To be a bit dismayed at the anti London sentiment I keep seeing here

[Tier4billion]

Not sure if it just happens to the threads I’m on, or if I’m being a bit sensitive - but reading on here at the moment you’d assume that the streets of London are something akin to scenes from 28 days later, and all of us are out throwing parties.

@Bunnybigears

I dont have a problem with London or Londoners I have a problem with London being in Tier 2 for so long when it shouldn't have been and I have a problem with the first lockdown being lifted nationally when Londons figures were heading in the right direction, paying no attention to the fact areas in the North were still struggling.

This. We’re just giving back what we got.

I think a lot of people feel that things don't change for them no matter who they vote for. And even as someone who always votes myself, I have some sympathy with that view.

The old whoever you vote for the Government gets in?

Why not try standing as independent? If there genuinely is enough feeling that things are too "London-centric", then surely you'd get support?

Or is it that it's based on jealousy driven by the media inaccurately portraying Londoners as a bunch of braying snobs drinking champagne out of their nannies shoes whilst earning £100,000s siting at a desk doing nothing?

London has been a victim of being in too low a tier for far too long.

YANBU. Politics and national crises aside I can't help but love the city I was born and grew up in.

My idea of hell is only being able to access Middle England and the Home Counties.

Also love Paris and New York.

Each to their own eh?

I hate the London bashing too but I can't believe you've started a thread about it so that there's even more of it!

Bourbonic sums it up.

Some people seem to feel able to post this with total impunity. If I posted "I don't like Liverpool" or "I don't like Worcester" people would rightly pick me up on it.

But when its London somehow its acceptable.

I'm tired of it tbh. Totally fair to question distribution of wealth which is grossly out of whack and stacked in Londoners' favour. But people in London are human beings too and we suffer from the same things which affect people in the rest of the UK.

I have nothing against London or Londoners, but I have been surprised when I see footage of London on the news. The footage may all be bollocks of course - I've no idea how the media are spinning things - but I live fairly rurally and there just isn't anywhere that people are in such close proximity as you see in pictures of the streets of London.

After 9 months of barely seeing another person it feels weird to see other people mixing so freely. So when the news says the virus is out of control, I look around me and think 'fucking how?' And then you see people in London spilling out of bars (in tier 2) or wandering about the streets on NYE and I think 'aaah, maybe that's how'. It just reminds me how very different things are for people in different areas.

Totally agree with @Toddlerteaplease. That's what people are annoyed with. As soon as London went into tier 4 it was all over the media. Some of us have been living under some form of restriction since the summer only to be put into tier 4 and are hardly mentioned. Different story when it's London.

Please look around you Squash , it's not just some Londoners breaking the rules. I live in another UK city now and it's rife here too.
Twats are everywhere.

So blame the media then Daisy, not the people of London, doing their best like every other fucker in the UK.

@FestiveStrop I'm sure that's true, but the media is quite London centric, so I guess you see it more and population size and density is just a lot higher in London than in other areas.

@Bunnybigears

I dont have a problem with London or Londoners I have a problem with London being in Tier 2 for so long when it shouldn't have been and I have a problem with the first lockdown being lifted nationally when Londons figures were heading in the right direction, paying no attention to the fact areas in the North were still struggling.

Agree. I think it was ridiculous that London was all lumped together like one large homogeneous clump.

I'm SE London and we had very low rates for a while (until the mutant strain from Kent) but my parents in SW had very high rates. So putting us all Tier 2 gave people a false sense of security.

We should have all been a higher Tier or split from the start.

I dont have a problem with London or Londoners I have a problem with London being in Tier 2 for so long when it shouldn't have been and I have a problem with the first lockdown being lifted nationally when Londons figures were heading in the right direction, paying no attention to the fact areas in the North were still struggling.

This. We’re just giving back what we got.

Londoners didn't self vote themselves out of the lockdown / restrictions

I’m annoyed with London centric government policy. I don’t blame London or londoners for that....and sometimes I think Londoners have been put at risk by it.

Then blame the media Squash, not the vast majority of Londoners who are doing their best including my elderly father who couldn't travel to us this Christmas and was alone.

When I think london I think drugs, county lines, stabbings and crime

@Christmasfairy2020 😂 really?!

@FestiveStrop yep did actually say I didn't blame Londoners, just explaining how different the experience of people in urban areas can look to people who live more rurally 👍

Haha @Christmasfairy2020, are you trying to be funny?

'think' says it all .

@Bourbonic

I think there are a few issues.

As a northerner, I and many around me found it incredibly frustrating that we were pushed into tier 3 without the correct financial support, whilst London had higher rates than us and stayed tier 2. Of course when the decision was taken to move London to tier 3, all of a sudden the financial support was there. It gives the message that the North doesn't matter.

The amount of things reported on the news about London which just aren't reported about anywhere else is probably not apparent unless you're from somewhere else. Things like snow in London, and yet London isn't hearing on the news that it snowed in Carlisle.

Incredibly London centric policies and spend- public transport in most northern cities and towns is fairly crap. Then HS2 comes along to shave off half an hour of the travel time to get to London. Completely disregarding the fact that the issue isn't the intercity travel, its the fact that you'll probably still miss the London train because the local trains are so shit.

And as a northerner who has had to travel to and spend time in London I have never found it particularly friendly. Sure there have been some friendly individuals but the general vibe is very much every man for themselves with little awareness of anything or anyone. It's a stark contrast with my northern town where people are very friendly. I took my dog for a walk yesterday and everybody was wishing happy new year to those they passed etc.

And with regards Grenfell, I can assure you it hasn't been forgotten. But the promise to rectify the buildings retrospectively to remove unsafe cladding in the North seem to have been.

This sums it up perfectly.

Occasionally people forget that there is a world outside of London..... on a thread asking if primary schools will shut someone said ' what do you mean if, they are all shut!' Well, at the moment it's only London primary schools! We have schools in Manchester too and they aren't shut ( at the moment!)

The vitriol aimed at the north when our cases were rising was staggering- the media didn't help as they blamed people apparently not following the rules. The rise in cases in the south has been reported differently.... it's the new variant not the behaviour of people 🤷🏼‍♀️

@SmidgenofaPigeon

Haha DH and I have been saying the same thing!! It’s so quiet round here, (Ealing) everyone just going about their normal business, no parties, no random family members turning up in our neighbour’s flats or houses.

When it was allowed to travel to see family at Christmas my mum didn’t want us to come because of the ‘mutant strain from London’ Obviously it was a moot point because we couldn’t travel anyway (it’s just been me and DH since we finished work for Christmas, not seen another soul we know except for video chat) . Honestly think she pictured us ‘Londoners’ running around slobbering like zombies and infecting everyone in sight!!
Few days later and she was in Tier 4 too

Another Ealing local here! Hello!!!!

I agree, the roads are very quiet round here, party's or gatherings going on in my area at all.

@VashtaNerada

I went to university in Yorkshire and was quite upset hearing people say that Londoners are rude, nasty people (completely oblivious to the irony of being fucking rude and nasty themselves). It was a tiny minority who spoke like that (and not all from Yorkshire) but it’s stayed with me how hurt I felt.

Ha. I grew up in Yorkshire and later moved to London. As did almost anyone I knew from the younger generations. I used to joke that there was more of Hull in London than left back in Hull.

Unfortunately I think that further breeds resentment as those that stayed felt left behind and those that went rather forgot the reality of where they came from. At least in my experience - which obviously may not be representative.

@PimlicoJo

I hate the London bashing too but I can't believe you've started a thread about it so that there's even more of it!

Pretty much my sentiment reading this – why pour salt on the wound?! Right now, given the state we are all in, nothing is going to make any of these posters slagging off London and Londoners change their minds, so don't bother. I know because I was on the thread where Yorkshire-based posters were saying Londoners should be left to die rather than transferred to their area where there are spare beds.

If people want to think we all live in ivory mansions quaffing champagne while politicians throw £50 notes at our feet, let them. We know from living here how deprived large areas of our capital are, how millions live in poverty in cramped conditions, how millions work in minimum wage jobs. We know that as many out-of-towners caused the latest spike in cases as locals did, flocking to Oxford Street for their Xmas shopping (no self-respecting Londoner would go near the place in November/December). We know what's what when it comes to our city, so don't take any notice of what anyone who doesn't live here says. It's not worth the upset.

@Christmasfairy2020

When I think london I think drugs, county lines, stabbings and crime

I saw and was personally affected more by serious crime when I lived in a large Midlands city than I have seen or experienced in almost twenty years of living in London.