AIBU to wonder how a government can be based in Manchester?

[dottiedodah]

Andy Burnham is proposing to govern from Manchester when he starts on July 20th.How can this be so ? Surely all previous governments have been based in London?

That's those filthy southerners who have moved Up North for cheaper housing. Us proper northerners dig coal or work in mills.

We walk 65 miles to work, uphill, barefoot in a blizzard. We work a 56 hour day and then walk the 65 miles back home, uphill, barefoot in the rain.

I don’t care where he puts himself. But if he wants to level up, give our youngsters down south cheap houses like those up north.
i bet he will buy a nice pad in London with all his wife’s money and rent it out for mega bucks.
Hardly a lad from the backstreets is he?

It'll be the same (doubtless female) staffers in No.10 who have fed Larry day in day out throughout the revolving door of PMs and hopefully will continue to do so.

You think the government should subsidies people owning homes in more expensive areas?

Who do you think votes for the Labour party in London?

Anything that makes London less important, less expensive and less up its own arse is fine by me.

Who feeds t'whippet while you're out all day? Or does t'whippet go down t'mine with you?

Can I just check something…

If you’re “South” do you hate Northerners?

and if you’re “North” do you hate Southerners?

I have no skin in the game being from neither, but some of the vitriol is making me curious.

Yes as we all know the streets are paved with Gold in the SE.

If you want Southern youngsters to have cheaper houses, then how about they suffer the same level of unemployment, lack of opportunities and lower wages!

The north west of what. England? Or the whole country?

Another vote for 'Manchester identifies as north but isn't in any sense, north'.

Yup. London has sucked the life out of the rest of the UK for decades and it's desperately time that the London Centricity was reversed.

No. I’m from the north west and like everyone 😂 ( mainly)

So sad how these conversations go. All of London is lumped into the South East. And London areas are all so vastly different. In terms of wealth and poverty.
Ditto elsewhere. Parts of the North are really rich. Some are not. Parts of Cheshire anyone ? Manchester, North Yorkshire….all over.
And yet coastal towns and many towns in the midlands have not had support needed.
It is not so blanket as North poor, South rich. I know. I lived there.
And nor is London ‘the South’.

No idea. Rubbish at geography. I just know that’s what the region is called seeing as I was born there.

And civil service departments in places like Manchester. Which, shock, also has ministers

What a bizarre comment, Birmingham is - and has for as long as I can remember been - called the second city. Never even heard of Manchester being named such, just googled and there's a BBC article from 2 months ago asking "Could Manchester be England's second city?" So certainly doesn't sound like it's quite settled yet!

It does absolutely make sense to locate it in an area that has shown success with devolution. It also makes sense to put it somewhere in dire need of devolution, and move the key figures who made Manchester such an exemplar to the new base to prove it can be repeated. I'd be very interested to see/read the debate as to how they decided the former was the best way to go. And why they decided the location must hinge on an area's relationship to devolution, rather than cost, or convenience, or geography. Can you point me in the direction of where I might find that discussion?

Alright maybe hate is too strong, resent?

There are plenty of poor people in the south, housing is so much more expensive for a start (I'm not talking London)

Could put a new building at the side of HS2 approx midway between the 2 ends (whereever they may end up) , good transport links but may not be ready til the next century....

I moved up to the North. I was shocked to learn that there was so much dislike made of Southerners. I had literally no idea. Nobody I ever grew up with ever talked about Northeners in that derogatory way. I was truly shocked by it.

I haven't listened to his speech as I have to work even though I'm from the SE. Reading the BBC article on my long and expensive commute home, he stated this, "It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down - it can only be nurtured from the bottom up." Great but why does that mean, 'Manchester'.

An NHS nurse in the south/South West earns exactly the same amount as one in the north. I also remember well in the noughties all the call centre type jobs being relocated up north.

Yes, my post says so.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Parts of the South, and yes, including London are very poverty stricken.
Poverty and lack if investment is not something the North has the monopoly on. Not that they may wish to acknowledge it though.