Some statistics just aren't all that surprising

Torsten Bell tells us that:

First, big cities have more than their share of poor families – overall, Londoners have below average disposable incomes.

Well, not so much really. Londoners have below average disposable incomes after housing costs and above before. Which, given that housing in London is more expensive than it is in other areas of the country isn’t, in fact, all that much of a surprise.

However, this is also important. For the usual measures of inequality across Britain keep telling us - and thus the levelling up mantra - that Britain is unequal across geography. Which is measured by the pre-housing costs measures. But if housing costs different amounts then inequality, across that geography, is lower than generally measured, isn’t it?

This extends further as well. The costs of near everything vary around the country - that first rural experience of London’s beer prices usually does bring an outburst of guttural Anglo Saxonisms.

Britain, by the only measure that can possibly matter - inequality of consumption - is very much less unequal than is generally assumed or measured. Therefore, of course, we need to do very much less about it.