England has a common culture, to claim it hasn’t is nonsense.

Have you ever been to Newcastle and Sevenoaks? Common culture? Aye right!

Those two places have different economic profiles. Compare like for like.

they were sniffily and patronisingly laughed at by our lords and masters in London, who much preferred Thatchers intended ‘managed decline’ option instead

Really?

Yes Molls, really! They said their ambition was to build 25,000 new homes within the City. This was when Thatcherism decreed that public projects were verboten. A hangover from the 60’s. They were set about a clearly stated policy of ‘Managed Decline’ for the northern cities. And so they were openly mocked! You can imagine the gales of laughter that greeted them when they announced a plan for developing the derelict Salford docks. To make it a national centre for media and arts? You know the one? You may have seen it on telly….

Daz – to appreciate what they’ve achieved I think you have to look at Hulme. Lets be honest, it looked like a siberian gulag. It was a complete no go area. So they levelled the whole place and started from scratch. Thats ambition. Not fanning around putting the odd bit of public sculpture in and some speed bumps

Have you ever been to Newcastle and Sevenoaks? Common culture? Aye right!

But that’s the beauty of our nation !

@binners Mrs Thatcher was from up North right ? Our resident Scots (Brown) and Scot/Northern hybrid (Blair) they did ok, no ?

More regional devolution means getting quality management like they have in Rotherham. No thanks.

From up North? She’s from Lincolnshire? Not any part of ‘the North’ I’m aware of. Its academic anyway. As Ian Brown famously said ‘its not where you’re from, its where you’re at’. And she’s a southerner, 100%!

And Blair and Brown basically just carried on her legacy

jambalaya – Member

More regional devolution means getting quality management like they have in Rotherham. No thanks.

😐

Yeah…. everywhere in the north is like Rotherham.

Having been accused of being patronising, superior and condescending, its nice to see you coming out with an informed intelligent comment that scotches any further accusations of that eh? Have you ever been further north than Cambridge? 🙄

Have you ever been to Newcastle and Sevenoaks? Common culture? Aye right!

😀
Different, yes; ones a major city and one’s a small communter town. Yet someone from Newcastle could go to Sevenoaks and speak roughly the same language, dress broadly the same and likely enjoy many of the same things that your sevenoakian does; drinking tea, going to the pub, football, rugby, cricket, discussing the weather etc. We’re not as different as many make out.
Here in Bristol, we have a “thing” with the south welsh but I know full well that we’re very similar in most ways. Culture wise, there’s little seperating us and we generally we get on famously when we get together.

As we could in any country/place that spoke english – , Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US etc…yes we share a language and some cultural markers but it does not make us all the same …..c’ mon say it together

WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS

England has a common culture, to claim it hasn’t is nonsense.

Cmon mo;ly you have travelled around the UK a fair bit- are you saying the regions do not have a flavour and are homogeneous blobs that end only at the borders where another homogeneous blob starts

I have travelled and I think very few would say the north and south divide is a myth and there are no regional variations

BInners for {northern] PM

Daz – to appreciate what they’ve achieved I think you have to look at Hulme

Apart from the redbricks next to the mancunian way, where they put all the hippies, gays and drug addicts. I’ve quite a few mates who live there and I always used to joke that one day they were going to build a massive wall around the place and not let anyone in or out. 🙂

You’re right though. Manchester has been dramatically transformed over the past 20 years largely due to the ambition and focus of local authorities and businesses, and despite the tory and labour governments of the time rather than because of them.

dress broadly the same

You’ve never been to Newcastle.

are you saying the regions do not have a flavour

That wasn’t what I said at all junky. We have an awful lot in common despite regional flavours (as you put it so well).

As we could in any country/place that spoke english – , Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US

Erm….there’s a reason for that……

The North South divide is more down to money than anything cultural.

I hope not, I find English politics quite small minded and nasty in tone. I think the Celtic nations act as a much needed moderating force. This is a big part of my relief at the No vote.

molgrips – Member
The North South divide is more down to money than anything cultural.

You don’t half talk some nonsense at time Molls 😆

The only problem with your narrative, binners, is that George Osborne has been praising Manchester Council quite a bit recently.

As reported here and here.

It shows that if both parties are willing to bury their differences and work in a common cause, then progress can be achieved at a quicker rate – I think all parties should be applauded for this.

He’s been praising a lot of northern councils. There are some really odd ones too. Burnley was named by the CBI as the most entrepreneurial place in the country. And it is quite remarkable what they’ve done there. DESPITE the government.

But here we hit the problem of power, and this illustrates why we need real devolution of power. So all the northern councils have said that what we really need are decent transport links between the cities. The journey from Liverpool to Sheffield for example takes an eternity, as we’re still running on a victorian rail network. It needs massive investment which we haven’t had for decades. He won’t put his money where his mouth is for that, though we’ve been promised the white elephant that is HS2 instead.

Yet another prime example of whitehall ‘knowing what’s best’ for the north, and ignoring any evidence to the contrary, form the people who actually know, preferring to listen to their self-serving London based consultants instead. Licking their lips about HS2

Would any council in the north have prioritised HS2 above improved travel links between the northern cities? Of course they wouldn’t! But thats what we’ve ended up with. So you’ll be able to rocket through to Manchester in 2 hours from London, but what happens when you get there? Whatever your final destination, you’ll be getting there slowly. Which suggests to me that HS2 isn’t for the benefit of the north at all, but rather to get people to London quicker, where everything will continue to be centred.

I’m afraid his supposed northern investment is all pretty vague, and there are no solid commitments to funding. The sentence that leaps out at me is

He declined to put a figure on exactly how much of the £15bn plan would be funded in that announcement.

So an apparent commitment to ‘the vision’ of northern leaders, but no money. Well thats a lot of use then? I’m sorry but with an election coming up, and them having ignored the north, or eagerly slashed the budgets of northern councils, its going to take a bit more than some airy fairy non-committal speeches to convince me that we’re anywhere different than we have been for decades. Second class citizens.

konabunny – Member

The answer to the West Lothian question is and always was home rule for England.

the simpler answer to the West Lothian question is a convention by which Scottish MPs do not vote on matters that are devolved to the Scottish parliament and only affect England/Wales/NI.

The problem with that solution to the West Lothian question is when the UK government does not have an English majority. It would be responsible for creating legislation but would be hard pressed to get it voted through.

I would favour a federal UK with a heavily slimmed-down UK parliament and government, with national/regional parliaments handling things that could better be handled at a more local level. The population imbalance between England and the other member countries in the UK does make this trickier though. I’d be concerned that an English government would still suffer similar problems of London-centric focus that the UK government can suffer. Then again there is the occasional dig at the “Hoylrood bubble” up here so it may be a difficult thing to fully avoid irrespective of the size of the governed population.

Don’t always assume its the politicians that are the sole problem, devolving power means a transfer of power from the senior civil servants and no one likes losing power. I think the investment will be more concrete in the Autumn Statement – but whatever happens, this is definitively a step in the right direction – we will have to wait to find out whether it is a baby one or a manly stride.

I should add it is much easier to get money if you have shown what you can do in the first place.

Yet another prime example of whitehall ‘knowing what’s best’ for the north,

Is there no-one from the North in Whitehall?

Slightly modified

The problem with that solution to the West Lothian question is when the Labour government does not have an English majority. It would be responsible for creating English-only legislation but would be hard pressed to get socialist tendencies voted through

This is normal politics.

I hope you’re right mefty. But I’ve got the distinct feeling that we’ve heard it all before, with a lot of hot air, and very little end result. And labour are just as guilty of this as the tories. As one commentator put it the other day ‘labour keeps its core vote in a state of subsistence level dependency, without having the slightest interest or idea of how to change politics in their interest’. Pretty much bang on that.

And Molls – I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that, given the massive over-representation in senior civil servants (amongst many other professions) of privately educated, Oxbridge graduates, the amount of northerners is disproportionately and depressingly small.

Its a closed shop. Which is half the problem

jambalaya – Member
The House of Lords should be the English Parliament, there you are done dusted. We don’t even need to create additional bureaucracy as we already have plenty. TGIF.

In all seriousness no we shouldn’t. IMO the country isn’t big enough to have too much division and it’s just cost and overhead. We all think the Westminster politicians are a bit lame can you imagine how poor the local ones are, they weren’t good enough to get a Westminster job.

I’m going to guess you live in the south. The gulf between the north and south is massive in a whole series of dimensions. Northern cities need more powers so they can overcome the bias towards London and the SE.

Which suggests to me that HS2 isn’t for the benefit of the north at all, but rather to get people to London quicker, where everything will continue to be centred.

you think everyone in london wants HS2? balfour beatty might and a few regular long distance commuters but most of London would probably vote for an extension to cross rail/victoria line/london overground over HS2. as that would directly benefit them and help regenerate some outlying areas.
people need to separate ‘westminster’ and big business from the remaining 9million people in greater London, what makes you think they have any more say than somebody in the Outer Hebrides? they feel just as disenfranchised from the political process.
at least the vote in Scotland might enlighten people to the possibility of change.

Fair point MrSmith. I know the North/South thing is massively oversimplified. And theres a huge part of Londons, and the south easts population that are equally as invisible as we are to London politicians, who’s interests never even come onto their radar.

I noted Boris Johnsons statement about London being the best city in the World as it has more Michelin starred restaurants than other global cities. I don’t suppose he gives a toss about the people in the capital who aren’t eating in them. I doubt he even realises they exist

Its a closed shop. Which is half the problem

Hmm, I wonder why? And I wonder how come you know?

Its hardly a well kept secret, is it? Its just a fact! Are you disputing this? You think that the corridors of whitehall echo with scouse, manc, and Leeds accents? As it might be if there was any social mobility at all in this country, or something even pretending to be a meritocracy? Or is it exclusively the clipped Cameron-esque tones of home counties private schools? Seriously Molls? Get a grip. Or simply have a read

Labour has pledged to “bust open” domination of the civil service fast stream by privately-educated Oxbridge candidates.

Its just a fact! Are you disputing this?

No, I want to know if you have any specific knowledge or evidence, or are just on an anti-government class prejudice rant. Something about the tone of your posts makes me think of the latter, somehow, no matter how I try 🙂

binners – Member
Which suggests to me that HS2 isn’t for the benefit of the north at all, but rather to get people to London quicker, where everything will continue to be centred.

I know someone who made that very point when he was called to give evidence to the select committee on it. However the plans are still going ahead. My argument is that if HS2 is so important, why not start building it north to south, rather than south to north?

For:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6b2OT3C9KY[/video]

Against:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOvEwtDycs[/video]

HS2 just shows it make the north better by making it faster to get here…westminster centric nonsense

liverpool to london 200 miles 2 hr 12
Liverpool to Hull 120 miles 3 hours 15

Please make it 23 minutes faster to London at the cost of billions

PLEASE it is what we really really really need

There’s precedent for the belief it’s a London favouring decision from Spain. They built high speed rail links from Madrid to ‘the regions’ saying it would benefit them. It didn’t! It simply accelerated the relocation of companies to the capital

The people in London pushing HS2 know this, and are pushing ahead anyway, because that’s what it’s really about. Hence the over-ruling of regional links in the north which is what we actually need. They clearly think we’re all idiots! It’s just yet another self-serving plan to boost the south east economy yet further. At the expense, literally, of everyone else, as we’ll all be paying for the enormous costs

IIRC, when England was offered mayors a couple of years ago, only Bristol took up the offer…

I grew up in Cheshire and moved down to London for uni and I’m still here 25 years later and I really don’t think (even though I’m the beneficiary of it) that the economic imbalance in UK is very healthy for either London, the South East or anywhere else.

But if the regions were offered the choice and didn’t take it, what can you do?

Mind you it wouldn’t surprise me if the Scottish debate opens it right back up again and if you now offered England’s regions the opportunity for greater devolution, it might be taken.

Although I guess it depends on the opportunities – Manchester and Liverpool look they could well come out well – large, skilled populations and transport links, whereas Cornwall would be very dependent on tourist income… not a recipe for success

Which suggests to me that HS2 isn’t for the benefit of the north at all, but rather to get people to London quicker, where everything will continue to be centred.

If you run a business it helps being nearer to London. Better transport links will make more places nearer to London – no?

yes Molly what the north needs is to be nearer to London – that is what we have all been saying we really really need.
No one has questioned the idea that being near to london is salvation
Molly I have been twice in my life …what % of us do you think need to go there for our jobs?
TBH if it blew up I would be fine and so would my job just as they would be fine if Manchester, leeds and newcastle sunk into a hole…insert own punchline here

Fatser times to london just speeds up the centralisation of stuff there…this is the problem not the solution
Respectfully have you been reading the posts?

In all seriousness no we shouldn’t. IMO the country isn’t big enough to have too much division and it’s just cost and overhead.

What price for Democracy?

But if the regions were offered the choice and didn’t take it, what can you do?

They were offered puppets with no real power. Whereas in London, the mayor has a few more powers, and an absolute clown got elected. Trust the electorate eh?

As much as I really enjoy seeing the continuous Butthurt Binners has over London and the south east, I will concur with Mr Smith. Just because I live here(and was born here) doesn’t mean I like everything about it, and people in the south can be as ignored as anyone else in the country by central Government.

Brocess – there is a big difference between devolved power, and some symbolic mayor with no actual power to do anything. And it was the latter that was being offered. Hence the rejection. It was a meaningless fig leaf. We’re not stupid. It was yet another case of being patronised.

If you run a business it helps being nearer to London. Better transport links will make more places nearer to London – no?

I like the idea of HS2 if only for the reason that it will carve through the Tory shires and will ruffle the feathers of the locals. 😀

But the actual idea is wrong. Spend the money on speeding up the links between the Northern cities, and get finance in place to encourage new business there instead of trying to spread what’s going on in London to the rest of the country, because that won’t happen. Businesses are in London for a reason(financial, services) and the mentality of these businesses is London centric.