North-South Divide

North-South divide: definition

Since the Norman period, the foundations of a North-South Divide have been evident in the UK. Poverty characterised the North and wealth, the South. Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century and these political and regional divisions deepened. The industry largely took place in the North and London in the South became of increasing importance as a financial centre. However, the idea of a polarised North and South truly came into public consciousness during Margaret Thatcher's period as Prime Minister.

Defining exactly what constituted the North and the South can be problematic.

North-South divide map

It is common to divide the North and the South by the border of the River Severn in Gloucestershire in the West and the Wash Bay in Norfolk in the East.

Fig. 1 - Map of England divided into the South (yellow), the Midlands (green), and the North (blue)

However, there are varying opinions about the Midlands.

The North-South Divide might not be the most accurate regional name to describe these divisions, but it serves as a convenient way of describing the poorer areas (the North) and the wealthier areas (the South) of England.

Thatcher and the North-South divide in England

Now we know a bit about the North-South divide, let's look at the causes, many of which come down to one woman: Margaret Thatcher.

Fig. 2 - Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990

The entrenching and worsening of existing divisions between the North and the South came under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Margeret Thatcher in the 1980s. Some historians have cast Thatcher as a hero, dubbed ‘The Iron Lady’ by the Soviet press, who helped end the Cold War and revived the turbulent economy of the 1970s.

Alternatively, some of her politics still bring contempt from the working-class people whose lives they directly affected. Let's see how some of them increased the inequality between the North and the South.

Deindustrialisation and the North-South divide

Table 1. The decline of industrial workers in the UK.

Deindustrialisation describes the process by which service (sectors like retail) replaced industry (sectors like mining). It has roots far before Thatcherism and the coal mines, in particular, started to close because of other forms of energy such as nuclear energy in the 1950s.

In fact, more jobs in coal mines were lost under Harold Wilson in the 1960s than under Thatcher. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was a thorn in the side of previous Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath and his concessions to the trade union cost him his power. The ‘Iron Lady’ was certain that she would not meet the same fate. She closed unprofitable coal mines to help economic success, ignoring the livelihoods that would be lost in the North.

In 1984 there were 174 working coal mines but by 1994 there were only 15 in the UK.

Privatisation and the North-South Divide

Another policy that Thatcher introduced to help stimulate the economy was privatisation. This refers to the redistribution of state-owned companies to privately owned ones. It also tied in with her early monetarism policy.

By the end of Thatcher's term, 40 government-ran businesses and more than half a million government-employed workers had been privatised. This included giants such as British Telecommunications and British Gas.

Thatcher favoured the individual over centralised services. For many communities in the North that struggled to cope with deindustrialisation, the state-offered services were a lifeline. Thatcher moved swiftly to cut this sector, for what they perceived as private greed and left levels of unemployment at over 11% in 1985.

Housing Act (1980)

The Housing Act or ‘Right to Buy’ scheme of 1980 was an early indicator of Thatcher's intentions to privatise on a grand scale. Under the act, council house tenants could now buy their property from the state at a large discount. It was ironic that Thatcher coined the term Housing Act when many of the government-owned properties were flats.

According to the Guardian¹, there were almost fifty houses sold for every flat. The regional differences were clear too, with the highest concentration of sales in London and the surrounding area. In other words, it was far more likely that a white-collar worker in the city would be able to afford to own their own house and pick properties with more space.

The buyers were, in actual fact, ten times more likely to be employed and not necessarily a typical, less fortunate council tenant. The ‘Right to Buy’ scheme signalled the London-centric (regional South) bias of Thatcher's government; it was geared towards those who already had money. Ultimately, the poorer sections of society suffered again with rents rising by 55% by 1991 at the end of Thatcher's tenure.

The North-South divide: facts

What was the legacy of Thatcher's policies? Let's see if the divide still exists today.

Political Parties in the North and South

Whilst it is easy to simplify ideas of the North as a Labour stronghold and the South as politically Conservative, the map below shows how this idea is perhaps dated. In 2017, the UK was overwhelmingly Conservative. There were large pockets of Labour support in the North, but also in the South and in Wales.

Fig. 3 - General election 2017 constituency map

Most interestingly, London has a large Labour following despite the Conservative notions of the South associated with Thatcher. This may be a result of the economic disparities in the capital where there are the largest pay gaps in the country.

Conclusion

While the policies of Margaret Thatcher certainly accelerated the North-South Divide, it is clear that many of the tensions causing it were already prevalent in society. It would therefore be lazy to say that it was wholly caused during her premiership.

Thatcher's government gave power to those willing to spend. Her priority was the economy and therefore those unable to add substantially to it fell by the wayside. Deindustrialisation, privatisation, and the Housing Act all served to entrench the regional inequalities between the North and the South. It is thus easy for historians to mark this decade as the watershed for the North-South Divide.

However, it is important to consider that deindustrialisation was already happening before Thatcher and it is likely that any Conservative government would have followed policies of privatisation as Ronald Reagan did in the US.

Thatcher has left an undoubted legacy on UK politics and the fact that New Labour moved to the right is a testament to much of her success. We can also see very recently that the regional North is voting Conservative. Labour's crisis of identity has roots in Thatcherism.

The North-South Divide was a metaphor for those who are fortunate and unfortunate with London representing the South, but now we are seeing that London votes Labour. There is also a drive for the redistribution of some services in the UK, departing from London or the South, with the BBC recently moving its headquarters to Manchester.

Sources

1. Andy Beckett, 'The right to buy: the housing crisis that Thatcher built', The Guardian, 2015.

2. HM Land Registry, 'UK House Price Index for October 2021', UK Government, 2021.

3. Bob Watson, 'Labour market in the regions of the UK', Office for National Statistics, 2022.

4. Datablog, 'The north-south pay gap: what do people earn where you live?', The Guardian, 2016.

5. Chris White, 'Life expectancy for local areas of the UK', Office for National Statistics, 2020.