[Closed] That's it, it's official, the North is condem'd...

I was just going to post a thread entitled:

[i]why when they talk about spending cuts, do they so often use [b]"an isolated community on the Yorkshire Dales"[/b] as an example of people losing out?"[/i]

Surely we're ALL losing out? Just some of us don't have nice sceneary to look at while we lose out 🙁

South East is more prosperous than North of England shocker!!!

Yeah, no surprise, but wouldn't you hope that we had a government that didn't look to hit the (already) poorer areas harder?

I'm happy to purchase people's bikes off them if things get really hard. I won't pay much but will collect and ride your trails for the day 😉

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the Experian research showed a north-south divide was already present in England.

Obviously he's been reading stw.

Hopefully they'll get off their arses and sort out a decent high speed rail system in the near future. If you look at the oases of prosperity in the North, it's mainly places with a decent rail link to London.

Surprise surprise Liverpool in heads deprivation list shocker again. Tories are gonna help us then...

As an out of work scouse planning officer (public sector) there ain't much hope for me it is fair to say in the coming months/years...

Funny how those most vulnerable have to pay to keep middle England voters in en-suite bathrooms.

C***ing tories (and that includes power hungry Clegg).

Surprise surprise Liverpool in heads deprivation list shocker again. Tories are gonna help us then...

But hasn't the city of Liverpool already benefited massively from regeneration money over the last 20 years?

Dammit I NEED at least two more en-suites. If that means you Northern monkeys have to suffer, well that's a price I'm willing to pay 😉

I voted for Nick's lot because I wanted Labour out and a coalition. Still haven't seen anything that makes me think we'd have been better off with Labour in power since they'd completely forgotten why there were there or who they represented IMO.

Taxes raised and money we didn't have spent covering up a problem with an area that won't change.

Money runs out.

Area just as ****ed up as it would have been without all that cash being wasted on it - did Middlesbrough really need a shiny new art gallery ?

People blame the current government because they are tories.

🙄

The Tories may be great if you are a rich southerner, the people up here will never forget what thatcher did and the legacy will persist for a long time to come.

The free market cannot and has no incentive to fix poor northern ex industrial centres with low skill levels and generations of economic inactivity which is on the periphery of the European core, I'm afraid the Tories cannot accept this and things are gong to get a whole lot worse.

The tories are to blame for a lot of things, they are disgusting, vile, evil creatures that should have been stamped out a long time ago.

Nah, the Tories are crap irrespective of who you are. Same for Labour though.

loddrik, what is it that you would be expecting labour to do for scouseville given the state of the economy etc?

A much slower rolling back of the state for one, in many poor northern areas the public sector is by far the largest employer. Yes it has become too dependent but a slash and burn approach is going to cause economic devastation for the communities who depend on it. What will take it's place? You can only have so many call centres...

Economies of Location come and go, and industries change.

A couple of examples:

Liverpool - it was once a very important port. But what's it for now?
Sheffield still produces loads of steel, but in a heavily automated fashion, so the Don Valley has very high unemployment.

We either have to face that these places are no longer massive centres of employment, and make people mobile, or seriously examine how we can create location economies, not just dish out a few grants for business startups, or build an Inland Revenue office / Govt call centre.

I love the usual STW left wing bile.

wouldn't you hope that we had a government that didn't look to hit the (already) poorer areas harder?

That's a question of semantics really so maybe you're just deliberately trying to misunderstand it.

the poorer areas will be hit harder because they're less able to cope, not because they're being targeted harder with bigger cuts.

The southern yeti... fair cop the norths had it then, could we come and live with you as you did offer in your original post 😉

We are no longer a heavy industry manufacturing country, so its no surprise that those areas are now suffering. What would be nice is for big incentives to be created to entice business up there - things like big tax breaks and retraining of the local labour force.

Just setting up a call center or retail park wont do. No one is going to pay a mortgage on those wages. Call centeres can be outsourced to cheaper contries and retail parks just employ unskilled poorly paid people and devestate town centers. We need business that add value to the community, shopping centeres dont do that.

No government so far seems to have come up with a good solution.

I think a lot of the issue is down to the links between deprivation and educational attainment. It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario - does deprivation cause poor attainment, or does poor attainment cause deprivation?

Both, plus new generations have no role models to set a good example.

Move a sucessfull business up there, give it big tax incentives to do so and give it a school, college, training facilities to train potential staff and then start a comunity thats got prospects.

But doing so is not leaving it to the markets, so huge tax breaks and financial incentives are hardly going to come from the Tories...

Mass sterilization of the North would be simpler. Just stick something suspect in the pies.

Move a sucessfull business up there, give it big tax incentives to do so and give it a school, college, training facilities to train potential staff and then start a comunity thats got prospects.

I honestly don't know if that would be enough. I grew up in a town that fairly regularly gets ranked as the worst at everything - deprivation, education etc.

I think there would have to be serious cultural change to sort it out - people have to want to change, become educated, or for their children to be educated etc.

what is it that you would be expecting labour to do for scouseville given the state of the economy etc?

Here's a revolutionary idea. Why don't we start making stuff. I've heard rumours we used to do that sort of thing

Oh... sorry. I'll get my coat

That's a question of semantics really so maybe you're just deliberately trying to misunderstand it.

Liverpool council has been lib dem for as long as I can remember, except for this year when labour got it back. I think the lib dem thing was a backlash to degsy hatton and the militants. Degsy used to live round the corner from me 😀

What's weird is that despite upteen years of Labour these areas are still so vulnerable, it's almost as if the last government didn't really know what it was doing!

Binners, the problem is we cant compete on price, or quality anymore. Simply put its cheaper and better abroad. Look at bike frames for an example.

We need to generate income using skilled labour in cutting edge technology - like banking/medicine/technology. We cant compete in ship building/cars etc.

But there isnt the skilled or motivated labour force available either.

There does need to be a culture shift - no government can do that. That has to come from role models - individuals, organisations etc. Look at Honda in Swindon - thats achieved some of that in an otherwise crap town.

What's weird is that despite upteen years of Labour these areas are still so vulnerable, it's almost as if the last government didn't really know what it was doing!

Still we have quiet trails, sunshine and good beer so nothing else matters.

honda?? the company that wouldn't lay off the workers and instead gagged them and invited them to use the back door? and swindon is an unwashed armpit of a town.

Liverpool council has been lib dem for as long as I can remember, except for this year when labour got it back.

When did banking change from swindling to cutting edge technology? ... and since when did working in banking involve any sort of skill? 😉

I live in Stoke so this comes as no surprise. I really don't think it is down to a particular party to blame it does seem to be a problem of Government. Labour would have probably worked in a different way but would the result be any different? I voted Lib Dem in the hope that they would get in or form a coalition with Labour. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find that Clegg and Co have acted no differently than any other political party. Just a bit disgusted.

IF they are diluting the Tory effect one can only dread what things could have been like. IMO though they are simply cow towing to Cameron.

One of the thing that depresses me is the lack of foresight that local and national Government show. If we take North Staffs the councils and agencies such as Advantage West Midlands who provide grants, seem to feel that they are developing the future by building more and more warehouses/logistics centres. Pathetic. This is not encouraging industry really is it? Should be trying to invest in people/businesses who are trying to actually create wealth not simply move it around (and export some of it out of the UK). The banks seem to have put the lid on investing in small businesses.

I hate to be a pessimist (even though that is my nature) but I really think the country is in for a very long slow recovery and when the Gov's spending cuts hit things will get worse before (if) they get better.

Still the banking/finance industry will continue to make money and big bonuses (on the back of the public's investment in them) so who am I to complain on my benefits. I'm dole scum after all. So what if I have worked 30 of the 32 years of my life.

Trimix - That simply isn't true. Its a myth.

A few years ago, the wife was working for a large Textile firm. They were bought out by an Indian competitor. The English production was closed down and moved to India, as it would supposedly be cheaper. Except, as it turned out the cost savings were virtually non-existent. And the quality plummeted.

Too late for all the staff made redundant here though.

And now that the value of Sterling is in free-fall, surely its an opportunity to export. Yet even now exports are decreasing.

Trimix - Member
the problem is we cant compete on price, or quality anymore. Simply put its cheaper and better abroad.

not entirely true...

we still know a few tricks:
[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

(for just a few examples)

the world is queuing up to give us money for our wonderful clever things.

[i]I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council -- a Labour council -- hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers . . .

I am telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos -- you can't play politics with people's jobs and with people's services or with their homes.
[/i]

There's no good reason why we can't make things competitively. The Germans do a pretty good job if it, and they have similar living standards to us.

Talking about high skill this that and the other is all well and good, but you have to remember that intelligence follows a more or less normal distribution. We haven't all got the capability.

And now that the value of Sterling is in free-fall, surely its an opportunity to export. Yet even now exports are decreasing.

Move the houses of parliament to Manchester, that would sort it out.

you can't play politics with people's jobs and with people's services or with their homes.