No wonder the coalition hasn't got many friends in the north

[T_i_B]

A half decent article from Andrew Rawnsley is a rare thing, so I thought I'd best post this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/26/andrew-rawnsley-north-south-divide

The great majority of the decision-makers at Westminster have their roots in the south. When Oliver Letwin was trying to persuade Boris Johnson of the case for green taxes on aviation, the cabinet minister told his fellow Old Etonian: "We don't want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays." He could have made his point by referencing Southampton or Salisbury. It tells us something that it was the folk of a northern city that came to Mr Letwin's mind when he wanted to deny discount travel to the less well-off.

With the exception of William Hague, Eric Pickles and two Lib Dem Scots, the cabinet is a very southern English affair. This may not have been much noticed by the south, but it is very evident if you look through the other end of the telescope. Viewed from Leeds or Manchester or Newcastle, Westminster is more remote than ever. It also seems increasingly hostile. Northern England has a growing – and often legitimate – grievance that it is getting a raw deal compared with the rest of the United Kingdom. There is the historic complaint, sharpened by public spending cuts which will bite hardest in the north, that they are discriminated against by power brokers concentrated in the south. To that is now added a creeping realisation that they are also losing out in money and influence to the devolved governments in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – particularly the latter.

That's the new dimension to an old tension. Elizabeth Gaskell published North and South back in 1855. There's some crudity to dissecting England like that. It's not all grim up north – far from it. Leeds is a place transformed compared with the city in which I was born. The skylines of Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield gleam with concert halls, art galleries, university buildings, shopping malls, and other citadels of steel and glass that helped to restore the self-confidence of northern cities in the Nineties and Noughties . The Labour years appeared to soften the north/south divide, but maybe they just masked it by using public spending which has left northern England proportionally much more dependent on public sector jobs and state-financed contracts. The spending cuts are bound to be felt most severely here. That is a brutal truth that can't be sugar-coated by rhetoric about everyone being in this together.

Politics is deepening the division. Labour is bouncing back in the north, but remains unconvincing to voters in the south. The Conservatives look resilient in the south, but have never managed to sell David Cameron to the north. At last year's general election and this year's local elections, the Conservatives made their strides in southern England while performing much more weakly the further you drove up the M1 or M6. There is not a single Tory councillor in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield. Some of Mr Cameron's strategists worry about this and they are correct to do so. A divided country mocks the prime minister's claim to be a One Nation Tory. It will be very difficult for the Conservatives to secure a decent parliamentary majority on their own if they cannot win in more parts of northern England. The disappearance of the Tories from much of the north turned the Lib Dems into Labour's main competition. The Lib Dems' northern councillors were obliterated at the local elections. Nick Clegg has confided to friends that he was slow to realise how much visceral hostility towards the Tories there was in the north, nor had he foreseen how it would be displaced on to his own party through guilt by association. It is reasonable to suppose that this trend is going to continue into the future, splitting the country between a Labour north and a Tory/Lib Dem-supporting south. This is not a happy prospect, this future for England in which it becomes ever more starkly divided into two political nations.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Well fine, TiB, but we need Rawnsley to tell us this?

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

2. All too true and all too depressing

'Nick Clegg has confided to friends that he was slow to realise how much visceral hostility towards the Tories there was in the north, nor had he foreseen how it would be displaced on to his own party through guilt by association.'

Then he's a fool - as we knew already. Speaking as a lifelong southerner, it was obvious to anyone who had ever paid any attention that Thatcher had destroyed the economy of many northern cities; that the north had good reason to hate and distrust the Tories; and that many southern Tories exhibit an 'anti-northern-ism' as vicious as any of their other prejudices. And that collaboration with the Tories would cause his own party to become deeply unpopular in the north.

'it is reasonable to suppose that this trend is going to continue into the future, splitting the country between a Labour north and a Tory/Lib Dem-supporting south.'

More a Labour north, and a Tory south with a few Labour pockets. The LibDems have also lost support in the south - where they had usually been treated as an opposition to the Tories, not to Labour. Now that they're in cahoots with the Tories, many of their votes will go to Labour, but perhaps not enough to stop the Tories from ruling even more of the south than they do already.

'This is not a happy prospect, this future for England in which it becomes ever more starkly divided into two political nations.'

Indeed.

[non sociopath skin]

3. Perhaps some of our wise-after-the-event "liberal" hacks ...

... could have given Cleggy a heads-up on this.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

4. Probably wouldn't have done much good

None so deaf as those who won't hear, and Cleggy is definitely one of these.

[T_i_B]

5. Never mind "wise-after-the-event liberal hacks"

You'd have hoped that the MP for Sheffield Hallam would not have needed a heads up about this in the first place.

[non sociopath skin]

6. You're right in a sense, TiB ...

... But Hallam is the "posh" bit of Sheffield, right? Now if he'd listened to his councillors in the less affluent parts of the city ....

The Skin

[ikri]

7. Ironically

Looking at the current predictions, the Tories will gain a few seats in the North and Scotland at the expense of the Lib Dems. That's assuming, of course, that the Tory vote in those areas won't collapse, but the Lib Dems could be left with less than 10 seats north of the Humber.

[non sociopath skin]

8. The Tories in Newcastle are assuming that with the Lib Dem "meltdown" ....

... the Cleggies have done even worse in by-elections there than they did when they lost the city in May - they should begin to pick up seats in the more affluent suburbs.

They MAY be right but the private and public sectors are so co-dependent hereabouts that they might get a rude shock.

The Skin

[ikri]

9. More likely

Seats like Berwick where Alan Beith has been the local MP for decades but where, if there's a massive drop-off in the Lib Dem vote, the Tories are the most likely party to pick up the constituency. Unless almost all the Lib Dems switch to Labour then the Tories are best placed in some constituencies to win, but that also relies upon the Tory vote staying relatively stable in those areas.

It's interesting to look at the electoral calculus website & see all those expected Labour gains in the prediction column.

[non sociopath skin]

10. Of course, the electoral review now in progress is likely to radically effect Northumberland seats

... including Berwick.

Do you have a link to the website you're referring to? Sounds interesting.

The Skin

[ikri]

11. Website

electoralcalculus.co.uk

Great website for poll tracking & predictions.

[non sociopath skin]

12. Thanks, ikri.

Fascinating.

The Skin