This thread has prompted some thought in my mind. In no way a dig at
@Speedy (ie the OP), but the thread title is symptomatic of an issue that the UK seems to be grappling with. And has been, for some time, now I think about it.
That issue being the fragmentation and tribal nature of the UK’s society. The thread title really should be “How to fix the UK?”. ”The North” is as much a part of the UK as “The South”. It’s a UK problem, not an N v S problem. The concept of “Northern monkeys” and “Southern Jessies” seems to be alive and well. It doesn’t end there though. Scousers and Mancs really don’t get on, but there’s only 30 miles between them. You could be a world-leading neurosurgeon, but if you have a Brummie accent, you sound thick as shit. People from Norfolk are in-bred, Eastbourne is a geriatric town, all Welsh people fvck sheep, all Glaswegians are sectarian pissheads, Edinburgh is the drug capital of the UK, Geordies and Mackems (they’re all the same) are illiterate, the Southwest has two words in the vocabulary (“oo” and “ar”).
Yet this is all a pile of shit. Nowhere in the UK is more than 70 miles from the sea, I mean shit, I’ve even heard people say “Are you from Leeds?” “No, I’m from Bradford”. “Manchester?” “No, Salford“. “Liverpool?” ”No, Bootle”. “London?” “No, Barking”.
The lack of investment in infrastructure that benefits the UK as a whole is shocking, to be honest. I am reading in this thread about shitty trains in the Northwest that are apparently exactly the same as they were 40 years ago when I was riding them as a kid. They’re going to demolish and concrete over half of West London for a third runway at LHR. Why not kick the crabs out of Benson and CPO enough extra land to build a four runway airport, put a mainline station and a motorway linking the M4 with the M40 close to it? You could be London in 20 minutes or Birmingham in 40 minutes with a decent railway provision. Sell LHR for redevelopment and you’d be quids-in.
</rant>