Thursday, August 14, 2008

Beyond revival?

The controversial right-wing report that brands Northern cities "beyond revival"

The nasty whiff of Thatcherite gobbing is making a worrying comeback. Yesterday's big news was the report from Policy Review, a pro-Tory think-tank, arguing that Northern cities are "beyond revival" and that people in the North should head South as soon as possible. The report didn't elaborate on why the North is beyond redemption, nor did it offer any suggestion other than fleeing the sinking ship.

Of course the Southern Counties' mental cost of living isn't a factor to be taken into consideration by anyone who works for a think-tank. Nor is the crap that people like The Sun's Kelvin MacKenzie came up with in the wake of the Policy Review report: "If it were up to me I’d get those Israeli builders to make a wall from The Wash to Bristol. They’d have it up in a jiffy". I'll sign up for it, but only if MacKenzie himself (along with The Sun's entire editorial room) is buried alive inside that wall.

3 comments:

Emma said...

This is an enormous and offensive step backwards by a bunch of Tory tossers, and also goes to show what a load of scumbags the Sun's editorial team are.
Both the north and the south of England are beautiful places, and both unique in their own way. Lazy and ill-informed statements like this only breed contempt and tension in an already precarious country.

Anonymous said...

Anywhere north of Watford Junction: scum

claude said...

Anonymous,
thanks for your contribution. C'mon, try a bit harder again, you can do better!