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London Swallowed a City but Couldn't Digest It.

CGP Grey · 8.6M views · 2012-07-23 · 4:48

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Overview

CGP Grey explains that the City of London is a tiny, separate entity with its own governance, history and privileges, distinct from the city called London. He covers its financial role and how it is run.

On Hacker News

HN's go-to short explainer for the City of London versus London, cited in many finance and UK threads.

Recommended by 12 HN people across 11 months · HN mentions 2012–2024

Topics

World historyPolitics & history (other)
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city of londonuk governancefinancehistorycgp grey

What people said

dwheeler · 2024-06 · Strong recommendation

CGP Grey has a delightful video explaining this: "The Secret City inside of London Revealed" (2012) [VIDEO] Highly recommended.

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Hagelin · 2017-03 · Strong recommendation

CGP Grey's "The (Secret) City of London" are great videos on the topic of the City of London (vs. London) Part 1: [VIDEO] Part 2: [LINK]

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M2Ys4U · 2014-07 · Strong recommendation

The short answer is "no". The longer answer is "well, kinda, but not really". There have been a couple of convictions, but these were guilty pleas - people who have either been advised incorrectly by their solicitors (most probably because they were not experts in copyright law) or just really did not want to go through a trial. The copyright industry has tried to completely side-step copyright law entirely and use the offence of "conspiracy to defraud" with very dubious legal basis. It's been far from common, though. There have only been a handful of attempted prosecutions, and usually only because the copyright industry (via FACT[0]) has leant on the police. Most recently they've c̶o̶r̶r̶u̶p̶t̶e̶d̶ err, co-opted the City of London Police. This is the force that polices the square-mile City of London in the heart of London (See CGP Grey's excellent video[1] for more about the City of London vs the city called London). [0] The 'Federation Against Copyright Theft' - an absurd name for an absurd organisation - [LINK] [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by CGP Grey, played through YouTube.

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