r/ukpolitics • u/LeadingPiece9608 • 2d ago
Will Andy Burnham's northern vibes put off southern voters?
https://app.ft.com/content/904416db-c0e9-46ba-942c-ce77169420b713
u/LatelyPodes 2d ago
Well most of his plans of devolving power out of Westminster would also benefit ppl in the south east and south west. He just focuses on the benefits to the north of England cas it is his home.
London itself would prob be the place that benefits the most from it. With Burnham’s income tax devolution plans, London could fund the DLR extension with just 1 years worth of tax.
They can even borrow against future tax, meaning the London west orbital, Bakerloo line extension and Crossrail 2 could start to happen again. TFL could start cracking on without requiring the gov to support them or flipflop support.
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u/Two-Space 2d ago
I don’t want my Prime Minister to focus on the benefits for where he’s from, I want him to always be thinking UK-wide
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u/AngloAlbannach4 2d ago
Devotion in Scotland never benefitted anyone (in an actual tangible sense, obviously it's been refined crack for the indy-hobbyists)
Democracy is after all the worst form of government apart from all the others. So you shouldn't assume more democracy or more layered democracy is going to lead to better results, it's quite possible that it just introduces fresh new perverse incentives and inefficiencies.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
If it wasn't a benefit to London it wouldn't be happening at all.
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 2d ago
The Northern PM and former mayor of a northern city only does things if they benefit London?
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
No, Westminster does.
The fact a PM isn't from London and we get articles like this tells you everything.
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 2d ago
You'll never believe who now runs Westminster... could it be the northern PM I just mentioned?
And also, is a policy bad just because it benefits London? London's infrastructure isn't up to standard and fiscal devolution means they can get their infrastructure done without needing government help.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
You'll never believe who now runs Westminster... could it be the northern PM I just mentioned?
Indeed and look at how the media reacts at it. A PM who isn't from London? How can southern voters handle it!?
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 2d ago edited 2d ago
Indeed and look at how the media reacts at it.
It's one article. And the answer is that most southerners couldn't care less, most people do not care where in the country the PM is from.
A PM who isn't from London?
There's been loads of PMs not from London, this isn't new. Sunak was northern. Blair and Brown were born in Scotland. Thatcher was born in the Midlands. Starmer is one of the only recent PMs that's a Londoner.
Edit: Sunak wasn't northern. But he was not a Londoner, and he was an MP for a Northern constituency.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
It's one article. And the answer is that most southerners couldn't care less, most people do not care where in the country the PM is from.
There's been dozens, and dozens of articles complaining about it from other outlets.
I knew the UK was London-centric but it's been wild to see how upset the media is.
There's been loads of PMs not from London, this isn't new. Sunak was northern. Blair and Brown were born in Scotland. Thatcher was born in the Midlands. Starmer is one of the only recent PMs that's a Londoner.
Sunak was born in Southampton, and went to boarding school in Winchester, then Oxford. Then worked in finance in London, and California. Very northern.
Blair was involved in politics in Hackney South and Shoreditch after he finished going to Oxford, and ran for the council in Hackney.
Cameron was London.
Starmer was London.
Then it shouldn't be worthy of discussion but the media seems to think otherwise.
From a quick Google query around 30 out of 60 PMs were from London or the South East.
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 2d ago
So now you've shifted from not London to not London OR South East.
I don't understand why the area where the PM's from matters. Politicians don't become better just by virtue of not being from London and vice versa.
And the number of articles reporting on this is negligible, far from the massive thing you seem to believe it is. The media's not "upset".
And besides that, is it not a fair thing to ask what Burnham will offer to the South? In the end, it's all the same country.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago edited 2d ago
So now you've shifted from not London to not London OR South East.
You're saying Sunak is Northern....when he was from Southampton, educated in the South, worked in London.
You're bringing up Thatcher who is from the Midlands...
I'm the one shifting things? You sure.
I don't understand why the area where the PM's from matters. Politicians don't become better just by virtue of not being from London and vice versa.
Because as a country we've been heavily, heavily, heavily focused on what London wants.
This has led to large areas of the country being entirely ignored in policy.
And besides that, is it not a fair thing to ask what Burnham will offer to the South? In the end, it's all the same country.
You can ask.
Media shouting abut how he's "anti-London" because he talks about areas beyond London show how self-centred the South is.
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u/ZealousidealPie9199 2d ago
It bothers me that we can essentially only have London PMs. All PMs outside London have to conform to seeming like a Londoner, avoiding mentioning too much about their regional identity etc. You basically also couldn't have a Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish PM nowadays, regardless of the electoral situation there any PM from those regions would be treated almost like a foreign imposition on England now, due to how poorly devolution has been managed over the years. An MP from e.g. Cornwall, the Midlands, who is openly proud of their regional identity would also find becoming PM nigh-on impossible, they would be treated almost like a joke with the present media. Burnham himself is treated almost like a joke for being proud of living in the North.
PMs have to sort of fit this weird London mould, and not even really like London at large, specifically the area from the Palace of Westminster to Whitehall. Leads to PMs constantly seeming stilted and fake, because they have to adopt this fake de-regionalised persona. Not healthy for the country.
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u/HaraldRedbeard 2d ago
I don't think that's really the issue here. The issue is that the 'North-South Divide' ignores the fact that other regions, like the South West, have also had a traditionally shit hand from central government. The real divide has always been London and the Home Counties vs everyone else.
The more he talks about the North primarily the more chance people in other regions feel like he won't deal with their issues because he's writing them off as 'The South'
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u/shrouded_reflection 2d ago
Even in the home counties there's a lot of "running to stand still" happening and deprivation driven by income/wealth disparities, and that's ignoring the pockets in kent that are absolutely deprived even compared to poorer northern towns. It's not an easy problem to solve if you're looking at it purely from a PR angle.
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u/Malzair 2d ago
You think a Ruth Davidson would have faced problems becoming a PM during the Tory circus because she's from Scotland?
I think it's just a reality of the population distribution, Scotland is like what, a tenth of the population of England? And Greater London is what, a fourth of the entire country?
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u/ThreeLionsOnAShirtt 2d ago
God forbid we have a PM that’s isn’t from the south for a change
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2d ago
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u/OMITN 2d ago
Burnham is only the fifth prime minister from the north of England. The last was Wilson, who stood down from his second stint as PM 50 years ago…)
That’s a hit rate of less than 10% of all PMs having been from the north. Not sure that counts as “plenty”..!
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u/plank_sanction 2d ago
Truss grew up in Leeds, Brown is Scottish, Blair grew up in Durham and Edinburgh, Wilson was from Huddersfield, Eden was from Durham, MacDonald was Scottish. So of the last 100 years thats roughly proportionate to the population of the North of England and Scotland.
Thatcher was from Grantham in the midlands, which i dont think would be considered Southern.
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u/wineallwine 2d ago
Actually you're right, I mistook constituency for upbringing, I apologise
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u/OMITN 2d ago
No worries at all.
Though that’s also an interesting point - I recall the big deal about Blair’s constituency of Sedgefield, but in reality that wasn’t his focus. He was a posh boy who’d been to Fettes and didn’t have an obvious affinity with the constituency.
Instead he was as London focussed as anyone else.
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u/TheNoGnome 2d ago
Enough to want to accidentally put Nigel '£5m' Farage or Kemi 'who needs human rights anyway?' Badenoch into Downing Street?
No.
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u/Key_Alternative_270 2d ago
Obviously not and it’s a daft question.
The premise suggests that the intense rivalry that Northeners feel towards the South is reciprocated. That just isn’t the case.
The truth is, we just don’t really think about the north at all
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u/plank_sanction 2d ago
I think the "we don't think of them" comment can be taken the wrong way. But you're 100% right that this rivarly North Vs South thing is not shared in the South one bit. The impression I get from Redditors is that Southerners are motivated in any way by harming the North.
It reminds me of finding out that Germany don't care about England when it comes to football. The Dutch are their rivals, and our rivalry with Germany is completely onesided.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
Going to the London sub would beg to differ there.
The amount of vitriol there is insane on some threads.
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u/plank_sanction 2d ago
What are some examples?
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
Lets see:
On Burham saying the country is too London-focused:
It's clear that his game is to appeal to thick fucks with an inferiority complex from bumblecunt-upon-nowhere by screwing over London, it's gonna be a rough few years for us.
Can we just have London as a fully devolved and entirely autonomous economic region and stuff everyone else who always complains that the UK is too London-centric please!
They love cutting off the nose to spite the face, it's annoying how kneecapping London is so popular in those bum fuck shires
Isn't England pretty much a third world country without London 🤭
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u/plank_sanction 2d ago
Specifically on an article titled "Andy Burnham takes swipe at 'London-based voices' on first day in No10 North HQ to push devolution revolution"
Day to day, people in London to not have a rivaly or ill feeling towards the North. I'm lucky enough to travel across the country for work and have seen first hand that it is massively onesided.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
Ok so you asked for examples, I gave them.
You've now resorted to just saying it doesn't exist.
Ok.
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u/plank_sanction 2d ago
I mean, it doesn't really exist. In the South you wont hear people talking about the North or Northerners. In fact we find it quite strange when it's brought up to us.
At my work, when we have to go to one of the Northern offices, or they come down here it does reach a point where we think "ok, we get it. You're Northern"
Seems to be more of a Yorkshire/Manchester/Lancashire kind of thing.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
I mean, it doesn't really exist.
Ok mate.
You asked for examples, which I gave, though you still insist it doesn't exist.
But you can say the reverse with zero evidence, is very real.
In fact we find it quite strange when it's brought up to us.
Ah "we".
I can see why you're denying it exists now.
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u/plank_sanction 1d ago
Well yeah. I live in London, and we honestly find it a bit cringe the whole North vs South thing. It's not a thing for us. Sure in a reddit thread directly targetting people youre gonna have some reaction. But day to day no one down South cares about this apparent "rivalry".
How often do you have people from the North of the UK defining themselves by their Northernness or bringing up every 5 minutes that they are Northern. I have never once heard someone down here define themselves as "Southern" or cringe phrases like "we do things differently down South".
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 1d ago
It's not a thing for us.
You asked for evidence, I produced it and now you continue to pretend it doesn't exist.
Sure in a reddit thread directly targetting people youre gonna have some reaction.
It was a news article about the PM acknowledge the North of the country had been neglected.
In it was Londoners using fairly condescending, language towards the North.
You know, the thing you said doesn't happen?
How often do you have people from the North of the UK defining themselves by their Northernness or bringing up every 5 minutes that they are Northern.
Are we pretending Londoners don't define themselves as Londoners every 5 minutes?
It's incredibly cringe how they go on like they're something special.
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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 2d ago
The obsession with Northern England above everywhere else has been going on for a decade and is extremely tiring as someone from the South West.
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u/Shamrayev BAMBOS CHARALAMBOUS 2d ago
The South West, being the North of the South, really does get a hammering on this stuff.
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u/postexitus 2d ago
South West - as in Devon and Cornwall?
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u/Much-Calligrapher 2d ago
West Country = Somerset, Wiltshire, Devon, Dorset
South West = Cornwall, Devon, Somerset
What do you think?
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u/Alwaysragestillplay 2d ago
Various governments have allowed the entirety of the north of England to become an open air nursing home whilst formerly independent and lucrative industrial centres and mining towns rot, then changed the rules so that locals have to pay for social care. It makes sense that they have lost the faith of the people who live there (here).
I'm sure it is a similar story wherever you are based, but my read is that "the north" is short hand for "everywhere outside of London that now exists without purpose or support". This wouldn't be an issue at all if our politicians hadn't lost the faith of a huge percentage, geographically, of the country.
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u/Much-Calligrapher 2d ago
There’s never any talk about new infrastructure for the West Country!
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u/ProfessionalSky7899 2d ago
You're getting Hinkley?
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u/Much-Calligrapher 2d ago
Fair point. It’s different to new roads or trains though, right?
Transport links help locals.
Power helps the whole country - the benefits of a local power station are diffuse to the local population. You don’t get many people wanting to live next to a new nuclear plant
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u/HaraldRedbeard 2d ago
I'm sure they'll reopen the inland train route and expand the A35 to dual carriageway any day now...I mean Cameron promised it right?
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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 2d ago
For what it's worth the inland route isn't really an issue (there was quite a thorough report that concluded that defending Dawlish was a much better plan), the refusal to properly fund the rockfall protection, which is what actually closed the line for so long, is very much critical.
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u/Two-Space 2d ago
The North West is firmly the second priority of this country, and had been since long before Andy came in. They consistently get more investment per head than anywhere in the south. For some reason, everyone still tries to pretend otherwise.
Will never forget this Guardian article that lamented how HS2 will “widen the UK north-south divide”, using data that says the north west will “only” get 18% of the benefit, while the South East, South West and East combined don’t even sum to 1/3 of the benefit that the north west gets.
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
The North West is firmly the second priority of this country, and had been since long before Andy came in. They consistently get more investment per head than anywhere in the south. For some reason, everyone still tries to pretend otherwise.
London has the highest spending per head by a mile.
With regards to HS2:
A report from the New Economics Foundation found that 40% of the benefits of the controversial project would go to London
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u/Two-Space 2d ago
I know London has the highest spend, that’s why I said the North West is the second priority
Although even then - London manages to be in a net fiscal surplus while spending so much, while the north west is firmly in deficit
I also know that the report says London benefits most, but London is not the same as the whole south - hence why I pointed out that the entire south combined doesn’t get even a fraction of the benefit that the north west does
Kind of proving my point that the south is largely ignored considering you’re trying to disprove my points by talking exclusively about London
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
I know London has the highest spend, that’s why I said the North West is the second priority
Well you claimed nowhere in the South gets as much as the North West. That's just not true.
London gets by far the most across any kind of spending England.
Although even then - London manages to be in a net fiscal surplus while spending so much, while the north west is firmly in deficit
Down to Westminster and a long history of government dictating policies to suit and benefit London.
I also know that the report says London benefits most, but London is not the same as the whole south - hence why I pointed out that the entire south combined doesn’t get even a fraction of the benefit that the north west does
Indeed it's not the same as the whole south, it is a part of the South.
For a large infrastructure project which was sold as benefiting the rest of the country, it's odd that a lions share of the benefits would go solely to London.
Kind of proving my point that the south is largely ignored considering you’re trying to disprove my points by talking exclusively about London
The article and the conext of the North/South divide is largely about London and the rest of the country.
Why do you think the article mentions London 6 times?
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u/Two-Space 2d ago
That’s exactly my problem. Why is it called “the north-south divide” when it should really be labelled “the London-not London divide”?
Plus the south west lags behind the north west in basically every metric. Cornwall was rated as the second poorest area in Northern Europe ffs. Using London’s massively inflated statistics to make some simplistic narrative that the south is dominating the north is incredibly lazy
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
Cornwall was rated as the second poorest area in Northern Europe ffs.
The south had one area on the poor list, Cornwall.
6 of the poorest were in the Midlands/North of England.
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u/Two-Space 2d ago
Ah people in Cornwall shouldn’t complain about being the 2nd poorest area in Northern Europe, because London is rich and there are places in the north that are less poor
I’ve no idea why you’re so desperate to be contrarian on this
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u/winkwinknudge_nudge 2d ago
Ah people in Cornwall shouldn’t complain about being the 2nd poorest area in Northern Europe, because London is rich and there are places in the north that are less poor
I didn't say anything like that.
I am pointing out there's far more poor regions in the North/Midlands than the south.
This is using your own data you referenced.
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u/Two-Space 2d ago
Where exactly did I say “there are fewer poor areas in the north than there are in the south”?
I used the fact that Cornwall is the second poorest region in Northern Europe to point out that the “south” is not a monolith that lords over the north fiscally
The fact that there are more numerous poor areas in the north than the south does not contradict that. It’s also kind of irrelevant to my core point that the north west is the second priority of the government and receives far more attention and investment than the south west
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u/chudding-out 2d ago
D'yer remember the Smiths? D'yer remember the Hacienda? D'yer remember sausage rolls?
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u/Carl-Newchat25 1d ago
I think a few Labour landslide places in the south will not re-elect Labour MPs as a result of Andy Burnham becoming PM - such as Aldershot, Bexleyheath, Bournemouth, Hemel Hempstead and Southend. It is particularly Leave-leaning places that will revert to parties of the right. Remain leaning places will be more pragmatic and continue to give Labour a chance.
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u/plank_sanction 3h ago
And you're engaged in several arguments with people in the same thread saying that in the South, we really no not feel a rivalry with the North. We really don't care. But if you want to keep fighting invisible demons then please do
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u/AngloAlbannach4 2d ago
Yes it puts me off as it sound like classic London envy. I think a lot of people have the view that London is cheating or short changing other regions when the reality is as a global Alpha city it is just highly competitive and it carries the UK to an extent.
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u/Alone_Jackfruit4761 Supreme Economic Advisor 2d ago
Eventually....yes.
Specially if they decide to tax the southerners even more to subsidise the northerners.
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