To think that austerity will hit the south the hardest this time ?

[Effiebriest]

Most research suggests that the North and its cities were hit the worst by austerity.
www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/28/deprived-northern-regions-worst-hit-by-uk-austerity-study-finds
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/north-south-divide-tory-austerity-conservatives-government-cameron-recession-a8667666.html
www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/austerity-cuts-twice-as-deep-in-england-as-rest-of-britain
www.localgov.co.uk/Englands-poorest-areas-hit-hardest-by-austerity/54120
Looking at my local town there is nothing left to cut. Anecdotal maybe but we lost 5 out of 15 libraries during austerity, well used ones as we are a fairly deprived town and not everyone has access to PCs. Last year our council was due to make £35 million pounds in cuts with the loss of a hundred jobs. Austerity never stopped but
apparently it's starting all over again. I really cannot comprehend how yet more services in our delapidated little town can be cut. Anyone think that Sunak and Hunt will have to move on to the more prosperous home counties as many places up here have already been squeezed financially dry and just don't have the same resilience.

As others have said, I think the reality is that anything to do with the state has been decimated everywhere - the difference is whether you have sufficient amount of private money to make things look ok ish or a wealthy enough local population to subsidize. In London - yes, we have transport but inflation/rent increases is really hitting public sector jobs and anything connected with the state. I havent seen any council run leisure centers in years. Local libraries are volunteer run. Schools and gp surgeries are really hit with recruitment - schools are struggling to even recruit headteachers. So you get stark differences between state schools in wealthy areas where parents can fundraise for stuff or give their time to do stuff. But soon there wont be any policeman, teacher, nurse, retail workers left in lots of areas of London. So this recession is hitting people in different ways but it's bad all over.

Yes, London has well paid jobs but thats not the majority. If you work in any public sector, retail etc etc job - your life is miserable. Fine you can go to a museum - but you will pay 2k for a tiny flat for your two kids indefinitely. Their school will have a shortage of teachers, your gp surgery will have a shortage of doctors, the streets are not being cleaned or repaired all over. My friends who live up North in public sector jobs are doing much much better than us.

The decimation of the state has touch all areas but in subtly different ways.It is scary. The UK is now and has been for over a decade quite a poor place and only getting worse.

The Tories will fuck over everyone... look we are ALL going to pay almost 2k extra for energy next year than last year.

More Council Tax, lower wage rises, higher inflation will hit all struggling families

They could put in more CT bands so expensive properties pay more, a dividend tax, wealth taxes on billionaires and multi millionaires.
Nationalise UK energy production so we control the price of energy produced here... if they wont do that, targeted energy support & tier it too.... Sunak will pay the same for his energy (per unit) as a nurse... How is that right????

What we will see today is a political farce, deferring the big cuts until after the GE.. making it (probably) Labours problem (as they did in 1990s)

Its not being done to help the UK but to help the Tory party.... yet again.

The people making policy decisions around austerity cuts don’t care about the north/south divide. It’s numbers on a sheet to them and the reality of deprived areas anywhere in the UK is often far removed from their own lives.

Cuts hit deprived areas the hardest because they can’t generate much revenue in other ways and there’s more demand for services. There was also more services (Surestart centres, etc) to cut in deprived areas when austerity started. The North has more deprived areas so the North is hardest hit but it’s not a targeted conscious decision to protect the south.

@Itsokay2020 move up north then ? But not to Harrogate or Ilkley but to Rochdale or Oldham. Prices are great there.

There is London then the rest of the U.K. Every area has the rich, the doing ok and the struggling. Although London has many deprived areas, as a whole more money is thrown at London, the rest of us get chicken feed.

I live within the M25, the streets aren't paved with gold, if you think austerity isn't already here then you are wrong. Yes there are pockets of wealth as elsewhere in the country but in many boroughs the child poverty level is way above the average, so if the children are in poverty what do you think the parents are in? citymonitor.ai/economy/poverty/uk-census-tower-hamlets-has-the-worst-child-poverty-rates-in-the-uk

The reality is that austerity, inflation and rising energy prices hit poor people - all across the country. In London and parts of South East this is in part visually masked by having some rich people going to nice expensive restaurants. But thats private cash being spent by rich people on other rich people's things - the poor are cut out of it whether they live in London or the North of England.

I grew up in Croydon and then moved to Thanet. Both areas have lovely 'pockets' within them, but overall the levels of poverty, neglect and deprivation are eye-watering. Thanet is one of the poorest areas of the whole country, and it shows.

Generalisations about the north/south divide are unhelpful and just do this fucking govts shameful, divisive work for them. The truth is that they don't give a toss about any of us.

Obviously this cost of living crisis is going to hit the poor hardest, north or south; but many of them voted for Brexit then Tory, so they are about to reap the 'benefits' of those decisions.

I used to care far more deeply about their plight but it's hard to care about people who apparently don't care about themselves.

The North will be hit hardest, as it always has been. Donate what you can locally, volunteer if you have time and don't let the Southern bastards grind you down.

They lack the intellect to understand the implications of their actions, most voted because they wanted less foriners thats all.

Lets not kid ourselves. Let them reap what theyve sown

@Fordian me too. I had sympathy with the deprived northern areas but not any more for those that voted brexit and then Tory. They've made their bed...

@Justthisonce12 a lot of folk up here who voted leave did it to let Cameron and Osborne know their displeasure about austerity. If your town has been consciously neglected for decades you communicate that anger in the only way you can - at the ballot box. And Cameron represented remain.
Fwiw most of the south apart from London voted leave and were far from being left behind areas. My wealthy relatives in Essex were incredulous that I was a remainer.
They had absolutely no excuse to vote for brexit apart from the fact that they didn't like East Europeans in their affluent little town.

@Effiebriest the racism towards eastern Europeans in Essex and generally East Anglia makes me shudder. Same with any other nationality/ethnicity really but because eastern Europeans are white they seem to think they can do it out in the open.

The south doesn't have it any easier than the north. My town has areas of extreme poverty amongst extreme wealth. I think here there is a stark difference between the haves and the have nots

Ie Secondary schools. Parents who can pay for tutors for the 11+. The kids who don't pass 11+ those parents often fund private secondary on top of those paying privately already. That leaves the state schools with the rest of the kids and high levels of deprivation and SEND.

Kids with SEND, again locally, the parents who can afford it can afford all the therapy our NHS just don't provide, plus pay for reports for properly written EHCPS, pay for legal representation to challenge LAs. The contrast between those kids and those with parents who can't is stark.

I think areas like here the stark contrasts within them is notable.

@SEND2022 but the evidence suggests that there is a huge gap in wealth and opportunity whatever anecdotes you have.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results

How are these results showing The North voted leave and The South voted remain? Plenty in the north voted to remain as they did all over the country, but the there were ever so slightly more voters for leave. Wherever you live there are almost half the people who wanted to remain. But everybody is suffering everywhere because of their votes. It's not a case of northerners dropping the rest of the country and themselves in the shit!

This is true throughout the country, not just in the south. Most towns have area of wealth and others where people have less. However, as a collective whole there are for more wealthy in the south. In addition, the government spends far more providing opportunities for the poor in the south. Look at how much is spent per pupil on education in London compared to that spent per pupil in Yorkshire- it's almost double.

Actually he was boasting about how he took it away from deprived inner London areas and gave it to Tunbridge Wells. Still appalling but not the north/south trigger you suggested.

That's a fair point very well made - I stand corrected.

I'm bored of northerners always thinking they're more hard done by and that southerners have it made.

Better to be poor in the north than poor in the south.

I'm in the SE and we lost libraries last time, and a swimming pool.

They will chuck a bit of money at Manchester like they always do in order to tick the "North" box.

London does recieve more funding, but all the yourkshire figures were higher than Surrey, by a few pounds.
You can get big discrepancies between schools within an area too.

Well, it's hard to imagine that as many of the children in schools in Surrey are as disadvantaged as children in schools in cities like Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield etc. and there are the really poor areas in many of the towns- places like Dewsbury, Batley, Rotherham etc. Of course, much of Yorkshire is not deprived and is very wealthy- especially North Yorkshire, but compared to Surrey, which is the wealthiest area of the country, it's needs are far greater.