Splendidly pointless second city debate The debate over which UK metropolis should rank just below London may one day prove academic Birmingham's effort to revive its economy, highlighted last week by the launch there of the UK's largest city-centre enterprise zone, raises that old question: what is the country's second city after London? This is a debate that generates hot air in proportion to its pointlessness. There is no official mechanism to decide the status. And what are the criteria - population size, economic importance, cultural contribution? The most intense contest is between Birmingham, which saw itself as the second city for much of the 20th century, and Manchester, which has claimed it more stridently since 2000. But there are other claimants. There is a case that Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast should share the status as they are national capitals. That might be contested by citizens of Glasgow, which once saw itself as second city of the empire, though it is hard to see their case today. And if you ask people from Liverpool what the UK's second city is, they will say: "London." Go back far enough and you find other candidates. In the 18th century, many saw Bristol as England's second city because of its wealth. Dublin was the UK's second most populous city at the time of the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Facts do not necessarily help. Birmingham beats Manchester in terms of population within the city council's boundaries, but more people live in the area covered by Greater Manchester's local enterprise partnership than in Greater Birmingham's. Manchester's claim is based on the strength of its economic regeneration since the IRA bomb in 1996, combined with its prowess in fields such as pop music and football. In a survey commissioned by the BBC in 2007, 48 per cent said Manchester deserved to be England's second city, while 40 per cent chose Birmingham. Many Mancunians contend that their city has always been the second city, though suggestions that it is the capital of the north tend to get a dusty response from Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and Newcastle. In Birmingham, which lost more private-sector jobs in the decade to 2008 than any UK city except Stoke, there has been much fretting about relative decline. In 2011 Lord Jones, the former trade minister, said it was in "grave danger" of losing its second city status to Manchester. Of course, if London carries on growing as rapidly as it is, all this may one day be academic because we shall all be living in tower blocks in the capital, while the rest of the country becomes a national park. It might take a century or two to get there, but that is the direction in which the UK seems to be headed. The good and bad One of the frustrations of writing about the labour market is that every piece of good news is at the same time bad news. Thus, the UK is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs but many are insecure or low-wage. Workers have shown great flexibility in enduring cuts in real pay, which protects jobs and helps to create new ones, but the result is that productivity is falling, which potentially undermines future economic growth. Sometimes the pattern changes: no longer are most new jobs part-time. Two-thirds of the rise in employment over the past year has been full-time. The number of people working part-time because they cannot get a full-time job is falling. But the decline of real wages is accelerating again. What would unambiguously good news look like? That would happen if employment and output grew at the same time, productivity rose, more jobs were full-time and permanent, and real wages were rising. It may be some time before we see all these factors together. The big frees The Reverend Iain Campbell, moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, wants journalists to desist from using the nickname "Wee Frees," which he says is outdated and offensive. The church gained the nickname in 1900 when a minority of Free Church members refused to join a merger that created the United Free Church of Scotland. The moderator argues that "wee" is unsuitable for a church that is represented throughout Scotland, maintains a constant presence in the mission field and organises camps for hundreds of children. I fear he may be in for a disappointment. Some nicknames are too good to die.