Saturday, 3 May 2008

Tony Blair and The South

I never did understand his appeal there. He was in no sense a Southerner. Brought up in Edinburgh and Durham, he gravitated to London after Oxford as people do, but by 30 (and married to a Liverpudlian) he was a County Durham MP. His two elder sons even voted for the first time there at the last Election, leaving no doubt as to where the family home is felt to be. So what made people in the South think that he was one of them?
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5 May 2008 at 12:48

    "I never did understand his appeal there".

    Perhaps that's because you've never really understood the South. People come here from other parts of the country. Not a problem. We don't hate them for "not being from round here". It's simply not an issue.

    Is that a northern thing, do you think?

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  2. David Lindsay5 May 2008 at 16:26

    That's London. There's a lot more to the South than London.

    They probably assumed that he was one of them because he had a posh accent. Like the assumption that having a Northern accent makes one working-class, that is a sign of just how insular the South of England often is in relation to the rest of the country.

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