On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 12:32:48 GMT Martin Underwood wrote:
} "James Farrar" wrote in message
} ...
} Charles Ellson wrote:
} On Tuesday, in article
}
} "Matthew Malthouse" wrote:
}
} snip
}
} The City of Wesminster is the seat of parliament, monarch and courts
} since Henry IV. In every meanigful sense it's the capital of England.
} The City of London is just more famous.
}
}
} Hosting a parliament does not make somewhere a capital city, as will be
} found in a number of countries (including the UK). Westminster is only
} one place which has a royal palace. Nil points.
}
} m-w.com, capital [sense 2] 3 b: being the seat of government
}
} Nil points for you, I'm afraid.
}
} Precisely. If being the centre for government, law and finance does not make
} a city its country's capital, what does? Charles, are you saying that London
} is England's financial capital and Westminster its governemnt and legal
} capital?
}
} I think when people in common parlance talk about London being the capital
} of England (and maybe of GB and the UK), they mean the whole of London (how
} ever you define "the whole"!), rather than simply the City of London (just
} the financial centre and not the government and legal centre). I tend to
} think of the City of Westminster and the City of London as being merely
} districts of a nebulous place called "London" which for historical reasons
} has been divided into two very small adjacent cities which don't include
} most of central "London". As a matter of interest, do postcode boundaries
} follow the boundary between the Cities of Westminster and London?
}
} However a capital city doesn't have to be the country's largest city - think
} of Scotland (Edinburgh is smaller than Glasgow), Australia (Canberra is
} titchy compared with Sydney, Melbourne etc) or the old West Germany (Bonn
} was titchy compared with Hamburg, Munich etc).

Indeed. Some countries define their capital city, Canberra for
Australia as you mention, Brazillia for Brazil and Washington DC for the
US of A. South Africa defined (I don't know if it still does) Pretoria
as administrative, Bloemfontein and judicial and Cape Town as
legislative capitals.

As far as I'm aware there is not statute making such a definition for
England (or subsequently the UK) so we have to fall back on the
eliptical use of "capital" as head for which Westminster quailifies as
all three whereas the City of London does not.

In that sense when all three were functions of the royal court the
capital might at various times have said to have been York, Oxford and
for long periods Winchester where the treasury was kept even when the
court was peripetetic and parliament met more often than anywhere except
Westminster.

A fourth category, that of trade and finance, has had London as
pre-eminent a fact of which administrations have always been aware.
For that reason royal palaces have been maintained in close proximity to
London since before the Norman Conquest yet (allowing that the Tower is
outside the juristiction of the City) never within London itself.

Of course the common perception of London as the wider conurbation and
London as the capital of England / The United Kingdom is quite valid in
exactly the same sense of head or pre-eminent. It's just that the
little - and lets be frank, insignificant - details rather catch my
imagination. :-)

Matthew
--
Il est important d'être un homme ou une femme en colère; le jour où nous
quitte la colère, ou le désir, c'est cuit. - Barbara

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