts and the media are all concentrated here. It is almost impossible to reach the heights of any profession without joining the grey hoards queuing for the next tube. As the economic, political and cultural epicentre of the country, fortress London acts more like a renaissance city-state like Florence or Venice than the capital of a modern nation-state. And the gluttony of London, compared to the malnourishment of our regions, dramatically affects life chances in Britain.
Fortress London argues that to address Britain’s manifold problems we need first to end the hegemony of its capital. Enriched by a vast array of interviews and statistics, it will examine how our individual destinies, from childhood to death, are determined by the disproportionate power of London. It will explain why regional inequality has fallen off the Left’s radar, even as the Right pays lip service to it, and it will draw on international comparisons to show where we have gone wrong and, crucially, how we can fix it.
Sam Bright’s clear-eyed intervention will convince you that regional inequality is the problem—and that now is the time for change.
Featuring exclusive interviews with: Andy Burnham, Lisa Nandy, Steve Rotheram, Aditya Chakrabortty, David Blunkett, Jess Phillips, Andrew Adonis and more…
Critic reviews
"Sam Bright is one of the best reporters of his generation." (John Sweeney)
"I've been really impressed by Sam's work—persistently finding story after story exposing wrongdoing and hypocrisy at the highest level. A name to watch." (Carole Cadwalladr)
"A new and vital force in journalism, Bright’s well-crafted investigations and political scoops have already won him plaudits. His reports have forced government ministers on to the defensive and left the mainstream media trailing in his wake, playing desperate catch up." (Matthew Wright)
What listeners say about Fortress London
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Layla Boggs
- 21-09-22
Not quite the drivel I expected it to be
But, unfortunately, I still think it's basically drivel. At least Hodders describe it as a polemic rather than an analysis. It's impossible to give a detailed, objective, critique of the book as it takes too much of a scatter gun approach, presenting a large number of facts & statistics, most of which lack detailed context and analysis. (Any statistician will tell you that even a simple 'x%' needs a context and an explanation of methodology and it's limitations before it can convey anything meaningful.)
Herein lies the book's biggest flaw. Each chapter could be a complete book in itself, where the arguments Sam raises could be given a full objective treatment. Instead, we're treated to 'this contributes to inequality between London and the regions', 'this is what Germany/France did', 'if we did that, it would help solve the problem', without seriously considering any counterarguments. He's far too eloquent for me to describe the book as a mere rant, but it amounts to very little more than that.
Maybe I'm being unfair to Sam, but my impression is that the book is born of personal grievances (being looked down upon at university, the exorbitant cost of living in London) onto which he's attached various complaints about the problems associated with the capital. My own history is far more working class than Sam's: comprehensive education in a northern town, university in a metropolitan city, moved to the north-of-London commuter belt, into central London, then back to my home town. In all that, I don't recognise the picture he paints. Yes there are deep, crippling inequalities in society, getting worse by the year, but in my opinion Sam has identified both the wrong cause and the wrong solutions.
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