Soon, it'll be even grimmer up t'North, Condem stylee

amcluesent

Spending cuts 'to hit north hard'

Middlesbrough is the area of England least resilient to economic shocks, according to BBC-commissioned research.

The study, carried out by Experian, looks at the ability of each local authority area to withstand and respond to sudden changes in the economy.

With further public sector cuts on the cards, it suggests how England's regions may cope.

Each area is ranked in order of resilience, and a clear north-south divide is evident.

Middlesbrough on Teesside is followed by Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, which is the second least resilient area according to the research, and then Stoke-on-Trent which is the third.

William Gladstone famously went to the original town hall in Middlesbrough and proclaimed it an "infant Hercules".

Go to the same spot now, as I did, and you find a sad, boarded-up building surrounded by wasteland and a few abandoned, crumbling houses.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

Well that was'nt unexpected.
It's always been the case,they don't call it the north/south divide for nothing.

kabayiri

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

Well that was'nt unexpected.
It's always been the case,they don't call it the north/south divide for nothing.

Too simplistic.

There are pockets all over where prospects differ markedly.
Cheshire is considered very healthy, but travel a mere 30 miles due south to Stoke and the picture changes.

People need to be more mobile when it comes to work. I have done stints in the South East before now - it helped pay off a not insignificant mortgage. Just check out traffic on a Sunday evening on the M6/M1 motorways; it's still happening.

JasonLVC

The actual report makes reference of there being 42% (1 in 3) of people 'oop North' are employed in the public sector.

So it is obvious that public sector cuts will affect that region more harshly.

The bigger question to ask is, why were so many public sector jobs concentrated in the North rather than spread out across the country?

Generali

According to the Sunday Times a couple of years back, in the NE 70% of GDP is Government spending. That is more than in Czechoslovakia or Hungary under Communism apparently.

JasonLVC wrote: »

The actual report makes reference of there being 42% (1 in 3) of people 'oop North' are employed in the public sector.

So it is obvious that public sector cuts will affect that region more harshly.

The bigger question to ask is, why were so many public sector jobs concentrated in the North rather than spread out across the country?

It was an attempt by Labour to increase the number of jobs in poorer parts of the country by pushing departments away from London and the South East.

What they didn't appreciate would happen is that people would take the well paid, secure Government job leaving it harder for private enterprises to find good workers.

PasturesNew

Teach them all to bake, then they can all eat cake!

Govt funded cake making courses.

It's obvious!

bendix

Was it Middlesborough people who hanged a monkey because they thought he was a French spy? Or Hartlepool?

Anyway, that tells me all I need to know about such places.

There are reasons some parts of the country and their people are poorer than others - this illustrates it admirably.

Generali

bendix wrote: »

Was it Middlesborough people who hanged a monkey because they thought he was a French spy? Or Hartlepool?

Anyway, that tells me all I need to know about such places.

There are reasons some parts of the country and their people are poorer than others - this illustrates it admirably.

It was Hartlepool:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger

People from Hartlepool are correctly known as Hertlepudlians apparently.

bendix

Generali wrote: »

It was Hartlepool:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger

People from Hartlepool are correctly known as Hertlepudlians apparently.

Correction: the proper collective noun for people from Hartlepool is Inbred Chavs.

Orpheo

I used to live and teach in a primary school in Mansfield. I decided that it wasn't a town in which I wanted my daughter to grow up as it was mortally pessimistic. At the primary school I taught at (in a deprived ward so not representative of the whole town), the boys had literally zero repect for women, they would badmouth the women teachers just as they heard their dads, or more likely mum's boyfriend badmouth their mothers. I did move to another school in Mansfield where the kids were totally great.

The natives of Mansfield remain obsessed with the closure of the mines and the miners' strike. Hatred has been passed down the generations so that even the young are still bitter about it. There are feuds, assaults and murders happening today because of the strikes. My wife has an uncle who became a millionaire by importing coal during the miners' strike, I had to make sure that she kept that absolutely silent otherwise we would have likely had our house burnt down.

There were plans to build a massive technology park in Mansfield to bring science and technology jobs to the area. The council scuppered it. There are people, young people, who are waiting for the coal mines to open again, they have said it to me in so many words.

We had to leave.

Orpheo

One thing I forgot to add was that while I was teaching in the school I mentioned in my previous post I was observed by a Nottinghamshire County Council inspector. His only criticism of my lesson was "your expectations of these children are too high, they are Mansfield children after all." I was horrified at this, the implication that they were predestined for failure. Children's achievement is judged by national standards not local ones. Children at this school used to strip naked and climb trees and refuse to come down, they would climb on the roof and throw chairs through windows. OFSTED graded the school as Good.