The Northern Question

Download or read book The Northern Question written by Tom Hazeldine and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the UK’s regional inequalities, and why they matter Differences between England’s North and South continue to shape national politics, from attitudes to Brexit and the electoral collapse of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ to Whitehall’s experimentation with regional pandemic lockdowns. Why is this fault line such a persistent feature of the English landscape? The Northern Question is a history of England seen in the unfamiliar light of a northern perspective. While London is the capital and the centre for trade and finance, the proclaimed leader of the nation, northern England has always seemed like a different country. In the nineteenth century its industrializing society appeared set to bring a political revolution down upon Westminster and the City. Tom Hazeldine recounts how subsequent governments put finance before manufacturing, London ahead of the regions, and austerity before reconstruction.