The Political Economy of Britain's North-South Divide

Abstract

During the course of the 1980s Britain has witnessed a marked increase in social and spatial inequality, and has become a much more divided society. One particular aspect of this growing division-the widening economic, social and political disparity between the north and south of the country-has become the focus of intense debate. A regional division between a prosperous 'south' and a relatively depressed 'northem periphery' can be traced back not just to the inter-war climacteric, as is conventionally argued, but in some respects much earlier, to developments during the nineteenth century. Since the mid-1960s, however, the gap between these 'two Britains' has steadily widened while the 'north' has progressively extended southwards to encompass all but the four southern and eastern regions of the country. This growth of the 'divide' reflects not only the stagnation and restructuring of the economy that has taken place over the past two decades, but also the failure of successive post-war governments, both Labour and Conservative, to adequately tackle the problem of regional socio-economic inequality, despite each Party's supposed commitment to 'one nation politics'. Indeed since 1979, the Conservative governments' policies designed to achieve national economic revival, appear instead to have increased the regional divide in Britain and to have created a new 'politics of inequality'.