25 July 2007

Division

Towards the end of June, Yorkshire was hit by the worst floods in living memory. Thousands of households were affected and yet... the national media and national politicians were slow to react. It took a full ten days before the BBC Ten O' Clock News gave proper coverage to the awful floods in Hull -which labelled itself with bitter irony, England's "Forgotten City". Our new prime minister - Gordon Brown took twelve days to reach South Yorkshire and Hull to pat rescue workers on their backs and visit some affected dwellings and schools. To give Prince Charles his due - he was round and about offering heartfelt support well ahead of Mr Brown.

And now new floods have hit our island - but this time mainly affecting the southern rivers Severn, Avon, Thames and Great Ouse. And what do you know - surprise, surprise - the film crews and reporters, politicians and journalists are there straightaway! They are standing in waders and wellies - they are "Live" from the scene while Gordon Brown is shown marshalling his cabinet like Winston Churchill in wartime. An objective observer of the media would confirm this clear bias. England remains a divided nation.

You see it in various guises. Look at a quality Sunday magazine - take the restaurant recommendations - invariably they are nearly all down south with perhaps a token northern restaurant thrown in for good measure - to keep accusations of bias at bay. I remember when I was ten or eleven years old, camping with my family in South Wales - I met a boy of similar age who came from London. We were chummy enough for him to ask me one evening at the swings, "Do you have electricity in Yorkshire?" That kind of ignorance about "Up North" abounds in southern England and there are plenty of southerners who have never travelled north of Watford. It's like an old map and in the unexplored northern territory the cartographer has written "There be monsters!"

I am proud to be a northerner. I would loathe living in London with its pretensions and cosmopolitan over-indulgence, its greasy palmed taxi drivers and besuited tube commuters scowling like saints in stained glass windows, its Hooray Henries and "IT" girls, its beggars and blaggers, its Chelsea and Arsenal and pearly furred women clambering out of Bentleys and motor cycle couriers honking. Good heavens - I am shocked to admit that we northerners probably have more in common with the Scots than we do with those southern softies! Come on lads and lasses! To the barricades! Home Rule for Yorkshire!

12 comments:

  1. Don't forget to send me my Yorkshire passport! You said it was coming to me.;)

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  2. look YP, STOP it, look l've moaned about press coverage up here in these Northern Wastes, the land that time, politicians & TV crews have forgotten, yes it is despicable the way, because we're 'up here,we have been forgotten yet again......but on the non-news stories ....WE DON'T WANT B*** SOUTHERNERS UP HERE now do we? We don't want to have to FIGHT our way onto the sands at Bridlington, push our way onto the mini golf course at Hornsea Mere or find that our favourite chippy is full of OK Ya's now do we?

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  3. Oh Muddyboots, they're already here! (in Northumberland anyway) That's why I can't afford to buy a house and property to rent is so few and far between - it's much more lucrative to rent it out for gazillions as a holiday cottage to gullible southerners ....

    Anyhoo, YP, what about Northumberland? We are. after all, God's own country ... ;)

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  4. How about moving Hadrian's wall south?

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  5. Apropos of nothing except the picture... Pink Floyd FTW!!!!

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  6. I am proud to be a northerner.

    As well you should be. I can tell you right now, Krip and I envy you and all those that live up in "The North." Sure wish we could afford to the make the move. If we had the mullah, we'd do it in a New York second!

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  7. Read Stuart Maconie's excellent "Pies and Prejudice". In the intro he states: if you don't think there's a North South divide then why haven't the BBC got a "Southern England Correspondent"?

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  8. Stop bloody moaning. At least you don't live darn sarf and have to put up with all that crap, daily.
    You should consider yourselves bloody lucky. Shout too much and you might get noticed and then you would become 'fashionable' and all the Hooray Henries will come and visit you and patronise your 'quaint' northern ways.
    I love the North.
    I even confess to having a few Northern friends.
    Salt of the earth. Long may they piss us off down the crowded end of this sceptered isle.

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  9. Anonymous9:48 pm

    I'm a Northern-born girlie (also a teacher!)that lived 'darn sarf' for 15 years and it is a rat-race down there.... I have now moved back 'Up North' and am enjoying a bigger house, emptier roads and cheaper shopping.... I'm just waiting until everyone else down there catches on and heads north too! And another thing, I can't get over the fact that teachers get respect up here...celebrity status or what!

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  10. Too true mate, I see nothing has changed in the time I have been away, Bloody southern jessies

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  11. Oh come on, YP, it was only Hull, for goodness sake! And who'd miss Hull? Damn shame it wasn't entirely washed away down the Humber if you ask me. >:>

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  12. Home Rule for Yorkshire is alright by me. Lets go back to the Kingdom of Elmet. Make it the capital again.

    Robert Clack: As I live in Hull, I would miss it if it was swept away. Then I suppose I would uproot and go back to Leeds...

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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