artwork by Andy Smith (ig: picturesmash1)

Divide and Rule

How Coronavirus has re-energised the North-South divide

words & images by 

Conal Cunningham

article taken from STAT - ISSUE 03

As we began to feel the first, dramatic effects of coronavirus way back in March, there was a sense that we were all in this together, that the virus did not differentiate nor discriminate. Not only did this prove to be untrue, with the virus clearly discriminating against the poorest in society, but the Conservative government’s handling of the pandemic has ignited divisions throughout the country, from the conspiratorial (although the less said about anti-vaxxers the better) to the political, the geographical to the constitutional. Indeed, just months after the Tories decried their 2019 election win would ‘forge a new Britain’, their response to Covid has, rather ironically, shown this new nation to be splitting from all sides. 

In this context, it is perhaps inevitable that the inter-generational discord that exists between the North and South of England would emerge from slumber once more; an age-old division that has permeated English history. Indeed, not since Thatcherism and the 1980’s miner’s strikes has the gulf between the opposite ends of the country been so glaringly stark.

Throughout the pandemic, infection and mortality rates of coronavirus have been – until very recently with the new strain of the virus - consistently higher in Northern England, with the Northern Health Science Alliance finding that Covid-related deaths between March and July were 14% higher in the North than those in the South. What this underlines is that the North and South divide is not a gimmick or a political hot-topic, but a structural and economic imbalance that disproportionately affects those in the North, especially in times of crisis.

To better understand this regional divide, you only need to look at the figures of Northern deprivation pre-Covid. Out of the 20 most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK, a 2019 government report found that 19 of these are in the north of the country. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that in the North East, the child poverty rate is around three times the UK average, whilst the Office for National Statistics found that the general life expectancy for men in Blackpool is a mere 53.3 years old - 18.6 years below that of men in Richmond-upon-Thames. To summarise a particularly grim analysis, the IPPR have concluded that the UK is ‘more regionally divided than any comparable advanced economy’.

In the best of times, these statistics should be a huge cause for concern. They emphasise how ten years of austerity and cuts to local funding have severely affected those in the North, noticeably in local authorities such as Liverpool, Blackburn, and Barnsley who have faced average cuts twice that of areas in the South, according to a Centre for Cities report.

In the midst of a global pandemic, however, these statistics are devastating. They highlight the uncomfortable correlation between deprivation and high coronavirus infection and mortality rates, with your chances of survival in some part dependent on your locality. If this was not bad enough, the IPPR states the North is now experiencing levels of unemployment not seen for a quarter of a century, likely coming as a consequence of the strict restrictions the area has faced for the majority of the year. Once you factor in that those in more deprived areas are less likely to be able to work from home, and the dramatic austerity cuts to local mental health services, it becomes clear that the pandemic is a concoction of consequences that is perpetually skewed against the poorest in society, and those heavily populated in the North. 

Standishgate, Wigan

This dire imbalance is not something that has gone unnoticed, however. Indeed, it goes some way to explain why much of the Northern “red-wall” (traditional Labour safe seats) fell to the Conservatives last year - many for the first time ever - or to why the North predominantly voted to leave the European Union in 2016. The North desperately needs investment and change, so if promises are waged to deliver this, it is not difficult to understand why votes would be cast on it. 

Even consecutive Conservative governments have themselves acknowledged the reality of regional inequality that exists inside the country. Yet, the irony of the regurgitating rhetoric to create a ‘Northern powerhouse’ or to ‘level up’ the North is that it admits that the North of England has been neglected for generations. Quite counter-productively, such grand statements create an aura of surrealism rather than realism when considering the consistent political decisions that have allowed the North to dilapidate whilst London eternally evolves. Indeed, how can we believe the claims that we will soon be a powerhouse when 1980’s Northern Rail Pacer trains – now a museum exhibit - were still running up until late last year?

And whilst there is clearly deprivation and poverty that needs to be addressed across the UK, particularly in some areas of London, recent history also strikes a similar, irksome chord to Northerners. Of course, who can forget the Burnham-Johnson standoff in which the government were only prepared to pay 67% of furloughed worker’s wages in Greater Manchester, only to agree to pay the whole country 80% when a national lockdown was announced just weeks later? Or, when much of the region remained shackled to Tier 3 restrictions even though coronavirus rates were falling, with many below the national average?

To give the government some credit, it is true that devolved regions such as Greater Manchester have seen an increase in funding, resources, and power in recent years, yet the statistics I have shown evidence that clearly, this is insufficient to the scale of the problem. Even the Chancellor’s recent ￡4.8bn ‘levelling-up fund’ to support communities loses its glamour once you realise that it is capped at ￡20m for individual regions and subject to competitive bids – making for an unpleasant competition that once again divides rather than unites.

However, in order to truly address the structural problem of regional inequality, it is important to recognise the divide between North and South not as a new phenomenon, or something caused by coronavirus, but as something that has grown out of a history of political decisions that have allowed it to be so. In the 1980’s for example, a tangible dissonance between opposite ends of the country was reinforced after Thatcherism accelerated the demise of industrialisation - predominantly based in the North - at such a rate that it wiped out 15% of the UK’s industrial base. Following this and the miners strikes of 1984 to protest such policies, unemployment rates soared to a record 9.5% whilst the gap between rich and poor grew exponentially. 

Wigan Pier

Going further back to times of industrialisation, the difference between the industrial North and the more affluent South was even more vast, with books like George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier cementing the very concept of the divide into the national psyche. With the descriptions of his poverty-stricken surroundings, Orwell helped mythologise the North as a warm, resolute, but an altogether unkempt and destitute place: 

‘It is only when you get a little further north, to the pottery towns and beyond, that you begin to encounter the real ugliness of industrialism – an ugliness so frightful and so arresting that you are obliged, as it were, to come to terms with it’.

It is somewhat depressing that almost a century later, the regions that Orwell brutally depicts comparatively align with current facts of the North’s deprivation. Whilst certain areas and inner cities buck the trend, this emphasises the structural and economic inequalities that have paralysed the North for generations, made all the worse by the hasty tumble of de-industrialisation with no effective plan to replace it. Wigan, as the focal setting of the book, perfectly exemplifies this. De-industrialisation drips over the town like soot, with former mills and the “pier” Orwell visited all derelict for decades, situated down the road from a bleak town centre complete with closed businesses, betting and vape shops.

With these things in mind, it becomes easier to understand why the North would be disproportionately hit by a crisis like coronavirus. Not only has it had historically poorer living and working conditions than the South, but political decisions and a lack of proper investment has meant that much of these de-industrialised areas have not seen significant improvement for generations. In one of the worlds most advanced economies, this is an uncomfortable inertia where a large chunk of the country is perennially left behind, trapped between eras of modernity and industrialisation, and altogether unprepared in times of crisis.

As we move forward and make our way out of the pandemic, the reality of the North’s deprivation and the geographical divide in the country must be properly addressed. It is imperative that in times of crisis, entire regions are not dealing with the consequences of poverty that makes handling such problems exponentially more difficult. Similarly, it is crucial that de-industrialised areas are not left behind generation after generation, limiting life opportunities and entrenching discontent for large swathes of the population. Indeed, a sincere ‘levelling-up’ approach, consisting of appropriate funding and regenerative policy must be implemented in order to reduce the risk of an ever-widening gap between North and South. If this is the case – and I don’t hold my breath – it may not need a global pandemic to wake us up to the glaring inequalities that exist at the polar ends of our country.

Conal Cunningham

@ConalCunningha