Even the police in Liverpool despise the population? As many people from that city have said on the radio today, that comes as no surprise.
The North East and Merseyside are both treated as cut off by the Political and Media Classes. Just contrast the number of regular or occasional television programmes set in the Greater Manchester-West Yorkshire-South Yorkshire belt, which is what London-based commissioning editors almost always seem to mean by "the North". The more picturesque parts of Yorkshire also get quite a look-in, even if Heartbeat, or Last of the Summer Wine, or even Emmerdale was not or is not exactly on the over-realistic side.
Look at the honours heaped on Manchester United when it wins a European title, but not on Liverpool Football Club when it does the same thing. A few years ago, who could have told, from national media coverage, that the shooting of an 11-year-old boy in Liverpool took place, not only in quite a smart part of town, but in fact in a city with a better record on gun-related deaths than Birmingham, Manchester or (wait for it) London? And so one could go on.
Going all the way back to the 1970s, the Callaghan Government's proposals for Scottish and Welsh devolution were rightly and vigorously opposed by Labour MPs from the North East and from Merseyside, whom, and whose constituents, nobody had bothered to ask in advance. This negligence was to be repeated by the Blair-Brown Government, not only over devolution, but also over a whole host of other issues. It continues under Cameron.
A vital part of the solution to this is to have strong MPs from Merseyside, from the North East, and from other neglected, patronised areas, drawn from a party which is most strongly committed to the economic, social, cultural and political representation and betterment of those areas. Where is that party?
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Not entirely sure about this. Clearly in this particular case the people of Liverpool have been treated shamefully but they dont seem to do themselves a lot of favours (perhaps its the Irish in them....I can say that cos Im Irish).
ReplyDeleteBut if we look at Heysel, Jamie Bulger, Luis Saurez or the Liverpool fan jailed in Bulgaria, they have a bizarre persecution complex.
Now you might well be right...in the sense that the persecution complex is fuelled by a sense of isolation...but ALL the time???
I might add that as a Manchester United fan, the emnity between the clubs is completely uncalled for as Liverpool was actually the first club on the phone to Old Trafford (after Munich).
I might also add that I am a regular visitor to Liverpool and Manchester and they are just about the nicest people I have ever met.
But surely theres a whole galaxy of Liverpool stars and we all loved Brookside but curiously Liverpudlians found fault in The Liver Birds and Bread.
And.........Ken Dodd is innocent.....ok ;)
Whatever the relationship between Merseyside's police and people, isn't there a rather obvious agenda at work today?
ReplyDeleteA report critical of the present policing job structures, proposing significant changes just happens to find itself sharing the headlines with the strange leaking of documents criticising, um, the police.
The fact that the papers in question would be under the control of either the Home Office or Downing Street is, of course, pure coincidence. Or not.
He was found not guilty, Fitzjames Horse. Good to have you back.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the South's view of the 'North' is a blend of Corrie and Emmerdale, populated by cheerful, slightly camp and somewhat dim people wih names like Ernest Ecklesthwaite and Mabel Batterwick.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that my native North-East is not subjected to the same stereotype, although the hackneyed notion of people-going-out-in-the-Bigg Market-wearing-very-little-clothing-and-spending-their-whole-lives-within-sight-of-the-Tyne Bridge-and Gazza-Ant-Dec-etc.etc is also tiresome.