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After many decades of neglect, perhaps the real ‘northern powerhouse’ has been and gone After many decades of neglect, perhaps the real ‘northern powerhouse’ has been and gone
(3 days later)
Reading obituaries of gifted, productive and distinguished men and women, I’m often struck by how many of them have come from the workaday England that lies beyond London and the home counties: a classical musician born in Halifax, a historian raised in Mansfield, and so on. My hunch is that this may not be the case in future: that if serious London newspapers and obituary pages still exist 50 years from now, they will be much less likely to include lives that began near the mouth of the Tyne or the valleys of the Pennines. Not through any editorial prejudice against those places, but because the south of England began to monopolise the country’s dynamism and wealth – and opportunity – a decade or two before those who will become the celebrated dead of the late-21st century were born in the 1980s and 90s.Reading obituaries of gifted, productive and distinguished men and women, I’m often struck by how many of them have come from the workaday England that lies beyond London and the home counties: a classical musician born in Halifax, a historian raised in Mansfield, and so on. My hunch is that this may not be the case in future: that if serious London newspapers and obituary pages still exist 50 years from now, they will be much less likely to include lives that began near the mouth of the Tyne or the valleys of the Pennines. Not through any editorial prejudice against those places, but because the south of England began to monopolise the country’s dynamism and wealth – and opportunity – a decade or two before those who will become the celebrated dead of the late-21st century were born in the 1980s and 90s.
I spent last Sunday in Bradford at a literary festival. The city was meant for bigger things. At Forster Square – one of Bradford’s two much-reduced rail termini – we looked up from the train to the towering stonework of the station’s retaining walls, built to serve what was then the capital of the world’s wool trade, rather than, as now, the headquarters of Morrison’s. We walked the short distance to the Midland – one of Bradford’s two grand railway hotels – and through the lobby where Sir Henry Irving had collapsed and died in 1905 after a performance at the Theatre Royal. The luggage ramp that led from this lobby to the station has been beautifully restored, and has a small pile of period suitcases – empty and artfully arranged – that include one painted with the name Bram Stoker, who, as well as being the author of Dracula, was Irving’s manager at the time of the actor’s death.I spent last Sunday in Bradford at a literary festival. The city was meant for bigger things. At Forster Square – one of Bradford’s two much-reduced rail termini – we looked up from the train to the towering stonework of the station’s retaining walls, built to serve what was then the capital of the world’s wool trade, rather than, as now, the headquarters of Morrison’s. We walked the short distance to the Midland – one of Bradford’s two grand railway hotels – and through the lobby where Sir Henry Irving had collapsed and died in 1905 after a performance at the Theatre Royal. The luggage ramp that led from this lobby to the station has been beautifully restored, and has a small pile of period suitcases – empty and artfully arranged – that include one painted with the name Bram Stoker, who, as well as being the author of Dracula, was Irving’s manager at the time of the actor’s death.
Related: Perils of the ‘northern powerhouse’: is devolution a mixed blessing?Related: Perils of the ‘northern powerhouse’: is devolution a mixed blessing?
Then, and for a long time after, it must have seemed entirely appropriate that the finest actor of his age would die in Bradford – amid the majesty of its most luxurious hotel, only a step away from the trading exchange that set the world’s wool prices, and the town hall with the belltower inspired by the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. A great death, as it were, among a city of great births: the painters William Rothenstein and David Hockney, the composer Frederick Delius, the writer JB Priestley, the physicist and Nobel laureate Sir Edward Appleton – to name only a few of the many eminent baby Bradfordians.Then, and for a long time after, it must have seemed entirely appropriate that the finest actor of his age would die in Bradford – amid the majesty of its most luxurious hotel, only a step away from the trading exchange that set the world’s wool prices, and the town hall with the belltower inspired by the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. A great death, as it were, among a city of great births: the painters William Rothenstein and David Hockney, the composer Frederick Delius, the writer JB Priestley, the physicist and Nobel laureate Sir Edward Appleton – to name only a few of the many eminent baby Bradfordians.
I want to be cheerful about Bradford, but the truth is that it looked a sadder place than when I stayed there briefly 30 years ago (and it was troubled enough then). There again, it was a Sunday, the streets were empty, and the Midland’s sandwiches were rather grim.I want to be cheerful about Bradford, but the truth is that it looked a sadder place than when I stayed there briefly 30 years ago (and it was troubled enough then). There again, it was a Sunday, the streets were empty, and the Midland’s sandwiches were rather grim.
I came home from the city’s other station, Interchange, where the trains were branded with the logos of the Dutch and German state railway companies, Abellio and Deutsche Bahn. The carriages rattled with engine vibration and looked shoddy and cheap – evidence that northern England, which invented railway travel, has some of the worst rail infrastructure in Europe, now being put right only slowly and belatedly, despite all the talk of developing a “northern powerhouse”. Waiting on the windy platform and staring at another magnificent Victorian wall, I found it hard to resist the thought that the real powerhouse had already been and gone, and that second comings were never easy to arrange.I came home from the city’s other station, Interchange, where the trains were branded with the logos of the Dutch and German state railway companies, Abellio and Deutsche Bahn. The carriages rattled with engine vibration and looked shoddy and cheap – evidence that northern England, which invented railway travel, has some of the worst rail infrastructure in Europe, now being put right only slowly and belatedly, despite all the talk of developing a “northern powerhouse”. Waiting on the windy platform and staring at another magnificent Victorian wall, I found it hard to resist the thought that the real powerhouse had already been and gone, and that second comings were never easy to arrange.
Let’s not return to old enmitiesLet’s not return to old enmities
The fearful prospect of a British government being bent to the will of the Scottish National party may well have been the biggest single cause of Labour’s rout at the polls, but this week I heard an interesting variation on the theme. The fear (the theory went) hadn’t been uniform across England: Labour success in the big cities tended to indicate that multicultural metropolitan populations hadn’t felt more than a shiver, whereas people in market towns and the old industrial settlements had had the whole fright. These smaller and more homogenous places were, if you like, more anti-Scottish. There was even the suggestion that the Tories’ “vote Miliband, get Salmond” campaign had revived tribal memories of northern marauders crashing south, though as the last northern maraud ended in 1745 when the Jacobites did their U-turn at Derby, the memories of towns such as Nuneaton and Morley must be powerful and long. The fearful prospect of a British government being bent to the will of the Scottish National party may well have been the biggest single cause of Labour’s rout at the polls, but this week I heard an interesting variation on the theme. The fear (the theory went) hadn’t been uniform across England: Labour success in the big cities tended to indicate that multicultural metropolitan populations hadn’t felt more than a shiver, whereas people in market towns and the old industrial settlements had had the whole fright. These smaller and more homogeneous places were, if you like, more anti-Scottish. There was even the suggestion that the Tories’ “vote Miliband, get Salmond” campaign had revived tribal memories of northern marauders crashing south, though as the last northern maraud ended in 1745 when the Jacobites did their U-turn at Derby, the memories of towns such as Nuneaton and Morley must be powerful and long.
Related: Poster power forced Ed Miliband to rule out an SNP coalition | David TorranceRelated: Poster power forced Ed Miliband to rule out an SNP coalition | David Torrance
Still, something in the Tory posters did suggest a deliberate appeal to tribal history. Under the slogan “Don’t let the SNP grab your cash”, one showed a light-fingered Alex Salmond poised to steal a wad of sterling that was conveniently spilling from an Englishman’s back pocket. Of course, no label was stitched to his buttocks to say “Old England”, as might once have been the case in a Punch cartoon, but the implication was plain enough, and faintly surprising in a society that frowns, at least officially, on national stereotypes and stories that relate the doings of a Welshman, an Irishman, etc. Most of those caricatures came out of England in the 18th and 19th centuries, though their victims in the lesser nations often adopted them enthusiastically. Late into the last century, for example, a favourite souvenir of Aberdeen was a postcard with two views of the city’s main thoroughfare, Union Street, taken from the same angle. In one the street stood as empty as the Sahara; caption: “Aberdeen on a flag day” . In the other, it was as dense with vehicles and people as Times Square; caption: “Aberdeen on a door-to-door collection day”.Still, something in the Tory posters did suggest a deliberate appeal to tribal history. Under the slogan “Don’t let the SNP grab your cash”, one showed a light-fingered Alex Salmond poised to steal a wad of sterling that was conveniently spilling from an Englishman’s back pocket. Of course, no label was stitched to his buttocks to say “Old England”, as might once have been the case in a Punch cartoon, but the implication was plain enough, and faintly surprising in a society that frowns, at least officially, on national stereotypes and stories that relate the doings of a Welshman, an Irishman, etc. Most of those caricatures came out of England in the 18th and 19th centuries, though their victims in the lesser nations often adopted them enthusiastically. Late into the last century, for example, a favourite souvenir of Aberdeen was a postcard with two views of the city’s main thoroughfare, Union Street, taken from the same angle. In one the street stood as empty as the Sahara; caption: “Aberdeen on a flag day” . In the other, it was as dense with vehicles and people as Times Square; caption: “Aberdeen on a door-to-door collection day”.
I still smile when I think of the skinflint behaviour the card evokes – of Aberdonians fleeing their homes before charitable tin-rattlers come knocking at the door, and then hurrying back again to avoid similar tin-rattlers, this time armed with tiny flags that, quick as lightening, they plunge into your lapel. The card was hardly offensive. It was a comic turn, like Harry Lauder counting his bawbees or Jack Benny watching his dollars. And in any case, the point of the Tory poster wasn’t so much Scottish stinginess as Scotland’s thirst for public spending – subsidised, in this view, by the English taxpayer. The striking thing about the poster was paradoxical: it was a novelty on the one hand, and a harking back on the other. On billboards in England, a Scottish political party – and to some extent, Scottish behaviour – were being attacked, prompting (or perhaps merely reinforcing) a revival of English distrust of Scotland that was last seen when the Earl of Bute served briefly as prime minister, attracting Scottish hangers-on to London only 17 years after Bonnie Prince Charlie had thrown the capital into a panic by marching his army as far south as Derby. I still smile when I think of the skinflint behaviour the card evokes – of Aberdonians fleeing their homes before charitable tin-rattlers come knocking at the door, and then hurrying back again to avoid similar tin-rattlers, this time armed with tiny flags that, quick as lightning, they plunge into your lapel. The card was hardly offensive. It was a comic turn, like Harry Lauder counting his bawbees or Jack Benny watching his dollars. And in any case, the point of the Tory poster wasn’t so much Scottish stinginess as Scotland’s thirst for public spending – subsidised, in this view, by the English taxpayer. The striking thing about the poster was paradoxical: it was a novelty on the one hand, and a harking back on the other. On billboards in England, a Scottish political party – and to some extent, Scottish behaviour – were being attacked, prompting (or perhaps merely reinforcing) a revival of English distrust of Scotland that was last seen when the Earl of Bute served briefly as prime minister, attracting Scottish hangers-on to London only 17 years after Bonnie Prince Charlie had thrown the capital into a panic by marching his army as far south as Derby.
To be Scottish in England then was not to be popular. On 16 May 1763, a month after Bute left office, two men were introduced to each other in a Covent Garden bookshop. James Boswell: “I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.” Samuel Johnson: “That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.” This is a famous exchange, but the reasons for Johnson’s asperity, other than that he was fond of exercising it, got lost in the long historical process that forged a new British identity. Enmity that was genuine in the middle of the 18th century had become a joke and a hobby, brought into play at football and rugby matches, long before the middle of the 20th. That changed a little during the election campaign – a reversion in England to the Johnsonian tone. Careless or ruthless politics could change it more. That would be sad.To be Scottish in England then was not to be popular. On 16 May 1763, a month after Bute left office, two men were introduced to each other in a Covent Garden bookshop. James Boswell: “I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.” Samuel Johnson: “That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.” This is a famous exchange, but the reasons for Johnson’s asperity, other than that he was fond of exercising it, got lost in the long historical process that forged a new British identity. Enmity that was genuine in the middle of the 18th century had become a joke and a hobby, brought into play at football and rugby matches, long before the middle of the 20th. That changed a little during the election campaign – a reversion in England to the Johnsonian tone. Careless or ruthless politics could change it more. That would be sad.