The North South divide is part of being a Brit

Where I come from, in rainy old Manchester, I’m considered relatively posh. Hop across the imaginary divide though, and I might as well have just come up from the mines with a pie in one hand and a ferret in the other.

Visits to see the family in Sussex are always a reminder of this, as many a time my mild “Northern accent” has been pointed out, badly impersonated and then ripped to shreds. A Northerner, that’s what I am. And people who live in the South are Southerners. Two separate peoples, within the same country.

Google the North-South divide and it gives you a spiel about cultural and economic differences. Economics helps to explain some of the origins of the divide; the South being where the money flowed and the North being left with the equivalent of the Bountys in a box of celebrations. But there’s more to it than that.

Debates can go on for hours over whose way is better and why. You’ve heard it all before, but essentially the bread and butter of the debate is that southerners are snobs, and northerners are rough. Southerners shoot pheasants, northerners shoot rats in the kitchen. Southerners drink Chai lattes (no fat, no foam, no point), northerners drink tea. Southerners actually see the sun, northerners don’t. But why do we so often feel the need to point out these differences? Can’t we all just get along?

The simple answer is no, not for now. For guidance, look at something like the Tribal Instinct Hypothesis, where it’s stated that as a tribal species we are capable of extreme compassion towards members of our own groups, and hostility towards others. A bit like two separate ant colonies (also a tribal species), North and South are rival tribes. Thankfully there’s no physical rivalry (i.e. punch ups outside a chippy in Birmingham), it’s just a subtle, underlying competitiveness.

And of course there’s the element of wanting to stick to what we know. For example, I know that I want my tea in a mug, not a pissing teapot and china.

However, although small cultural differences will probably always remain, the economic balance does seem to be improving. With George Osborne’s plans for the Northern Powerhouse, the North is proposed to have as large a role in the economy as London and the South East.

Not only will this impact the North for the better, it will make Britain stronger as a whole country. Once united and free of the economic divide, we can start to embrace the quirks of where we came from with much less of the simmering resentment.

Despite this, Northerners and Southerners will always feel the need to comment on one another’s pronunciation, eating habits, drinking habits and general existence. It’s part of what being a Brit is all about. If we were all exactly the same life would be a little dull, and that’s something neither side wants to be.