A fine essay by Owen Jones in to-days Guardian
What really divides up the UK is wealth and power, not geography. The North conjures up images of being downtrodden and impoverished; of terraced houses with the Hovis theme tune in the background. The south, on the other hand, is a prosperous land of leafy suburbs, City slickers and loadsamoney. It's nonsense. The "north-south divide" is just another means of deflecting from the real great division: those at the top and the rest of us.
Of the 20 English local authorities with the highest levels of child poverty, seven are located in London. According to End Child Poverty, Tower Hamlets has the largest proportion of children living in poverty in the entire country. This is where the booming financial district of Canary Wharf is located, meaning there are poorly fed kids growing up in cold, overcrowded homes metres away from bankers living in luxury apartments with whirlpool baths. Although London has far more rich people than elsewhere – and, in many cases, the term "rich" is an understatement – 16% of Londoners are in England's poorest 10th. This is, by far, a worse record than any other English region.
Chingford and Woodford Green has Britain's second-highest proportion of low-paid workers. Kent is often regarded as a leafy playground for affluent commuters, and yet nearly a fifth of its children are poor; further east, in Great Yarmouth, a quarter of children languish in poverty.
London is the centre of England's housing crisis too. A quarter of Londoners claim housing benefit to pay the rent – many of them in work – and nearly three-quarters of inner London homes are snapped up by foreign buyers. Unemployment is higher than the national average; while young Londoners tend to be more educated, they are also more likely to be out of work.
De-industrialisation is often seen as a northern trauma, but it is not so. The disappearance of tin mining impoverished Cornwall, leaving it one of the only regions eligible for special financial assistance from the EU. Two-thirds of London's manufacturing vanished between 1960 and 1990, with British Leyland, Ford and Hoover among companies cutting tens of thousands of jobs.
What does the north-south divide mean to a single mum in Cornwall who has to choose between heating her home and feeding her children? How much really divides the call centre worker in Hull and the supermarket shelf-stacker in Chelmsford?
There is one division that matters: those who have wealth and power, and those who do not – whether they live in Carlisle or Land's End.
What really divides up the UK is wealth and power, not geography. The North conjures up images of being downtrodden and impoverished; of terraced houses with the Hovis theme tune in the background. The south, on the other hand, is a prosperous land of leafy suburbs, City slickers and loadsamoney. It's nonsense. The "north-south divide" is just another means of deflecting from the real great division: those at the top and the rest of us.
Of the 20 English local authorities with the highest levels of child poverty, seven are located in London. According to End Child Poverty, Tower Hamlets has the largest proportion of children living in poverty in the entire country. This is where the booming financial district of Canary Wharf is located, meaning there are poorly fed kids growing up in cold, overcrowded homes metres away from bankers living in luxury apartments with whirlpool baths. Although London has far more rich people than elsewhere – and, in many cases, the term "rich" is an understatement – 16% of Londoners are in England's poorest 10th. This is, by far, a worse record than any other English region.
Chingford and Woodford Green has Britain's second-highest proportion of low-paid workers. Kent is often regarded as a leafy playground for affluent commuters, and yet nearly a fifth of its children are poor; further east, in Great Yarmouth, a quarter of children languish in poverty.
London is the centre of England's housing crisis too. A quarter of Londoners claim housing benefit to pay the rent – many of them in work – and nearly three-quarters of inner London homes are snapped up by foreign buyers. Unemployment is higher than the national average; while young Londoners tend to be more educated, they are also more likely to be out of work.
De-industrialisation is often seen as a northern trauma, but it is not so. The disappearance of tin mining impoverished Cornwall, leaving it one of the only regions eligible for special financial assistance from the EU. Two-thirds of London's manufacturing vanished between 1960 and 1990, with British Leyland, Ford and Hoover among companies cutting tens of thousands of jobs.
What does the north-south divide mean to a single mum in Cornwall who has to choose between heating her home and feeding her children? How much really divides the call centre worker in Hull and the supermarket shelf-stacker in Chelmsford?
There is one division that matters: those who have wealth and power, and those who do not – whether they live in Carlisle or Land's End.
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