Northerners give up and move south

Though it's probably true in Sunderland's case.

No it isn't.

Only made that comment to rile the two Sunderland supporters I work with.

These are the people who will be ruining running the country soon enough

... not the two Sunderland supporters Billy Dods works with

It would be a great idea this, if only to flood hereto safe Tory seats with bitter northerners.

Haha, I sort of heard that on the radio while half-asleep and thought I'd dreamt it.

Read that as:

It would be a great idea this, if only to flood hetero safe Tory seats with bitter northerners.

Chap on the radio said in this modern economy people needed to "live near airports and motorways", like it's all just farm tracks up north.

so did i.

Right, so this is all about creating massive opportunities for housing / regeneration projects in nice places like Cambride, a bunch of cheap affordable small houses there, and some fuckoff housing for more well-heeled sorts that find that Gerrards Cross is seemingly going to the dogs?

Or am I cynical?

I Left The North Again - I Travelled South Again

Runaround!

Chap on the radio said in this modern economy people needed to "live near airports and motorways", like it's all just farm tracks up north.

Don't be daft, it's all canals and steam traction engines up there

London:

http://www.best-horror-movies.com/image-files/28-days-later-empty-street-small.jpg

The North:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews33/a%2028%20days%20later/10_28Days_BD_motorway.jpg

It does kind of ignore the fact that massive public funding of the Universities, and the location of the entire central government apparatus, is largely what makes Oxford, Cambridge and London such attractive destinations in the first place

Liverpool isn't the nicest city in the world; but it's fairly stupid to say that the Northern economy was solely powered by its proximity to the coast. Then again, it's spectacularly stupid to claim that the North doesn't have air and motorway links, either.

The Bradford coastline is especially spectacular at this time of year

(I speak, I have to admit, as someone from a decaying Northern industrial port town who is moving to the south in a few weeks)

The Bradford coastline is especially spectacular at this time of year

Especially when the sea levels start to rise due to global warming.

What about the sea of filth that's already there?

a sea of salt of the earth

Basically this is "get on your bike and look for work": The Next Generation except bikes aren't allowed on motorways.

That's ok, there aren't any motorways where they come from anyway.

This is "A Modest Proposal". Sans irony.

Well, if people are stupid enough to vote for it...

The authors concluded that coastal cities like Liverpool and Sunderland had "lost much of their raison d'etre" with the decline of shipping

...unlike Oxford, whose only raison d'etre with the decline of the car plants is the hordes of students complaining about being stuck in a backwater where the coke's not as good as in London and let me tell you about my book deal yah, who incidentally you will be paying £450 a month to share a house with and have puking and shouting in the corridor all night, unless you can afford £800 a month to share a one-bedroom flat with some slugs and the ceiling mould

Also roffle at Oxford (possibly about as far as you can get from a commercial airport in England; Luton, Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton all about equally distant at 60+ miles away) being better for air links than Northern cities with their own airports.

But I'm all for that flooding of safe Tory seats. Please, I live in one, and we need it. Just don't expect housing, or any public transport or other services if you're in the 30-mile gaps between railway stations. And don't trust any Tory MP who suggests they'll change it; like fuck they'll even notice, with their big expensive cars and their pad in London and their disdain for talking to anyone who doesn't have the same.

Get used to it Englanders, you have 20-30 years of this stuff to look forward to

What about the sea of filth that's already there?

-- Matt DC, Wednesday, 13 August 2008 11:42 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Racist.

Also in Oxford Avid Records shut at the end of last year so it'll be photo booth sized HMV and Virgin in Cornmarket for all your The Spirit/Noah & The Whale needs because those hordes of students couldn't be arsed to pay for proper CDs.

and then, in five years time....

(I forgot that Heathrow was technically closer than Luton. It's such a pain to reach the bit you actually need once your chosen form of transport kicks you off that you may as well be travelling twice as far.)

Population of Merseyside: 1,365,900
Population of Oxford: 133,000
New build housing I see on my 50-minute daily bus journey through Oxfordshire: two plots which used to hold a single house each, now both slabs of 4-6 flat-roofed bunker-esque "luxury apartments" in a cutting-edge architectural style charmingly redolent of 1950s FE colleges; estimated capacity 20 people (30 if you're really friendly, but that's OK, people are friendlier up north)

Yep, all adds up fine to me.

self-correction: "all your The Script/Noah & the Whale needs"...

that's the spirit!

http://www.croydononline.org/images/history/db17.jpg

A couple of things:

*Even Cameron thinks this is bullshit.
*The thinktank in question is a registered charity - how does this work? I'm actually genuinely interested in knowing how and why they can do this.

Cameron says he thinks this is bullshit

Ah yes, okay, point taken. Any ideas on the second thing?

I'd imagine that some of the funding comes from corporations who share the same 'orrible vision of the world. They pay for research that promotes their agenda. Also as a charity, folks would get tax relief on donations they make to them.

can anyone register themselves as charity?

I imagine the vast majority of people at the Policy Exchange have experience of charitable institutions, having been to schools that have that status

as a charity, folks would get tax relief on donations they make to them.

Indeed. I was less after why they would choose to be a charity (which is pretty obvious), and more after why they would be allowed to register as a charity.

Are all private schools able to call themselves charities then, Tom?

I don't know... none of them should be able to, I know that much

This is what HM Revenue & Customs say:

To qualify for charitable status a body must be established in UK law for charitable purposes only and those purposes must be for the public benefit. If a body has a purpose which is non-charitable, (eg political activities) it will not qualify for charitable status, even if it is for public benefit.

In practice I think this means that you're not allowed to run political campaigns e.g. conservation charities wouldn't be allowed to encourage you to vote Green.

Would it be schools themselves registered as charities, or charities set-up in the school's name in order to carry out charitable work focused on the a school?

It's the schools themselves, isn't it?

It is the schools themselves. I wonder if it's because of scholarships - awarding free schooling might be seen as charitable/public benefit.

That's why, because they provide a "public benefit". Hence all those council estate kids at Eton etc.

Here's a story that'll chill the cockles Tom:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/eton-is-bigger-charity-than-children-in-need-695477.html

If a body has a purpose which is non-charitable, (eg political activities) it will not qualify for charitable status, even if it is for public benefit.

Surely then, this means that any policy thinktank must be exempt from charitable status?

Good grief.

This is clearly think tank trolling, well done all of you.

Having said that, I think they're talking about the regions around Oxford and Cambridge rather than the cities themselves, which are obviously the worst places on earth, I mean I don't know why people who live there don't move to Zimbabwe/kill themselves.

Emil.y, it's one of those blurry grey areas I suppose, but if they're not actively saying VOTE TORY, then that's why they're getting away with it. Likewise Greenpeace is a charity, but the rules dictate that they can't say VOTE GREEN, even that though that might help them advance their agenda.

Also, the Policy Exchange guys might have problems deciding whether to say VOTE TORY or VOTE NAZI

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5224&start=15&edition=1&ttl=20080813152709#paginator

the cities themselves, which are obviously the worst places on earth

I was back down in Oxford with old school friends a couple of weeks ago. One of them is still there. One who has sinced moved oop north, were saying how lovely Oxford was and he could see moving back there. Maybe it's just the middle that's bad.

Sure, I was being sarcastic in response to a passing spacecadet's preposterous hyperbole. I've from the North and have lived in Oxford for ten years. I like it here fine.

Kevin McCloud's thing on C4 the other night managed to make Castleford look kinda nice - the area by the river at least.

David Cameron has described as "insane" a report by a right-leaning think tank, which suggested some cities in Northern England were "beyond revival".

Is it me cynical once again if I suggest that there's loads of nutty rightwingthinktanks doing this, just so's David Cameron can stand up and go "That's Insane"

If so, he needs to hire Cypress Hill for those occasions.

Did Prescott just say "Michael Heseltine went to Liverpool with a busload of wankers"???

"and all I got was this T-shirt"

kevin mccunt

The Zimbabwe thing is exactly what I said. I'm glad caek liked my hyperbole enough to add some more layers.

OK, more factual recap, leaving aside my rage that government (including Tory councils, in the south - and it's the same everywhere, but small southern towns have more "rural" to "urban" than the northern cities listed) neglects rural infrastructure and then possibly Tory-affiliated thinktanks claim it rivals vast cities, or at expensive rents that might make northerners not so impressed by the prospect of £60 more a week, or that the report hinges on affordable new housing when there's little sign of any being built (also evidenced by rents and house prices dipping less here than elsewhere - actually I misread this bit, I thought the report said it was already there)...

Yes, I like Oxford itself well enough too. It's very nice for somewhere smaller than, say, Swindon or Peterborough. But its size makes it ridiculous to use as an example of better amenities or a sounder economic base than cities more than 5x its size, never mind suggesting half the country should move to somewhere like it. (So obvious you're going to say it wasn't even worth saying, but hey, at 11am it was that or earning my extra £60.)

And a town where industry has largely packed up and IT is moving away is a strange choice to tout as a 21st century economic powerhouse - based on what? The big employers seem (personal experience alert again) to be the university and the council. Liverpool etc have both of these. Perhaps rather different universities but with research projects, conferences, publishing, intellectual property deals, employment going on much the same.

Now I'll shut up going on about Oxford like it's the only point of the article, but I've never lived in Cambridge, I can only assume that much of it is true there too. (Yeah, this wasn't worth typing, but I've typed it now, so, eh, bring on the next comparisons to international atrocities.)

I think you're focusing a little too much on Oxford here.

Added: Thursday, 14 August, 2008, 07:33 GMT 08:33 UK

Why would I want to live in Oxford anyway, I've seen Inspector Morse, the murder rate down there is shocking!!!

Sepp Fryer

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TV's Stuart Maconie says: Policy Exchange? What's all that about then? Eh? Eh?.

I think you're focusing a little too much on Oxford here.

It's understandable given that Policy Exchange specifically said that all new housing should be concentrated in London, Oxford and Cambridge. Because Oxford and Cambridge are the UK's only world-class research universities, apparently.

That maconie article is dreadful.

quite: How to expand one short paragraph into 1000 words...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7560654.stm