Glad that is all over. Now back to bigging up London, my home city!
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2006-12-05-london-top-city_x.htmLondon takes a bite out of New York's Big Apple
Updated 12/5/2006 9:00 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this
A Polish specialty shop sits only a few miles to the west of Kensington Palace gardens and billionaires row, in the suburb of Ealing. Storefronts boast signs offering Polish delicacies to cater to an influx of less wealthy, but no less ambitious immigrants.
By Jane Wardell, Associated Press Writer
LONDON — Indian steel tycoon Laskhmi Mittal and Russian oil baron Leonard Blavatnik are the new boys on the block at London's Kensington Palace Gardens, a street with houses so lavish it's known as billionaire's row.
Farther west in the suburb of Ealing, store fronts boast signs offering Polish delicacies to cater to an influx of less wealthy, but no less driven immigrants.
Watch out Big Apple, Big Ben may be ringing in a new age of dominance for the British capital.
In the same way immigrants flooded to the bright lights of New York last century, they are now drawn to London's galloping financial markets, inviting job market and high-octane lifestyle. New York's attractions, meanwhile, are languishing as stringent post-9/11 travel restrictions, heavy-handed financial regulations, and intrusive Homeland Security policies combine to make it less welcoming or, at times, even somewhat parochial.
"When people decide to leave their own country, more and more they choose London," said Jonathan Faid, senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
Along with record immigration levels, property prices are skyrocketing and employment remains robust. Financially, London dominates global foreign exchange trading, leads New York in new stock market listings and is pulling ahead on hedge fund management.
On the lifestyle front, the arts and party scenes are breaking new ground in innovation (and excess), tourists keep coming in droves despite terrorism fears, and to top it all off the 2012 Olympics are coming to town.
Celebrities are giving their nod.
Woody Allen, the filmmaker perhaps most closely associated with New York, has recently made London his muse. And international non-British superstars like Madonna, Kevin Spacey and Gwyneth Paltrow make their home here, drawn to the mix of buzz and Old World elegance.
Behind the boom is money: the capital is underpinned by thriving international financial markets. While New York remains the world's largest urban economy, its wealth is founded on domestic business; experts say London has already stolen back its crown as the premier international financial market.
It all started two decades ago, when then-Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher implemented her 1986 Big Bang financial reforms that deregulated the London Stock Exchange virtually overnight. Long the exclusive preserve of the rich or well-connected, the exchange became cheaper, faster and more transparent for foreigners and individual investors.
There was also a philosophical shift in Thatcher's vision of a "classless society" in which the best and the brightest of all races and backgrounds would be given the conditions to thrive — often, critics said, at the expense of the weakest.
Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has continued that drive, using foreigner-friendly legislation to make the most of London's natural geographic advantage — it's in a convenient time zone to cut deals from New York to Shanghai — to straddle the business globe.
Despite some public grumbling, Britain has put up few barriers to foreigners taking over some of its biggest businesses, not to mention treasured institutions. One of the most notable new faces is Roman Abramovich, the Russian oil tycoon who is now frequently spotted in the home stands of Chelsea, the venerable London-based soccer club he bought in 2003.
Attempts by foreign corporations to buy US. icons have been met with stronger protest, as with the sale of New York's Rockefeller Center to Mitsubishi Estate in the late 1980s. Mitsubishi later sold its 51 stake in favor of investments in Asia. And there is little talk of "economic patriotism" in Britain that has become a catchphrase in continental Europe, with governments in France and Germany blocking takeover bids by foreign companies.
The Enron scandal led the United States to introduce tough regulations including requirements that companies listing on US. exchanges invest in software and hire auditors to vet business processes — a move critics say has a stifling effect on investment and enterprise.
"US. regulation has certainly driven a lot of business over here and London has taken advantage of that by making sure that its own regulation is as attractive as it can manage," said David Lascelles, the director of the Centre for Study of Financial Innovation.
Perhaps the most euro-skeptic European Union member, Britain has also embraced the bloc's open-border policy more warmly than any other country, welcoming workers from newcomer states after the last expansion in 2004 when most other EU nations kept the door closed.
The net inflow of people coming long-term into Britain last year was 500 a day, according to figures from the National Statistics office. The rush of immigration has been so dramatic that the government is trying to cool it off, restricting entry from workers from Romania and Bulgaria when those countries join the EU in 2007.
The hurdles to settling in the United States are greater than those in Britain, said Anastasia Tonello, a London-based lawyer specializing in migration to both countries.
"Someone with a degree and skills and experience can usually find a route to immigrate into the UK. and that simply isn't the case in the US. There's quotas, there's backlogs, there's requirements that just prevent good people from being able to get authorization to work in the US.," she said.
"The message is that we aren't just an historic financial center, we are a very dynamic, cultural city with lots of facets," said Diana Torres, the New-York based vice president for Think London, a not-for-profit organization that helps foreign businesses set up shop in London.
Seb Dovey of the London-based wealth management consultancy Scorpio Partnership said London has become so attractive for well-heeled travelers that he is seeing growing interest from Americans relocating from New York to London.
The new arrivals have pushed the price of London's luxury homes beyond those in New York, making them the most expensive in the world.
Prime residential property in London now costs around $2,300 per square foot, compared to $1,900 in New York, according to CB Richard Ellis Hamptons International.
The arts scene is also flourishing.
London's Tate Modern museum is filled with cutting-edge contemporary art, making New York's Museum of Modern Art look a little old-fashioned by comparison. Even MOMA Director Glenn Lowry has warned that New York is in danger of losing its status as cultural capital of the world if it does not invest more in arts programs.
Ever since the emergence of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the other headline-grabbing "Young British Artists" in the 1990s, London has been home to a vibrant arts scene that continues to spawn new talent. In just a few years, the graffiti artist Banksy has gone from stenciling walls and bridges around the city to selling work for tens of thousands of dollars to A-list clients, including Angelina Jolie.
The major galleries are booming. Tate Modern attracts 4 million visitors a year and has announced a $400 million expansion to double its exhibition space.
Overseas visitors made a record 30 million trips to the Britain last year despite the July 7 bombings in London. In contrast, Euromonitor International warned that the United States is losing substantial numbers of business and leisure travelers to Europe because of the stringent security measures it has imposed on international visitors since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that make visas harder to obtain.
London's rise has some key figures in New York worried.
A group of US. bankers, bosses, academics and investors under the banner of the Committee on capital Markets Regulation last week released a report lamenting the rise in regulatory compliance costs and calling for a reduction in red tape. Among the group's recommendations is a suggestion that the US. Securities and Exchange Commission rely on principles-based rules and guidance, rather than detailed prescriptive rules.
The New York Chamber of Commerce has held a series of "town hall meetings" and will publish another report next spring, while the city has hired consultants from McKinsey to develop a new strategy.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Sen. Charles Schumer to pen an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal last month warning that New York could lose its position as the world's financial capital if steps aren't taken to reduce regulation.
The London Stock Exchange's popularity makes it a perennial takeover target for foreign exchanges. The LSE registered 78 initial public offerings by foreign corporations worth US$10.8 billion last year, while US. IPOs the same year numbered 34 worth just US$7 million — a large fall from the $41 billion worth in 1999.
"Unless we improve our corporate climate, we risk allowing New York to lose its pre-eminence in the global financial-services sector," Bloomberg and Schumer wrote. "This would be devastating both for our city and nation."
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Will that get you mad? 
One look at Camilla Parker Bowles or Prince "Tampon Prince Charles"--I can only imagine how the place smells. Ugly people! At least Bill Clinton only smokes "cigars"! 8)b But a tampon prince is totally inexcusable. TU-Fia-Kwa! 
May be my words are just too strong for una. 
and will never let anybody run me down at all. 
bigben.jpg (55.27 KB, 472x250 )
