Are you a downtrodden Northerner?

From the Sun. But I only read it since I'm Southern now and it was linked from The Spectator Coffehouse.

LABOUR is riding to the rescue of another down-trodden minority group – Northerners.

Harriet Harman is drawing up plans to stamp out discrimination against Scousers, Geordies and people from Yorkshire.

Labour's deputy leader wants to get more people from the regions on to the boards of major public bodies.

Ms Harman is planning to impose special quotas to boost numbers – just as she has done for women, gay people and ethnic minorities.

She fears too many organisations are run by executives from London and the South East.

is it April 1st?

that's got to be a wind up surely? Even Harriet Harperson isnt that barking is she?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2531712/Harriet-Harman-wants-to-end-discrimination-against-Northerners.html

She's barking

Typical Harperson newspeak.

Presumably this sort of nonsense is easier than, say, spending appropriate amounts of money on transport infrastructure in parts of England not adjacent to London.

She's right, though. The proportion of London & SE residents on public bodies is way too high, which has tilted the way the country has developed. I don't have the reference, but there was a Times / Guardian study on Quango members a few months ago, showing something like a 10:1 bias.

Scousers, Geordies and people from Yorkshire.

It's clear the sun need some sort of education about the North. There's a lot more up here than just Liverpool, Yorkshire and Newcastle.

I presume any plans she would put in place would involve Northeners having to move down south? Even worse, having to move down south to the smoke?

No chance, she can keep her big flashy jobs offering second houses with swimming pools and moats and 4×4's and big red braces.

This is equal opportunities gone berserk 😀

I don't have the reference, but there was a Times / Guardian study on Quango members a few months ago, showing something like a 10:1 bias.

Where are these quangos, I wonder?

Moses, I dont doubt the bias, but its not because of some kind of northernism (much as I wish it were 🙂 )

Its because the government continue to insist on locating their quangos and departmental bodies in the SE. And when they do send legacy departments into the northern wastelands they are sent with incumbent boards created in the SE.

Typical daft bint stuff from her again. Seeing racist/northernist/chauvinist bogiemen around every corner and completely missing the cause/effects actually at play.

If she wanted to do something useful, how about telling the BBC to get rid of their "North of England Correspondent" (what an intrepid chap he must be).

Stoner – much as I hate to say it, you're dead right. It's cronyism, really, and the the labour party is as bad as anyone for that.

shocking. They'll be pandering to other ethnic minorities like brummies and women next.

Of course, this is all rather rich coming from someone educated at St Pauls who went on to work for all manner of these very same SE/London based bodies she now comes to hate so much.

She's as mad as a box of frogs.

Has she ever been up north? Even as an ex-pat northerner, I get an unbelievable amount of crap from people about being a southern shandy drinker etc. The "discrimination" works in both directions.

Was in the back of London cab this morning.

Driver – "Oi can just abaht put up wiv Blacks, Asians and Gays. It's those farking Norveners I carnt staaaand!"

cripes, lets hope he never meets a gay black northerner.

I thought the reason that northern people aren't allowed on the boards is that no one can understand their funny accents.

The "discrimination" works in both directions

I dont think we're talking about pub-talk banter, you southern softie. MTFU 🙂

I think it's the other way round Ian. By encrypting verbal communication between themselves by substituting incorrect sounds for certain letters southerners have ensured Northeners are excluding from all policy making decisions and have kept themselves on easy street for many, many years.

It's a bath right, not a baaaath, it's a bath.

It's a tin bucket in front of the fire.

I feel every business should have a requirement to employ at least one Northener to every 5 southerners. If you are a Northern black lesbian single-mother with a disability the world could be your oyster, the HR departments will be fighting over you to make their quotas up.

Maybe even some of the MPs who 'represent' the North might actually a) live there b) Have visited at some point c) even know where it is….

Northerner? Yes. Downtrodden? No.

I was going to get all worked up about it all, but then decided there's nowt thee-er worth gerrin upset ower.

Good luck to her, if she can get important jobs for more of my fellow Northerners, great.

Just as long as she doesn't do the same for the Welsh.