[LatteLazy]

I didn't say inequality is due to people being lazy. It's not.

Nor did I say equality was equally distributed. It's not.

I just said a significant number of people CHOOSE (chose) not to take whatever opportunities they were presented with. Now they're upset because the world where you sit in 1 job for 50 year, get a pay rise every year, don't have to worry about anything, and get a nice house and to retire early is long dead.

Some of the most deprived places in the country voted to stay in (London) because they choose opportunity. Plenty of well off rural areas voted out because people their don't like others succeeding.

That's the great irony here. The people with the least opportunity and the ones at the worst part of the inequality problem mostly want opportunity. It's the ones further up the curve that are standing on the hose. Those who insist they're middle class but are really just workers who inherited a bit of cash or got a free council house.

[radicalbyte]

The North of England has suffered from generational lack of investment. If you follow the UK elections, there was a big fall of the "red wall", which put the Tories in power. That "red wall" are all areas which have been totally abandoned by the UK Government for the last 30+ years.

For these people, the "elites" are people in the South East: people in Greater London who have benefited from enormous investment - the investment which should have been spread out more fairly.

Because these areas have seen a lack of investment, they are cheap to live in. They also see a lot of Polish/Romanian/Hungarian immigrants who are doing seasonal / tough work (because it's cheap).

So if you're going to get **d anyway, why not take some of those smug **s down with you?

* Even TheGuardian are a great example of this horrible LONDON focus.

[jlokier]

> That "red wall" are all areas which have been totally abandoned by the UK Government for the last 30+ years

Ironically, in some of the poorer areas there's been a fair amount of investment by the EU (via local development grants). You can see it: There are signs on various local features and buildings saying supported an EU grant, with an EU symbol.

That EU funding in poorer areas is now going away, to be replaced by what?

The UK gov't promised it would make up for the lost funding, but I honestly don't believe them, because it could have done so before and did not.

[LatteLazy]

So now we're right done here in the depths of grievance politics. That's where I thought we'd get to. That's what I was talking about above.

Let me surprise you: I don't really disagree about the North getting a rough time. I'd argue about some definitions and whether that excuses crashing the rest of the country in revenge. But whatever.

Here is the thing though: why do you think that makes you special?

I am in Dagenham in East London. We were dock workers. Then the docks shut or went containerized and electric so there were no jobs and a lot of poverty.

Westminster, less than 50 miles away did nothing for us.

Ford came and opened a plant here because we were willing to work. They became the major employer.

Then they shut.

Central government again did nothing for us.

So we went up into London, got jobs in insurance. We had to start at the bottom. We had to spend a lot of money and time on overpriced trains. We had to retrain, office work is nothing like assembly lines.

Tell me I'm wrong.

When a load of that offshored, we jumped to finance.

Right now, they're building crossrail near me. The first investment we've had in a century.

I don't doubt the North has had it hard. But so had the South. I agree Westminster is a bunch of toffs with no interest in the lives of real people. But I'm as much of a real person as you.

The only difference here is we know no White Knight is coming to save us. Given the last 1000 years of history, I don't know why the North keeps thinking that the likes of Boris and Farage are "on their side". It's especially amazing to me that you call me and elite (first person in my family to go to uni, born and raised in one of Europe's most deprived areas, no inheritance coming for me) and not them?

Your comment on immigrants underlines my point: immigrants getting on and working hard is exactly the sort of thing people who don't want to get on and work hard find maddening.

Are you now ready to go to those fields and do that work? Or will you continue waiting for Westminster to save you?

I've been quite blunt with you here. Its not because I don't like you. It's not because I think I'll win something. Its because this is where we are. Whether I like it or not, we're in this together now. The North, like everyone else, will need to get on and go. If you don't think the North got the investment it needed before, it won't get it now, so there is no point waiting. Its go time.

This is the horrible truth that Farage and Bojo will never speak aloud. They'll keep lying and telling you it's the Europeans, the immigrants, the elite, the educated, the benefit claimants, and whoever else.

Now tell me I'm wrong.

[radicalbyte]

I'm not from the North. Grew up in Devon and lived in the South Midlands on the M4. Left the UK 15 years ago for somewhere better :)

The UK has - quite literally - decayed in that time. It's really sad visiting, seeing high streets gutted. Infrastructure dilapidated. So few young people. So many people in terrible shape. All signs of the economic disparity that the statistics showed.

The right have their modus operandi, they're the same everywhere. The two-party system in the UK (and US) enables the very worst of their behaviour because they're able to concentrate power more easily and have paths to minority rule.

I almost suspect that the Farage class of politicians are designed (and funded) to fill the gap which which would otherwise be filled by socially progressive populists. Someone to the left of Corbyn (who is center-left despite the media lies) but with charisma.

[notdang]

Just to chime in about immigrants, since I've seen them mentioned several times as hard working and willing to do so for little remuneration and you are suggesting that British people should be more like them.

I am from one of those countries that come and work in UK. The people that work in the fields for cheap, live in horrible conditions in UK, just to be able to send money to their families back home, their life is not in UK. That's not a role model for hardworking, these people are just desperate and would prefer to live a more normal, less hardworking life.

[LatteLazy]

You're right.

Actually making a go of modern capitalism (or whatever we call this) requires a lot of steps, over a long time.

I'm sure plenty of immigrants manage the "go where the work is" and "earn more" but then fail to manage the next step.

It's hard. But it's the only option anyone has and it does work. No one is going to wave a magic wand and make the North of England (or those immigrants) NOT have to work hard and take risks and "make it work". All brexit does it reduce the opportunities they could have used...

Thats sort of my whole wpoint here: not only is there is no alternative, refusing to engage is why people are in this position to begin with.