When will tha think for tha sen, then?
North South Divide
In The Times today we learn that 2/5 of northern voters would never consider voting for the Conservatives, that one in four voters in the North said they did not know anyone who supported or voted Conservative, that only 21 per cent thought the Tories understood their area, and only 20 per cent thought that their region was represented among the Tory leadership (Only 21 per cent thought the Tories understood their area and 20 per cent thought that their region was represented among the Tory leadership. (Michael Savage, chief political correspondent). According to a Leader a few pages later, almost 40 per cent would not even engage with [Conservative] campaigners.
Meanwhile, Labour faces similar challenges in the South, and in Scotland 54% of voters said they would never vote Tory either.
If you look at this in light of the trend over a generation for people to become increasingly disengaged with, confused / angered by, and disinterested in politics it paints a bleak picture indeed for the relevance of party politics and possibly the very currency of democracy itself.
It’s the widespread indifference that has led to a poverty of intellectual rigour when it comes to voting. The growing perception of MPs as untrustworthy and hollow means their output is worthless and so even those who do care to use their franchise at polling times are somewhat lost as to whom they approach to discuss their options. Parents or the bloke down the pub are as good a choice as any. And their level of disengagement generally leads them to fall back on centuries of prejudice, stereotyping and ignorance. This is the same in Crawley, as it is in Oldham as it is in The Gorbals.
And in the meantime, what’s it like living in Yorkshire with a ‘southern’ accent? It’s interesting. You acquire neighbours and friends who are dear and genuine people; our kids all went to school together, some are dating; they’re at northern universities; the landscape is stunning; and we all love Tetley, chips and gravy. But NEVER talk politics. This can lead to bewilderment, confusion, frustration, confrontation and thence the North South thing again.
And it leads to gross aberrations of perception too: Nadine Dorries gets roasted in The Commons over a stupid TV appearance, yet for the 19th year on the trot, the European Court of Auditors has refused to sign the accounts for the EU. Dorries scandalizes us, the EU causes us to shrug and wonder if it really affects us and if it does, aren’t they just too big and too unaccountable. This is especially true in the North – why, I’m not sure… perhaps because already the neighbours are mentally lifting the drawbridge for a prolonged and self-imposed isolation.
And David Cameron’s pledge to hold an EU referendum has no weight with centrists of either hue; even the commentators are unconvinced he can swing it among his own. Yer man, Savage, doubts UKIP will help fiscal common sense as Labour strategists have finally woken up to the possibility of using this to woo instinctive UKIP voters to the left with promises of… well, of what exactly? It doesn’t matter, because the electorate’s nascent attention deficit disorder kicked in several paragraphs and a few decades ago so accountability in public life becomes ever less relevant.
So that’s politics done with then. It’s as useful and relevant as Britain having a witchsmeller pursuivant class or a tax to fight the Spanish Armada. And what will replace it? That’ll be a vacuum. And into that will creep all the historic things that fill voids like this: book-burning, KristallNacht, ‘Strange Fruit’ hanging from the trees, and a return to the charts of that keening idiot Morrossey.
And against this background, here stand I – Yorkshire’s sole remaining voice of the Caring Christian Right – being told by one and all that I’m so eccentric… people just don’t think like me anymore. Labour has nothing to offer me, or to anybody else. The Conservatives have nothing to appeal to any of my northern neighbours, nor to me, apparently.
I’d prefer no flyers or canvassers from any party, but if you must I’ll be either down on the allotment panic-growing turnips for the post-apocalyptic zombie siege, or at ‘Spoons necking Black Sheep Ale with Eeyore and the lads.