London’s employment mix and the bank bailouts have helped it avoid the worst of the recession, but things do not look so rosy for the capital’s poor

When the recession hit many predicted that London would fare the worst. Henry Overman argues that while incomes and employment have contracted in London in the last two years, the capital’s high proportion of professional and service occupations as well as government interventions (including the bank bailouts) have shielded it from the worst of the recession thus far, and has even led to some above average rises in spending.