North South Divide - will we ever recover?

[mossdog]

That tired old dogma is a massively oversimplified explaination of economic realities.

 

For consumerism to work, you need ever expanding markets. If you cut the wages of the majority, they have less disposible income and demand drops off, exacerbating recessionary pressures.

 

The problem is down to fundamental flaws in the capitalist system, as has been made abundantly clear by ongoing global events, but the right wing ideologues have become so hypnotised by their own rhetoric that they are as of yet, unable to see what is under their noses.

 

The fundamental flaws come down basically to these two points.

A: In the same way that what goes up must come down, a system which depends on continuous expansion to thrive must have a limited shelf life in a world of finite resources.

 

B: A sytem which depends on lending out money which does not really exist in ever increasing quantities can never escape continuous cycles of expansion followed by collapse.

So what we are saying ,is that the present and former governments,are operating one big illegal ponzi scheme?

[biotechpete]

Having grown up in a county where my part time job in a paper shop brought me into contact with Iain Duncan-Smith and I once saw Maggie at my local pub, in my experience the divide is much more about attitude to life and partly investment in housing and infrastructure.

 

I'm starting to wonder whether the fact that the most prosperous places have the lowest number of labour voters is a cause or effect relationship. I'm convinced that Sheffield has the same potential if not more so than my birthplace, yet there seem to be so many of you who are clinging so desperately to a 1970s class war paradigm, it's quite distressing. Sheffield will never bridge the gap unless we stop banging on about past glories. We could be world leaders in advanced manufacturing with the academic base here.

[donkey]

So what we are saying ,is that the present and former governments,are operating one big illegal ponzi scheme?

 

Not quite. It is a legal ponzi scheme, in that if you have enough money, you can pretty much dictate what is legal. And the government aren't operating it, they are merely in the employ of the people who are.

[donkey]

Having grown up in a county where my part time job in a paper shop brought me into contact with Iain Duncan-Smith and I once saw Maggie at my local pub, in my experience the divide is much more about attitude to life and partly investment in housing and infrastructure.

 

I'm starting to wonder whether the fact that the most prosperous places have the lowest number of labour voters is a cause or effect relationship. I'm convinced that Sheffield has the same potential if not more so than my birthplace, yet there seem to be so many of you who are clinging so desperately to a 1970s class war paradigm, it's quite distressing. Sheffield will never bridge the gap unless we stop banging on about past glories. We could be world leaders in advanced manufacturing with the academic base here.

 

It wasn't northern people with an inability to adapt to new economic realities who caused the credit crunch.

[Anna B]

Not all of the people in the South East are stockbrokers and not all of the companies in the South East are in London. The 'London Commuter Belt' has become much looser over the years. Peterborough (not so far from Sheffield) is in the London Commuter belt.

 

Companies which are established may be unwilling to move, but why are so few companies willing to set up in the North?

 

If you were thinking of setting up a company and you decided to base it in the South East, your premises would probably be expensive and you would have to pay your workforce a premium to enable them to find housing (or to pay for a long commute every day.)

 

If you were to set up the company further North, premises would be cheaper and you could provide your employees with the same standard of living at lower salary rates.

 

I think the perfect example of this not happening is employees of the BBC refusing to move to Salford, and the BBC failing to employ many local people in anything other than low paid, low skilled jobs.

 

There is a prejudice against the North that pervades the movers and shakers in London. They are keen to keep wealth generation close to home. It is documented that the Conservatives were quite happy to abandon Liverpool to its fate in the last recession, now they appear to be cutting loose the whole of the North. The South East is their only concern.

[Rupert_Baehr]

Having grown up in a county where my part time job in a paper shop brought me into contact with Iain Duncan-Smith and I once saw Maggie at my local pub, in my experience the divide is much more about attitude to life and partly investment in housing and infrastructure.

 

I'm starting to wonder whether the fact that the most prosperous places have the lowest number of labour voters is a cause or effect relationship. I'm convinced that Sheffield has the same potential if not more so than my birthplace, yet there seem to be so many of you who are clinging so desperately to a 1970s class war paradigm, it's quite distressing. Sheffield will never bridge the gap unless we stop banging on about past glories. We could be world leaders in advanced manufacturing with the academic base here.

 

Agreed. Skills and knowledge are vital, but without a willingness to actually do the manufacturing, they won't get you very far. There are a number of successful manufacturing companies North of the Watford Gap, yet there does seem to be an even greater number of people who moan that 'Maggie destroyed our industries' and who seem to want to return to the 'good old days' of strikes and industrial disputes.

 

Maggie did not destroy coal-mining, the steel industry or(parts of) the manufacturing industry. At the time those industries failed in the UK, they failed throughout Europe. Did she destroy those too, or were they destroyed by changes in global demand and cheaper labour elsewhere?

 

It wasn't northern people with an inability to adapt to new economic realities who caused the credit crunch.

 

Yet there are many people who think that it was 'northern people' (as in North of the Watford Gap) with an inability to adapt to new economic realities who 'destroyed' the UK's manufacturing base. Other countries suffered too during the late 1970s/early 1980s, but they moved on. It does seem that a lot of 'northern' people (and a lot of southern people too) are living in the past with entrenched attitudes.

 

Neither the UK nor any of the developed nations can compete with industry in developing nations on a cost basis - particularly in the production of high volume low value goods - but it can (and does) certainly compete in high-tech and high-value manufacturing.

 

Manufacturing in the UK is far from dead, but although manufacturing as a percentage of the economy has declined since about 1960, the output both in quantity and in value has doubled since then.

 

I think the perfect example of this not happening is employees of the BBC refusing to move to Salford, and the BBC failing to employ many local people in anything other than low paid, low skilled jobs.

 

There is a prejudice against the North that pervades the movers and shakers in London. They are keen to keep wealth generation close to home. It is documented that the Conservatives were quite happy to abandon Liverpool to its fate in the last recession, now they appear to be cutting loose the whole of the North. The South East is their only concern.

 

When the BBC decided to move a part of their operation to Salford, then although employees who were settled and quite happy where they were living were reluctant to move, presumably many of the higher-paid people did move.

 

If the higher-paid higher-skilled people did move (albeit reluctantly) to Salford and the lower-paid lower-skilled people did not, why would you expect the BBC to be offering anything other than lower-paid low-skilled jobs?

 

As for the Conservatives being prepared to abandon Liverpool to its fate, the reasons for considering that option are also well-documented - and they don't include a strong work ethic on Merseyside.

 

I agree that there does seem to be prejudice against the North in the South - just as (and you don't have to look too far on this forum to find it) there is a lot of prejudice against the South in the North.

 

(BTW although I've spent an aggregate of about 2 years living in Hampshire and Kent, I've spent another 30-odd living North of the Watford Gap.)

[grafikhaus74]

The trouble in this country (if not most of the World) is politicians. All they want is power and the trappings that go with it. So we have Labour and Tory ping-ponging in and out of power, blaming each other and by the time the excuses have run out, the public is fed up of the imcumbents and votes the other lot in.

 

The electorate seems content to go along with this - as can be seen on this forum. It's all 'Labour this', 'Tory that' and we fall further behind the emerging nations - so far that we have no chance of ever catching up. Question Time last week featured five people, four of whom had received 'honours'. For what, exactly? Simply favouritism and to keep the staus quo going.

 

I'm starting to wonder whether the fact that the most prosperous places have the lowest number of labour voters is a cause or effect relationship. I'm convinced that Sheffield has the same potential if not more so than my birthplace, yet there seem to be so many of you who are clinging so desperately to a 1970s class war paradigm, it's quite distressing. Sheffield will never bridge the gap unless we stop banging on about past glories.

 

This I agree with. I've travelled widely and the fact is Sheffield is part of a post-industrial wasteland which includes all of South Yorkshire. Now it's pretty disastrous to lose two major industries such as coal and steel, but it's not acceptable - 30-odd years on - for whole swathes of the population to be still blaming Maggie and squeezing their ever-expanding arses into mobility scooters. Retraining? Relocating? Don't be daft. It's far easier to whinge to your mates down the 'Working' Man's Club.

 

So do I have a solution? Well, yes actually. There isn't one. We've had it as a country thanks to our corrupt political system and there's no coming back. We as a country couldn't organise the proverbial party in a brewery and this has been going on for decades. We'll see yet more evidence of this with the Olympics once the hoopla has died down. Already four times over budget, no signs of any use for the grandiose facilities (I'm sure Stratford has been crying out for an International Velodrome...) and having to bribe our indolent workforce to actually turn up for work. (BTW, when will 'Lord' Coe be treated in the same way as Fred Goodwin regarding wasting billions of public money?)

 

So, as I say, there is no solution. Realise that and life gets easier. Voting for the rank amateurs who call themselves politicians only deepens the crisis. But vote for them the population will, because of their inherent stupidity.

 

The Romans kept the citizens happy by giving them bread and circuses. The modern-day equivalent is Giro and X-Factor. Lay on a wildly-expensive bash for the Queen later this year and the country will be fooled for a bit longer. ('Nobody does ceremony like us.' Yeah, but it doesn't do anything).

[Mecky]

North South Divide - will we ever recover?

 

No, because people don't want it too. I'm better than you etc ...

[mossdog]

The trouble in this country (if not most of the World) is politicians. All they want is power and the trappings that go with it. So we have Labour and Tory ping-ponging in and out of power, blaming each other and by the time the excuses have run out, the public is fed up of the imcumbents and votes the other lot in.

 

The electorate seems content to go along with this - as can be seen on this forum. It's all 'Labour this', 'Tory that' and we fall further behind the emerging nations - so far that we have no chance of ever catching up. Question Time last week featured five people, four of whom had received 'honours'. For what, exactly? Simply favouritism and to keep the staus quo going.

 

 

 

This I agree with. I've travelled widely and the fact is Sheffield is part of a post-industrial wasteland which includes all of South Yorkshire. Now it's pretty disastrous to lose two major industries such as coal and steel, but it's not acceptable - 30-odd years on - for whole swathes of the population to be still blaming Maggie and squeezing their ever-expanding arses into mobility scooters. Retraining? Relocating? Don't be daft. It's far easier to whinge to your mates down the 'Working' Man's Club.

 

So do I have a solution? Well, yes actually. There isn't one. We've had it as a country thanks to our corrupt political system and there's no coming back. We as a country couldn't organise the proverbial party in a brewery and this has been going on for decades. We'll see yet more evidence of this with the Olympics once the hoopla has died down. Already four times over budget, no signs of any use for the grandiose facilities (I'm sure Stratford has been crying out for an International Velodrome...) and having to bribe our indolent workforce to actually turn up for work. (BTW, when will 'Lord' Coe be treated in the same way as Fred Goodwin regarding wasting billions of public money?)

 

So, as I say, there is no solution. Realise that and life gets easier. Voting for the rank amateurs who call themselves politicians only deepens the crisis. But vote for them the population will, because of their inherent stupidity.

 

The Romans kept the citizens happy by giving them bread and circuses. The modern-day equivalent is Giro and X-Factor. Lay on a wildly-expensive bash for the Queen later this year and the country will be fooled for a bit longer. ('Nobody does ceremony like us.' Yeah, but it doesn't do anything).

"Never a truer word spoken in.........................truth!

[biotechpete]

It wasn't northern people with an inability to adapt to new economic realities who caused the credit crunch.

 

I'm not sure that the point of this thread is to debate the cause of the credit crunch, it's been well covered on here. Perhaps the scots are more to blame than anyone if we're going down that path.

 

Clearly if the impact of the cuts is greater in the north then the dependence on credit, whether government or personal must be greater. The failure of northern economies is their over reliance on government spending. It's something we need to come to terms with, the money's just not there.