# Well the British General Election campaign has started - It's a long way to May! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 14, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013 "2005-02-14T15:50:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/121 "2005-02-16T08:57:50Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Because, for one thing, there is a giant disparity in housing costs between regions not reflected in wages. When I moved North from Oxford a decade ago I took a lower salary because I could buy my own 3 bedroom house for less than I was being asked to rent a room in a shared house. in Oxford. This works both ways. When I was a rep - the glory days, cruising around Erith and Crayford in my Cavalier - all the northern and Scottish reps were having a ball. No way they’d wan to jeopardise their standard of living by moving south. Same basic salary, equal commission opportunities, far lower living costs. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/122 "2005-02-16T10:51:00Z")
> [@Jennyrosity](#): > > Unlike London, where hardly anyone who lives here is from here, Wales, the North, and the South West (which actually has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and pays the lowest wages) still tend to have communities, in which people have lived all their lives. They have family there, and life-long friends , and are reluctant to give up that support network. I’m wondering just how true it is that America’s working population is so much more fluid? Doesn’t America also have pockets of deep poverty, and regions with disproportionate unemployment? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/123 "2005-02-16T17:57:28Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’m wondering just how true it is that America’s working population is so much more fluid? Doesn’t America also have pockets of deep poverty, and regions with disproportionate unemployment? Yes, and we generally respond to those circumstances by moving. We have a long history of “internal migrations.” Ever see _Grapes of Wrath?_ And very few African-Americans lived outside of the South, until the 1920s when they moved north in vast numbers in search of manufacturing jobs. Of course, moving is not always an option. We have large populations of poor people who are pretty much stuck in blighted inner-city neighborhoods. They don’t move because they don’t see how their employment prospects would be better anywhere else – and they’re not, for barely literate high-school dropouts who have been socialized with all kinds of dysfunctional behaviors. But working-class, middle-class and upper-class people are very mobile indeed. My home state of Florida was barely inhabited at all, south of Jacksonville, until the 1950s when electricity and air-conditioning made it comfortable to live here; and now it’s the fourth most populous state in the Union, all because of internal migration. ---
**Author:** ![Jennyrosity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/124 "2005-02-16T21:43:11Z")
A Tory politician - I believe it was Norman Tebbit - once made a notorious speech complaining about why the working classes didn’t “get on their bikes” and go to where the work was. Which was greeted with great surprise and consternation by the working classes, who’d been doing exactly that since the Industrial Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/125 "2005-02-16T22:25:27Z")
Yep, there’s a village near mine called “Little Scotland” because of the amount of Scots who came down to work in the pits during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Irish came here in droves, too. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/126 "2005-02-16T22:39:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, moving is not always an option. We have large populations of poor people who are pretty much stuck in blighted inner-city neighborhoods… My home state of Florida was barely inhabited at all, south of Jacksonville, until the 1950s when electricity and air-conditioning made it comfortable to live here; and now it’s the fourth most populous state in the Union, all because of internal migration. So there’s groups and areas that resist migration, and others that embrace it? That’s exactly the situation in Britain, too. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/127 "2005-02-16T22:59:29Z")
> [@+MDI](#): > > Yep, there’s a village near mine called “Little Scotland” because of the amount of Scots who came down to work in the pits during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Irish came here in droves, too. Corby in Northamptonshire is also another " little Scotland". Hundreds of Scots moved to there to work in the steel mills, but after 20 years the whole operation closed down . So that is now an unemployment black-spot full of people who do not want to move again. ---
**Author:** ![violacrane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c57346/32.png) [@violacrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/violacrane)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/128 "2005-02-16T23:14:29Z")
Originally Posted by **BrainGlutton** > [@](#): > > In America, when you can’t find a job in your field where are at the moment, but there are openings in some other state, you move. And moving should be much easier in a country as small as the UK. Why don’t your unemployed Welsh and Northerners just go south where the jobs are? > [@owlstretchingtime](#): > > A good question. > > There are all sorts of reasons. For example property costs a LOT more in the South East than in these areas. Also these unemployed people often are pretty well unemployable. They have very few skills and have been out of work for so long that they have forgotten how to work. > > But in general you’re right - they should work when they can Another take: for some moving to England, or even just moving from the North to the South, is a kind of cultural disloyalty. They want to participate in a renewal of their homeplace not abandon it when things are tough. I’m actually from the South but I have lived in a Northern city for a long time. In the eighties there was much unemployment, traditional industry was dying the city was run down and, yes, a lot of people did heed Norman Tebbit’s advice to _get on their bikes and look for work_. These days that’s all changed, the city is thriving, some London based enterprises have even moved \*here \*, taking advantage of lower property prices. They bring some of their employees with them as well as employing locals. There’s a building boom going on, with the shift to city centre living and the regeneration of the old industrial sites – I’ve never seen so many cranes. For those that stayed their faith would seem to be justified. Things are very different in the smaller ex colliery towns to the south of here however. There much of the population already _has_ moved elsewhere for work, especially if young and unencumbered by family. Those that are left are mostly the elderly and the disabled. Many of the latter have had their health ruined down the pits. It’s a pitiful situation. Finally an anecdote from a 1980’s television programme about homelessness. One man, who lived in Liverpool, had found work in London. His family stayed in Liverpool while he commuted down and spent three nights of the week in London. Because of the high cost of London housing he was literally sleeping on the street, so as to keep his wage for his family. That’s a high price to pay for a job. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/129 "2005-02-16T23:23:48Z")
> [@violacrane](#): > > I’m actually from the South but I have lived in a Northern city for a long time. In the eighties there was much unemployment, traditional industry was dying the city was run down and, yes, a lot of people did heed Norman Tebbit’s advice to _get on their bikes and look for work_. These days that’s all changed, the city is thriving, some London based enterprises have even moved \*here \*, taking advantage of lower property prices. They bring some of their employees with them as well as employing locals. That’s a lot like the story of the American South in the 20th Century – before WWII, it was a permanently depressed region, agrarian and unindustrialized, like an internal Third World colony, adn a lot of people went North and West looking for work. But in the '60s a lot of industries started relocating to the South because of low property values and low labor costs (there’s much less organized labor in the South than in other regions). And also because electricity and air conditioning made the South more liveable, and 1964 Civil Rights Act put an end to racial segregation. Now it’s the “Sunbelt,” the most economically vibrant part of the country. It’s also noticeably less Southern than it used to be, in cultural terms, having received literally millions of Yankee immigrants. You might notice Bill Clinton has much less of a Southern drawl than Jimmy Carter. ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/130 "2005-02-17T09:20:56Z")
To be fair there are a lot of people who did “get on their bikes”. London is full of transplants, as is the rest of the South East. In other news: Ken Livingstone; Racist berk or just a berk? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/131 "2005-02-17T09:25:35Z")
> [@owlstretchingtime](#): > > In other news: Ken Livingstone; Racist berk or just a berk? Bad-tempered fool who doesn’t know when to swallow his pride. He’s trying to sound principled in refusing to apologise, but (a) he isn’t principled, it’s just a personal spat with the press, and (b) we’re so unused to politicians with principles that we wouldn’t believe it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/132 "2005-02-17T09:51:49Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Bad-tempered fool who doesn’t know when to swallow his pride. He’s trying to sound principled in refusing to apologise, but (a) he isn’t principled, it’s just a personal spat with the press, and (b) we’re so unused to politicians with principles that we wouldn’t believe it anyway. I think you’re probably right - but even Blair was saying he should apologise to the reporter if nothing else. As an old-school lefty he does hold some virulently anti-Israel opinions which often get dangerously close to anti-semitism, but I don’t think that’s the case here. Hopefully he’ll keep his trap shut in front of the Olympic Inspectors (actually I want Paris to win it - they can have all the grief and we can go and watch it on the Eurostar) ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/133 "2005-02-17T14:10:14Z")
Now Boris is saying that Ken should not apologise. With friends like that etc. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/134 "2005-02-18T13:19:27Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > Now Boris is saying that Ken should not apologise. With friends like that etc. OMG, If I were Ken L., I’d be running for the hills. Boris Johnson? :eek: (though he’s quite an entertaining sort of pratt at times.) ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/135 "2005-02-18T13:34:03Z")
Politics does sometimes throw up strange bedfellows. I can remember back in the 70’s Tony Benn and Enoch Powell standing shoulder-to-shoulder together on the same platform during the run-up to the Common Market referendum. Guess which side they were on ! ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/136 "2005-02-18T13:37:38Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > Politics does sometimes throw up strange bedfellows. I can remember back in the 70’s Tony Benn and Enoch Powell standing shoulder-to-shoulder together on the same platform during the run-up to the Common Market referendum. Guess which side they were on ! The only thing they’ve ever been right about! ---
**Author:** ![AlbertHosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AlbertHosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlbertHosteen)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/137 "2005-02-18T16:59:49Z")
> [@owlstretchingtime](#): > > I think you’re probably right - but even Blair was saying he should apologise to the reporter if nothing else. Heh, you say ‘even Blair’ as if he and Ken were allies and it’s surprising that he’s taking his chance to have a go. Ken was stupid to say what he said, and he should have apologised - in a mealy-mouthed way if necessary - from the start. OTOH, he didn’t actually say anything racist. He said the reporter was acting like a Nazi guard,which is ant-fascist, not anti-Semitic. Given that the reporter had said he was Jewish, it was a tasteless comment, and that is where the apology should be aimed. (Although of course ‘Jewish’ and ‘Nazi death camp victim’ aren’t synonymous; there were many other people and races killed at those camps, just as systematically). I decided a while ago to vote LibDem, after checking out their policies (yes, they do have them all laid out in full). I particularly like 3 of their stated policies: local income tax instead of poll tax, higher tax rate for top earners (particularly since it states that the tax will only be taken off the money earned _after_ £100,00), and scrapping university tuition fees. I like a lot of what Labour have done, but a vote for Blair would be a vote for Bush. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013/138 "2005-02-19T03:36:20Z")
> [@AlbertHosteen](#): > > I like a lot of what Labour have done, but a vote for Blair would be a vote for Bush. The UK Labour Party and the U.S. Republican Party – politics does make strange bedfellows\*, doesn’t it? \*Paging Jeff Gannon! 🙂 (Or, rather, J.D. Guckert. See this thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=301738.)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=301738.)) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-the-british-general-election-campaign-has-started-its-a-long-way-to-may/290013.md?page=6)