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American Reacts to England's Evil North vs. South Divide
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- Published on May 21, 2025
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“A northerner has been accused of terrorising London by walking around and saying hello…” 😂
"I'm sorry. I'll be getting back on the train now" 😂😂
Also saying Morning 😅😂
I live in Sunderland and people up north are waaaaay friendlier than the south.
Defo - Irish lad in Oxford, but lived around Manchester too. NE is brilliantly friendly.
Southern working class are great too, but takes longer to be accepted.
There is a northern resurgence - Nissan in Sunderland, Sage in Newcastle, but the tories spent nowt on northern connectivity
Ouch.
@@spruce381they've spent fuck all on most of the south as well it's only London and surrounding counties that reap the rewards. Fuck all buses and trains where I am in south west/midlands border
@@English-Lass Manchester is violent
It was a dreadful time.
The biggest issue during the 70s and 80s (looking with hindsight) was that absolutely no effort was put into replacing traditional failing industries with new and different opportunities. The Northern industrial areas were simply abandoned. There have been some patchy efforts since, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
I was born in a poor village in County Durham, the pit had closed in 1921. The reality is coal in UK has been a declining industry for a century, exacerbated by globalisation. During the 70/80s, the unions were bringing the country to its knees and something had to be done. The true criminal act of Thatcher and most governments since wasn't the closing of the mines, which was inevitable, it was the manner of the closures and the lack of consistent reinvestment in the North that caused the economic divide. The social divide will always exist, but the economic split is criminal.
I agree yes close them as its just no economically viable anymore but they should of encouraged investment & got new industry's to go North or have existing ones to grow, for example there's no reason that new tech companies cannot set themselves up in the North expect there might not be any economic incentives for them to like lower taxes, subsides etc.
I believe we're having a similar with the steel industry now especially in Port Talbot in Wales to me its just not wise to just keep propping it up with bailouts over and over again just to save jobs or the more likely reason prevent PR backlash invest into alternative industries etc.
When Thatcher died, they burned effigies of her on bonfires up north and the BBC banned the playing of "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" on its radio stations. On the streets, hundreds of people turned their backs on her funeral courtage.
The BBC refused to play it when 'we' made it #1 ;-)
I didn’t, wish we had her now.
That was very informative, Joel. It has given me a better perspective. With friends and family from the top to the bottom (north to south) of England, I will look at life in England differently on this summer's trip over. Thanks for showing this. Cheers, John in Canada
The story of billy elliot was set during the time of the strikes aswell if you ever watch it you will see the desperation of the time, but its great storytelling of just a single family in the north.
Jps watched Billy elliott and Pride for Patreon . He enjoyed those films
The North South divide is a cast iron wall that goes through the middle of Birmingham
I live a year in Harborne in '96 and worked by the airport. The office girls from Knowle thought their sh1t didn't stink. Such a change in people with money there ;-)
Give over, Birmingham is essentially France 🤣. If it's below the Southern Lancashire (including Manchester and Merseyside) or Yorkshire border it's southern.
Anything north of Hitchin is a foreign country as far as I’m concerned.
@MyJoejoejoe that's because it's so far south that it's pretty much France, like the rest of the south.
Joel, you can relate this story to your own country. You have your rustbelts, deserted shopping centres etc. These are very deep economic, social and political issues. Dominic
Hi Joel, Thatcher was also known as the ‘Milk Snatcher’. Primary school children got free milk every day which she stopped. At 82, I’ll never forgive her.
I hated free school milk when it was left out in the warm weather. Makes me feel nauseous just thinking about it.
We used to chant, "Maggie Thatcher, cradle snatcher".
Without her, your body after death would have been stored in a refrigerated lorry and you would have been suffocated under piles of rubbish in the streets. She rescued this country in a fundermental way. The destruction of our industry and conversion of our economy to one of service was wrong, however. This continues to this day unfortunately.
Get a life
You should not be drinking milk but water. She saved your drinking habits.
I remember the 70’s very well. I was born and still live in Kent. I remember all these things mentioned in the video. The 70’s was not a great time my dad lost his job, there were strikes and riots everywhere. You would need to make sure you had a stock of candles as there were power cuts galore. We weren’t suffering as much as those poor souls up north but not everyone in the South was having a great time either.
Sounds like my early memories. From Yorkshire
probably Dartford
Bromley
As others have mentioned, this phenomenon is essentially consistent across any industrialised or deindustrialized nation. While the disparity may not be as pronounced as some would like to portray it, it’s important to recognise that underdevelopment and underfunding are prevalent issues in many regions. The farther one moves away from a capital city, the less financial resources are allocated. This is a fundamental principle that applies universally. For instance, I hail from the Midlands, where we receive minimal funding. The notion that the government is deliberately oppressing the North is simply inaccurate. It's exactly the same as the Rust Belt being forgotten because of all the mining being de-industrialised. You lose all of the funding, you lose all of the people working, so the money isn't there. So unless there's complete change, then there will just be decline in those areas.
Thanks for standing up for the North, from Manchester.
Your from Oldham not Manchester
@@peterGoodhall-i9dI lived in Leigh and Middleton - could get to dry 201 and fac 51. Defo felt like part of greater Manchester and Lancashire too.
This video is broadly true, but it’s exaggerating the extent to which the decline of the North was because of one specific thing. It’s more than just coalmining. There are lots of different industries and economic developments which are all interrelated.
Yeah, I agree. It's far more then just coal mining for different areas. For Liverpool coal mining was never a major industry.
Fishing and docks in Hull and it actually started in the 70s here, not the 80s.
regarding only fools and horses, I watched the batman and robin scene around 10 years after it was first aired.. I was LITERALLY rolling on the floor laughing!
This is ridiculous. We have lots of people in the north of Britain who live in very large houses as well as small. There is also lots of wealth in the north .
It's about time the south woke up and stopped living in the dark ages
I’m a Northerner who lives in the South & I am afraid it is different. It makes me angry for the North, but it is different. It just is.
This was a thought provoking video, especially for me at the 22 minute mark when it showed the banner of the People's March for Jobs; as a 25 year old in 1981, I took part in that march, walking from Liverpool to London protesting high unemployment. I'm from a northern mill town and at the time I was a member of the Communist Party and was convinced that more socialism was the way forward.
It's strange to look back 45 years, because now I am certain that Margaret Thatcher was right in her policies, the coal mines were highly uneconomical and new industries needed to be found to revitalise the economy. The problems really came after Thatcher's time, when subsequent governments, both Conservative and Labour, dropped her policies and replaced them with a middle of the road social democratic agenda, which failed to properly invest sufficiently in the north. This is now exacerbated by so many small northern communities being destroyed by 'multiculturalism'.
The town I live in was only created in the mid 19th century with the birth of the cotton industry, and industry which began to die a death after the 2nd World War. It still has some mixed light industry, but jobs are not well paid, and the town's once cohesive northern English identity has disappeared, supplanted by a, growing, separate cultural community, due to mass immigration from a country with very a different culture. All of which leads the wealthier of the local indigenous people to move away, leaving behind more poverty.
I don't know how this will play out over the next 25 years, and in some ways I shouldn't care because I am almost 70 and will likely be dead by then, but I sometimes wonder if towns like this, which were built for a specific industry such as cotton or coal, will over time be abandoned to become rural areas once more. Perhaps history will simply record the abandonment of such towns as just another 'harrying of the north' by the southern, London based elite.
I live in Darlington in County Durham in the north east the birth place of the railways which we are celebrating 200 years of the start of the railway revolution which kick started the industrial revolution
I was a coal miner in the early 80s and was on strike for a year then all of the pits shut down I was lucky I got a job has a paint sprayer but most could not find work then it became a culture on the dole even now their children don't work there is a lot of towns and villages still down trodden with no prospects and a lot turned to drugs and drink.
There was a hilarious tweet from Jason Manford during the Scottish independence vote which said:
Dear Scotland,
Please don't leave us with that lot!
Regards,
The North of England
Manford of webcam fame
It all started with Margaret What're and Ronald "Ray gun"! That special relationship! She started the Falklands war to get re-elected it was an easy win with a lot of speeches to guarantee an election victory. The north of England took the rap! I could go on for ever about those two. Great video!
Not the first time the North has suffered from the actions of the South. Check out "the harrowing of the North" when a Southern king attempted to completely destroy us.
He wasn't a 'southern king', William the Conqueror was a foreign, invading king from Normandy.
@thomassharmer7127 He was crowned at westminster abbey in 1066, the harrowing occured in 1069/70. He was a Southern king.
@foreverblue06 Who would you regard as a 'northern' king then? The Norwegian viking Eric 'Bloodaxe' Haraldsson (930 - 954) perhaps, the last king of Northumbria who ruled from Jorvik (York)? Guillaume le Bâtard (Duke William of Normandy in what is now France) who invaded England in 1066 was descended from Rollo (Hrólfr), another Norwegian viking. Call him 'southern' if you like because of where he was crowned in order to maintain a modern prejudice, but it's really a stretch.
@thomassharmer7127 I don't think it is a stretch at all. In the north at the time he would have defininitely been seen as a Southern King trying to dictate to the North. The so called North, South divide is not a modern construct.
There are plenty of poor people in the south and plenty of wealthy people in the north.
This is about average and median. There is a greater % of the north who are in poverty, and a greater % in the south who are wealthy.
I agree, but the North's top 1% differs significantly from the South's, from my experience there's still a huge difference between the two, a lot of wealth in the North is actually generated through commuting income from London. Remote working, and investment in Manchester and Leeds are slowly changing this, however, when you consider the government's main strategies (think HS2 RIP), it ultimately only serves to expand London's commuter belt rather than decentralising or diversifying the UK economy, places like the North East add a whole new level to this
There are plenty of rich people in Ethiopia, what is your point? That the mere existence of rich people is evidence that all is fair and equally balanced?
Most people with ambition or curiosity head to the capital cities. If you are so wound up and bigoted you should blame the Romans - they settled in Londinium after virtually wiping out the original tribes.
@@Missydee-72 who are you replying to?
I'm originally from London but live in South Cheshire now, this was a bit before my time (im an 80's baby) how I was told it, the way they went about closing the mines basically screwed over the northern economy and all the new investments were made in the south and all of the new money stayed there while the north was neglected
The main problem was they closed the mines without investing in alternative employment options for these one industry towns. Where I live in South Yorkshire it was mines or steelworks until the mid 80s. It was nearly 10 years later until anything was actually done about it using EU development money not government money to create new business zones which were then mainly populated by low paying call centre jobs. Manvers near me is a good example(you may remember the riots from last year there) Luckily there still is a steel industry which now focuses on high tech engineering - see the advanced manufacturing park between Rotherham & Sheffield site of the Battle of Orgreave, one of the worst parts of the 1984 miners strike. Many people around here still hate Thatcher - she made the country selfish instead of pulling together. Now brexit has made things worse again because we've lost that EU investment for poorer areas - supposedly the government was going give out grants instead. As you're probably aware Cheshire is nominally classed as the North but has the wealthiest areas outside London just to the South of Manchester. What you really need to do is going and have a look at the former industrial towns around the periphery of Manchester or even Stoke On Trent.
It's a fantasy version of history, where the North is all about mines, and where Thatcher closed it all down. Firstly, there was a lot more to the North than mines. But also here are some numbers. In 1920, there were 1.2 million miners, by 1945 that was down to 718,000. By 1970 it had fallen to 247,000 by 1979. In fact, the decade in which the most miners lost their jobs was the 1960s, not the 1980s. Mines become economic and close, the deeper you have to dig, the more expensive the coal. Of course it's sad for communities. It was sad for the textile towns who employed as many people as the mines and which all went.
The reality is that Attlee's post-war consensus held off reality for a while, but our economy lagged behind not just the US but Western Europe. By 1970 we were an international joke. We had a host of nationalised industries, wracked by strikes that made poor quality products sold at a loss to a domestic market, propped up by tax payer bail outs. Once we joined the EEC most of the protectionism of Attlee's days were not allowed and exposed to European competition. Things got worse. We had to go cap in hand to the IMF to bail us out. Thatcher was elected to be the cure for the sick man of Europe.
Joel you are example of the new economy that is available to people now that wasn't an option even 10-15 years ago. Your two channels and your Patreon give you access to world wide audience on this platform. With all your hard work you put in over the years posting content, videos and you have built your own brand and your own business. Think about what you have done in nine years plus with growing subscriber base, worldwide following, and your product is you. I read the comments people across the globe are following you because you have made a connection in their lives, your open minded, sincere, genuine personality, your natural curiosity about the world outside your bubble comes through in videos. People watch your channels because they genuinely care about what you are doing, posting, watching you navigate through life, your thoughts and opinions. You have made friends around world from you keyboard and camera. You are very impressive and extraordinary young man.
Take Care and Enjoy this time in your life.
The pits closed because of the constant striking. In the North they have a saying. ‘ Where there’s muck there’s brass.’ ( brass means money ). There were and still are large industrial cities in the North . I think it was the threat of changing their way of life from the wonderful communities they had and the expectation that when they left school, a son would follow his father down the pit. Not very desirable to us now but it held a sense of security in those days .
Hello Joel. Now you are an honorary Yorkshireman you are free to think what you like about folk down south. Channel your inner Texan.
Don't quite understand why Marks & Spencer was featured in the rise of the south bit, Marks & Spencer proud product of Leeds one of our great northern cities, and the north/south divide Watford Gap!
I guess as they are more “up market” to shop in these days? A bit “premium”? Dunno though, I didn’t make the video just my guess ;)
The North/South divide goes back a very long way, much further than the industrial revolution. In the 11th century England was divided between the Viking occupied "Danelaw" to the north and Saxon ruled lands to the south largely dominated by the kingdom of Wessex. This was later united but the cultural differences are still evident in the northern dialects and the mutually stereotypical perception of southerners as soft, sophisticated and snooty, and northerners as rough, tough and blunt. My Londoner brother-in-law half-jokingly refers to northerners as "a load of bloody Vikings!" Industrialisation certainly deepened the divide, but the stereotypes are more complicated in post-industrial Britain. People forget that Margaret Thatcher was herself a northerner and extolled northern virtues of hard work, independence and thrift. A large part of her support base also came from working class northern voters with socially and economically "conservative" values who switched away from traditional Labour support. This is where the Brexit vote was concentrated too. And these regions remain the main political battle ground in British politics. They got called "the red wall" after they returned to Labour more recently, but could easily switch back, or more likely to the even more conservative Reform party. People also forget that there is poverty and deprivation in the south and southwest of England too, and considerable prosperity in some of the northern cities. It is all too easy to view "The South" through the distorting lens of London (although that is a very mixed bag too). A lot of things are very run down and divided here now and our political leaders on all sides seem to be of very low quality. It's still one of the most beautiful countries in the world, so here's to hoping it will get better soon 🙂.
There are some excellent classic Victorian novels depicting the "two nations" Disraeli "Sybil", Dickens "Hard Times", Gaskell "North & South"
I am proud to be a Northerner but the Government always deny us the investment that we need. The money always goes to the South 🙁
Firstly, i recently watched this,with King Boomer's reaction last week.Informative stuff,for me,a southerner. And i'm chuffed to bits that you have taken OFAH into your American heart,Joel. Luvvly Jubbly
Being a northerner, we are friendlier. We are more empathetic than the South. To me, they are colder and not as successful at football than the north is 😅😂. Seriously, though, the gap is not education. It is the wages gap. It's more expensive to live down south, houses cost more, etc. But up North, you will laugh more, say hello to neighbours and even strangers. I'd take that over living in a more expensive house any day of the week, and dont forget better football .😂
This video seems to gloss over that there’s wealthy people and wealthy areas in the north. Likewise there’s poor people and poor areas in the south. According to Wikipedia, Jaywick in Essex is the most deprived area in the country. It’s only 60 miles from London so definitely in the south
We're still being fudded. The North needs a lot of investment. Rishi stopping fast transport between London and the North was huge. Basically, nothing much has changed.
I live in the North. I have a Masters degree. I am a hard worker and have a good head on my shoulders. I cannot find good employment. So I either leave to the South, or to Australia, or to the United States, where there are dozens of companies looking for people just like me.
I want to stay where my family and roots are but I cant, and I really cannot comprehend how it's gotten to this point. There are so many people like me in the North of England, and if somebody made a big investment here they would find hundreds of thousands of educated young people currently working menial jobs desperate for a good opprtunity.
At around 24 minutes in,
It's hard to underestimate the damage that was done to communities when their primary industry was shut down AND NOTHING REPLACED IT.
It's not just coal. I'm from an old cotton town, the spinning jenny was invented just down the road from where I lived. They closed all the weaving mills and the area was bollocksed and never really recovered. What was once a thriving town centre is now a husk of its former self filled with charity shops and bottom-rung takeaway food places.
I’m not entirely convinced about this whole broken Britain rhetoric, I’ve been getting a lot of these videos recommended lately too. The fact is things are tuff in many countries across the world atm, I travel a lot and have lived a bunch on places overseas. I grew up being told everything was crap, rip off Britain they used to say, at about 22 I started travelling and working overseas a bunch, I found out that every country has its up and down side and I was pretty shocked to find out we actually have it pretty good in the UK. I think we are witnessing the social media version of what I heard as a kid. Freedom of speech should not equal freedom reach in my opinion. Brits love to moan and about Britain and now we can do it and reach a million people in minutes…
Something must be changing in the North. 40 years ago you would see far fewer vehicles on the M6 once you got north of Birmingham. Now, the M6 is absolutely chocker, particularly between junctions 16 to 20. Surely more jobs in the North, particularly around the Manchester area, has something to do with this.
What kills me now.
Is southerners inheriting a £1m house off granny. Selling it.
And then coming up here to the north and just cash purchasing a 5 bedroom mansion for £700k.
I’d do the same to be fair.
I live in the north and there are plenty of £1+ million houses where I live. It’s not all “flat caps and whippets” just like it’s not all mansions in the south
Have you never heard of Inheritance Tax?
I remember doing work experience in 1991 and worked in a estate agency and remember lots of southerners coming in wanting to buy houses up here!
@@susansmiles2242 He didn't say there isn't, his point was that they're much cheaper up here in North. The £1m house the Southerners inherited from granny will have been like 3 bed semi-detached, which in London sells for mansion money up here
I live in N /E Derbyshire, I've always classed Watford as the devide .
In the 70s, we had regulated power cuts to save energy. At a certain time every day the electricity would go off and we'd use candles. We used to walk to school to get schoolwork to bring home because there was no coal to heat the boilers. It was tough a time, which made the Northerners even tougher
Being from the Midlands, I have to align with the south, t'north only got the wheel in 1997 so not the ideal place you'd want to live.
In Lancashire alone, there's a load of accents! Like, my accringtonian accent was noticed by a bloke from Northern Wales, simply because his sister started working as a nurse in the hospital there and her accent was changing! It's such a small town! In the neighboring towns, you can tell which town a person is from! Moving closer to Manchester city centre, I can't hear the difference between one from Atherton, Leigh, Wigan, etc 🤷♀️
Also, a saying in the north... The Northern Powerhouse! There's a reason why it started 😒
On Holiday in Florida at Disney, we went on a shuttle cart from the car park and were delighted when the tour guide spouted a great Accrington accent. As a fellow northerner, it made us smile.
I’m a scouser living in Manchester with my partner who’s from Middlesbrough, Manchester is the place to be in the UK 👍
I am a Southerner (Londoner) but my family and l hated Thatcher specifically and Tories in general because of how they treat people. Thatcher sold off _every asset_ we had including all of our services _including_ our _water_ companies. Have you heard about the state of English waters? I shall not lecture you on it as you can Google how dreadful our rivers, streams, lakes, seas etc are now due to the privatised water companies... :-(
I think it starts at Manchester too tbh. Southerners call us Midlanders "Northerners" and Northerners call us "Southerners". We can't win in the Midlands. 🤣
I think that in Devon we consider ourselves 'west', not 'south' and definitely not London. In fact England is divided into 'the west' and 'up-country'.
Agreed. I moved from the midlands where we are seen as south by northerners, and north by southerners, so everyone hates us - and the west is a welcome relief as everyone is seen as “up country” from here, and the north/south thing seems irrelevant as none of them has the joy of living in the jewel in the isle out here on the west ;)
@@tomrainboro I am in Gloucestershire and consider it SOUTH West, and Devon.
As a northerner, "south" is definitely south east.
@@kelvinlambert4249 Don't be daft. If the south isn' t north, what is it then?,
I live in the South West. The whole of the South is a lot more expensive than the North. That should be a good guide.
Us down South dont think about it much. We do get a lot of hate from the North who in the next breath tell us how friendly they are.
Meh, most away games I’ve been too Northerners been spot on, unless young lads looking for it.
I live in Middlesbrough which has the 4th highest rate of unemployment in the UK, has the highest influx of migrants outside of London & has now become a cesspit as the Governments do NOTHING to resolve the many problems as the local authority fritters money away to the point it had to borrow almost £15 million to stop itself from going bust. You should come to my town and I'll gladly give you a tour of a once proud industrial town which is now a hellhole.
I was born up north to a miner and a stay at home mum, but after a long military career settled in the south. The hello terror joke is largely true, as where I live almost every close friend I've made had the origins from our of town, and even in my youth, journeys to London garnered no contacts there until I met someone who lived in the chalk farm, and going down to his home meant I was immediately a friend to everyone he knew. Revisiting up north and looking lost meant total strangers would approach offering help.
Thatcher was born in Grantham (Up North) where her father was a greengrocer I believe (just in case I've misremembered), so didn't come from privilege, and had to earn her education. As such she was a self starter, whereas many people are not brought up to be. Such as myself, my father being a bit too left wing looking back, in a way which hampered me on my life path for a long time. Thatcher was pure capitalist, and her mistake was to address the country on those terms, forgetting that some people need help, and fast transitions cause divisions. So in pure capitalism senses she was right about self sustaining business models, and some aspects of the nanny state policy, but to transition from where the country was to that needed a generational approach, not just a ripping out of the northern soul. She got it wrong because she forgot to remember that not everyone is like her, or saw things the same way.
Stephen Fry is another self starter who had his origins in Norfolk. Didn't pay attention to his education in his early years, was bullied at school, and ended his early life in trouble with the law. You can find this online in his many talks and interviews. Recovering from this lamentable start he (also a self starter) found a love for words and something prompted him to tell someone he would get into Cambridge University. Eventually through his own efforts did just that, and then into media (where a love of words is a big help) and into the guy we see today. So I assume that Fry is shunned because of ideological views rather than anything else. Cancel culture please, whatever happened to respectful/meaningful debate?
As for Brexit, that was a bit of a working class kick in the teeth from largely north to the south. I never voted having read a very short book by Ivan Rogers titled 9 Lessons in Brexit. I was set to vote out until I read it.
The problem with successive governments is that not one of them has a clue how to fix it. Limited tax revenues that came with deindusrialisation haven't helped in that high paying industrial jobs were replaced with lower paying service industry jobs drawing lower tax revenues. Increased spending then leads to increased borrowing and thus more money being printed, and driving inflation higher. The other problem is that no one votes a good government in, we always vote a bad one out. Sort of voting for the lesser of evils, and fueling discontent once we realize we've just replaced one set of self serving types with another. This current Labour government under Starmer looks weak and woke in a destructive way, which in my opinion will weaken Britain over time. He has abandoned the manifesto which he was elected on, and increasingly looks like a fraud.
The North South divide is closing on the back of the decline of Britain, as the whole country becomes poorer. We need a government that problem solves rather than going for short term sticking plaster options. One which will and can walk the walk, rather than talk the talk. Modern politics is more like Monty Python. That bit in the Life of Brian where the Reg character when given a reason for action says "Right, this calls for immediate discussion". I could give examples of these all interlaced crap decisions that our politicians come up with, but why bother. Of course the opinions are my own...and incomplete!!!
Anyway a fun watch, and a great reaction to a really good video on the great divide. Somethings will never change in the areas of human interaction. In any event I hope yourself, family, friends and all who pass by here are, and remain well.
What an interesting and insightful comment. I think that there are 2 issues which are effecting today's discontent in the south, those being housing and immigration. The complaints I hear about unaffordable housing in the southeast are as a direct result of government policy which allowed foreign speculative investment to push up prices way beyond the reach of the majority of people resident in the UK. The problem of illegal immigration is that those arriving here gravitate to the places which they believe will give them the best chance ie London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool. This places additional strain on the resources of those areas which have already seen a lack of investment over the past decades. When you add Brexit to the mix and a world wide covid pandemic the resulting problems are enormous.
So I'm not sure that it is as simple as north and south division but more a mix of issues which are interlocking.
@@pamelawatson2366 The housing issue is simple supply and demand. The rich are buying all the property and land that they can, so rents are high, and the house prices also rise, so those less financially well off can't even get on the ladder. Immigration is OK by me but is happening too fast for those coming in to integrate into the British way. As such we have cultural separation by estate. Looking back on Enoch Powell and his warnings, it seems he's right. My other problem is the fact that many of them expect to be housed and supported at the tax payers expense, further draining investment resources. I've worked with many fine workers who are immigrants so it's not all of them. Then there's a savage decline in the town center retail model, which is also due to high rents making it impossible to compete with on line retailers. It is worth noting that the government wont mind the estate values rising as property is considered a part of the nations value (Wealth). One solution is for council builds of rental accommodation to build retail units below a high rise and roll the retail rents into the living accommodations above, so the retail rental is nominal thus allowing shops to make a decent profit whilst keeping prices low enough to compete with those on line. The only problem is most councils are more or less bankrupt. It is a conundrum for North and South. Government seems clueless to me. Anyway, could talk all day on these subjects, so my thanks for replying, and have yourself a fine week(end) where ever you are, and be very well indeed.
Spot on. 👍
@@kelvinlambert4249 Thank you, I do try to look a little deeper, but not easy to keep it short. Be well.
I’m a northerner and have lived through the changes from the 1970’s onwards.
The biggest change for the U.K. was the move away from a social democracy in which everyone contributed and was supported, to a highly individualistic, selfish everyone for themselves mentality. Thatcher basically destroyed what had been a moral society to an immoral one.
The main problem was they closed the mines without investing in alternative employment options for these one industry towns. Where I live in South Yorkshire it was mines or steelworks until the mid 80s. It was nearly 10 years later until anything was actually done about it using EU development money not government money to create new business zones which were then mainly populated by low paying call centre jobs. Manvers near me is a good example(you may remember the riots from last year there) Luckily there still is a steel industry which now focuses on high tech engineering - see the advanced manufacturing park between Rotherham & Sheffield site of the Battle of Orgreave, one of the worst parts of the 1984 miners strike. Many people around here still hate Thatcher - she made the country selfish instead of pulling together. Now brexit has made things worse again because we've lost that EU investment for poorer areas - supposedly the government was going give out grants instead.
You would have thought that now we have a Labour government more action would be taken to correct regional inequalities, but no: the Labour Party of today is dominated by Metrocentric Europhiles from down South who will do bugger-all for any of us oop North. Bastards, the lot of 'em. My grandparents lived within sight of the Manvers coking plant when it was in all its filthy glory. However, I would sooner have worked in that plant than in a bloody call centre! All that has ever been done has been to encourage businesses to set up operations in former industrial areas that offer nothing but shit jobs.
What do you suggest could have replaced heavy industries ? They wouldn’t have wanted desk jobs.
@@jeanplunkett5580 Any number of jobs: construction, manufacturing, and transport spring immediately to mind. There is (and was) a housing shortage. The government could have built more houses of the sort required and/or refurbished homes as social housing.
Joel, we live in E. Anglia, I wouldn't say we are a particularly wealthy part of the country.
But we have a good community. London may be well off but here in the countryside, that's not the case. I go north quite often and wouldn't say they're noticeably friendlier than us. We greet fellow walkers and chat to strangers and would help anyone. Thatcher is not a good example of humankind let alone a southerner. In fact she was born in Grantham....not really a southerner. A northerner who shafted her own!
The pits had already started to close before Thatcher.
Of course the north is poorer and its disgusting that governments have continued to ignore them. However, some of the poorest areas in the UK can be found in isolated places like Cornwall. Plus the rich buy up all the housing for their holidays, pricing out the locals. There's a definite split between North and South but I'd take it with a ponch of salt, I've seem some very poor and run down areas in and atound the South's cities.
2 big missing pieces from the jigsaw. Thatcher wanted to destroy the unions, and she did; she privatised the utilities which mean public wealth was transferred into private hands plus the promised benefits never happened thus profits have been taken out of the country. There's actually a 3rd point, she thought that manufacturing could be replaced by a service economy: it couldn't, it concentrated wealth in London & meant the country was dependent on imported foreign made goods which negatively affect the balance of payments.
45 years of failed neo-liberal economics.
As an ‘Honorary Yorkshireman’, you will understand that it’s the people and a sense of community in the North that gives it a unique quality of life, despite its relatively poor economy compared with the South - and the scenery is incomparable!
Nonsense! There is lots of beautiful scenery all over the UK. Perhaps you should remove your bigoted spectacles now and then! I went out with a group in Kent. Predominately northerners who kept shouting their mouths off, very loudly, about how awful the people around them were. Ignorance and bigotry from some northerners is off the scale!
@@Missydee-72only one of you sounds bigoted love and it isn't Phil.
@@Missydee-72exactly supposed to be nicer aren't they , doesn't seem it when you look at some comments . Such a shame
@@Missydee-72same with Southerns 🤷♂️
The North had a thriving industry in steel, coal and textiles. But the big knobs got greedy and found that importing steel, coal and textiles was cheaper, so the steel works closed, the pits were shut down and textile mills folded.
The Midlands is between the north and south. The north starts at Sheffield, the south at Watford. Its better to avoid going beyond either !
The hovis advert was a west country accent lol
London and its hinterland is entirely different to the rest of England, north or south.
Guys if you go to the beginning and scroll through his videos, you can see him physically transform into a British man
Speak your mind mate I am sure most of us will not be offended I live in the North in Lancashire.
One film to see how the decline of the North spanned out you must take a look at ‘ Boys from the Black Stuff’
Right as a northerner, it starts just at North East and North West, and ends just before endinburgh, which is Scotland 😂
He’s London centric. Tell him to come out west and he will find a large region that sound very different from London and the south east which he is referring to when he mentions “the south”.
The working classes aren't exclusive to the north nor is the rich exclusive to the south. Whilst the investment in the north has been far lower, that doesn't mean the south is a fantastic oasis - some of the most deprived areas in the country can be found in the capital only a short distance from the City of London and the financial district at Canary Wharf
East Germany was not in the Soviet Union, it was a member of the Warsaw Pact countries.
North England is DEF my fave part of it.
thanks for the great content! maybe give a movie called 'brassed off' related to the pit closures, very gritty and even has ewan mcgregor
He’s seen it.
I've lived in both London, Kent, and all over the North. I can't watch this because I'll just cry. A bit of waffle for your algorithm mate
Wet wip
There are a lot of very wealthy areas north of the divide. Careful!
Hello from Newcastle. You're not wrong, however there are also a lot of wealthy areas in South Africa. What I'm saying is, as someone who has lived in Southern towns for years as well as in the North, the economic differences are very clear. Like Northern Italy having a much better economy than Southern Italy. In England, the divide is not as clear, but it's there.
Division is everywhere. If you get on the Tube in London, at every stop outside the centre, life expectancy drops by 1 year.
And that's just from stabbings and terrorism.
Britain is a very very poor country attached to a very very wealthy city. So on paper it balances out. But we’re bleeding to death to maintain London.
It’s not a poor country😂 you want to see a real poor country go to South Sudan or Haiti where people the majority of people don’t even have electricity or indoor toilets. Now that is what you call a poor country
Thatcher wanted to make UK a version of USA.
I live up in Northumberland and the whole northern powerhouse crap rarely extends to us. When they talk about "levelling up" or improving the north (or even HS2) it only ever goes as far north as Leeds. It's basically "screw you" to Newcastle/Sunderland/Boro because we're not as close to other cities.
It's not just 1 political party either - it's all of them. There's been a battle to try and get the A1 dual lane the whole way up through Northumberland to Scotland and over and over it's been denied (we're talking decades long campaigns) - despite the fact a crash closes the whole road and as the alternatives are minor roads can add 20min+ time for a diversion on windy roads (that happened the other month and then there was an accident on the diversion because the road wasn't suitable for a lorry which meant a diversion on the diversion!). The other year the Tories finally agreed to it and got almost as far as getting things started. Then the labour government came in and shut the whole idea down again and pulled the funding. Again, this is the main road between London and Edinburgh. We can't even get dual lane over to the west coast to connect us to that side (the a66 does better than the a69 but gets cut off in bad snow). We're just physically isolated.
So yeah, if you ask someone from up here where the north is they'll likely say either south of the Tyne (because that's just rivalry lol) or around Scotch Corner or Boro. Below that there's the "north" the government cares about which pretty much makes them southerners. Heck, I've even seen maps of England with us cut off them.
Same with Cumbria.
I'm from a Cockney family - Bethnal Green - and they were very neighbourly and very poor. It's worth looking at wealthy landowners across the whole of the UK and Ireland over history. Starved off of family crofts or farms as they couldn't afford rent, many ended up in America. I personally don't feel any of my N/S friends are different, but I do believe there is still a wealth and poverty divide in the UK. Look up about Grenfell Tower to get a feel of London now - has nothing to do where you were both, but it does have to do with unfairness.
I'm from Cumbria. The north to us was always Sheffield, upwards. Kinda funny to think people in Wolverhampton think they're northern but it speaks more to the identity of the south and how repulsive it can be at times.
I was born and grew up in Nottingham which is called the East Midlands but we went through the same things as the North. Yes things were getting worse for us all but when Thatcher got in she made it 10times worse.
I come from typical Lancashire ancestors- my fathers male line were coal miners and my mothers female line were weavers. We were the worker ants making money for the mill and mine owners, with small children in Victorian times sent down the pits and into the weaving sheds at 7 and 8 years old. Terrible poverty prevailed in those days. That’s why we are of hardier stock than the southerners. Then they closed the mines and imported cheap cotton from India. Ghandi even visited our town to talk to the British weavers. But I passed to go to University and got a Masters degree, whereas my father passed in his day but his family could not afford to send him - just imagine…….
I was slagged off by a Manchurian because of my London accent...😊
Think you meant Mancunian, Manchuria is in China
@@elburrito2511 ...Yes I did mean Mancunian.
I grew up in cornwall. Everyone was a norther to us. I felt like peole from bristol lived in a far away land up north ... which is ridiculous 😂
Im from west yorkshire and my best mate moved to newquay and when i went to visit him one of his new mates said i have been up north i once went all the way upto birmingham 😂
By these metrics, you might as well group Wales in the same category as northerners. 😊
The south has billions spent on infrastructure the north is starved often same developments. The south have free bus passes for over 60,s etc and a fantastic bus and rail system. The north has outdated train stock etc etc. Westminister is in London so it favour's the south. And don't let southerners tell you about how they make all the money so they should keep it. Our country is called England not London and an wealth should be evenly spread.
The free bus pass scheme for those over retirement age (typically 66 now) is nationwide not just in the south.
@thomassharmer7127 londoners get free bus age 60 do your research.
@thomassharmer7127 Londoners get it at 60 check your facts
@REPLICANT84 The fact is that "The South" is not just London!
"Everything goes wrong at the same time" Now PRESS repeat every decade.
I used to live near bedale in North Yorkshire and believe me there’s plenty of money up there
Belive me this guy is only telling half the story. The main reason the pits closed was because Arthur Scargill was solely responsible for most of the pits that closed. Every time they wanted raises they would strike and cripple the country, at one time we were working a three day week. Power cuts for the whole country. Not all miners wanted to strike, but any of them wanted to work they were intimidated and threatened whole families even kids against kids. They weren't rich but not poor. I worked i the mining industry in that era so I speak from experience. O industry has the right to hold the country to ransom. I suggest you look at that side of it before you have an opinion in the end the NUM screwed the miners. Arthur Scargil the king as he was often referred too.
Have you also noticed that in the US, on advertising voice-overs, a gentle Southern accent is often used.
Same language doing the job or is it a JAG advert.
Yeah born and raised in Manchester, i love my city, but i hate that because things are fine in London, they think everything is fine up north, when a lot of our rented homes are still falling apart and very unmodern.. but instead of investing in a rebuild, we spend billions on illegal immigrants, 1000+ more coming in weekly :/
Hey JPS, if you ever down in the Southampton area, give me a shout. I,ll show you about and how southerners live. Great places to see down here....excluding Southampton though!
Whilst there are more opportunities for well paid jobs in the south , housing is ridiculously expensive. As a result many professionals like teachers, accountants etc can only afford to rent one room in a shared house. Is this really progress?
Need a return to decent council housing - otherwise teachers, nurses etc will become unviable in London.
Yes the UK has gotten poorer every year of my life i was born in 91. We get poorer every single year.
My advice to you is people of the older generation sometimes say things like Ive heard all this before forty years ago. Maybe the UK economy is faltering but we dont need to hear it is when, for example, there is an anglo-american trade deal. It is all yesterdays news, not tomorrows world. Everyone wants our attention, and sound bites and hype achieve it.
Your support for northern england was well shown when you drowned your tea in milk, but there must be someone choosing to drink tea black in the north, Abraham Lincoln for example - the red badge of courage indeed.
im a proud northerner liverpool
The line of the Rivers Mersey to the Humber is North.
As a northerner, this video made me so angry and sad. I'd never move to the south. I love the north
I wouldnt say heavy decline, but i dont feel like in my lifetime, and im 35, that there have been any good times in terms of prosperity or positivity in the jobs or wages or opportunities. Were surviving. When i was younger as a kid in the 90s and early 2000s my mum was doing alot better than i ever have as an adult. And she werent rich, just had basic admin job, mum worked at a school in the office and then at a library so nothing amazing but we had a good living, holidays twice a year and no issues with food or bills or debts. In my adult life ive never got to that point, im always struggling and i have similar jobs, i work in a basic call centre role, same sort of salary as she did and im on my own and yet i am barely making it each month and have no luxury...so yeah theres not a depression on but we are not doing well.
Great video Jps. You did a react to one of my videos about UK cities a couple years back, I felt optimistic back then! Things have changed. It's true though, since around the 2010s things have been going rapidly downhill for everyone not born into money or with good connections. Young people can't even get entry-level jobs despite degrees, unpaid internships and the like. It's as if everything we were promised as kids has become intangible. - In the 1980s, someone on average salary could buy a 2 bed house outright after working 8 years including living expenses. As of 2025, it'd take 60 years. young Southerners are now moving North in the hope of a lower cost of living, but of course what does that mean? Increased demand for housing, not enough housing being built. House prices rise as do living expenses. Wage's don't keep up. If you're born in the North without a wealthy family or good business connections, what's left? All these "levelling up" projects? Cancelled. Short-termism. The UK is obsessed with it, and it's so frustrating to see every government keep doing the same thing expecting different results. That last bit according to an Einstein quote is the definition of insanity. Yet here we are. You guys have Trump and Musk. We have a party pretending to be socialists but are essentially Thatcherites with a token Northerner as deputy PM. That's why we all seem incredibly p*ssed off at the moment Jps!