OK Bert, there is a tilt, not due to plate tectonics, but to the land readjusting after the Ice Age loading to the north, and it does apply a down force to the SE.

The plate tectonics side is more complex. If you go back to the Cretaceous, you find that the SE was below sealevel. Since then, possibly as a distant reaction to the impact of Africa on Europe, it has been uplifted. There is no identifiable mechanism for reversing this process. There is more recent evidence for uplift. Next time I talk to the author of the thesis this is in, I'll ask him if I can write more.

This does not alter that fact that the Thames and its floodplain are threatened by the global sea-level rise.

Penny