What if Labour's northern devolution plans had succeeded?

Obviously, the only way to settle this question is with a Harry Hill esque fiiiiiight.

Or, we could resort to the polls.

I have an interesting one here in one of my old PolSci textbooks by MORI cited through the Economist (admittedly it was taken a decade ago, but I can't imagine that things have changed that much since that) which is quite interesting.

In terms of basically identifying which region the pollee is in, the North East scores 89%, similar to the South East (88%) and the South West (86%). Only 66% of people in Yorkshire could identity correctly, the lowest of any region except the East.

In terms of whether the region is too divided for devolution to work well, The North East has -11 net, Yorkshire has +10. In terms of basic support for devolution, the NE is +22, Yorkshire is even stevens. (Sorry, it doesn't give the raw numbers)

You'll forgive me if I'm rather less convinced after reading this that Yorkshire is the powerhouse of English regionalism.

Trying to find some online stuff but mostly failing atm, alas.
 

Thande

Donor
Or, we could resort to the polls.

I have an interesting one here in one of my old PolSci textbooks by MORI cited through the Economist (admittedly it was taken a decade ago, but I can't imagine that things have changed that much since that) which is quite interesting.

In terms of basically identifying which region the pollee is in, the North East scores 89%, similar to the South East (88%) and the South West (86%). Only 66% of people in Yorkshire could identity correctly, the lowest of any region except the East.

In terms of whether the region is too divided for devolution to work well, The North East has -11 net, Yorkshire has +10. In terms of basic support for devolution, the NE is +22, Yorkshire is even stevens. (Sorry, it doesn't give the raw numbers)

You'll forgive me if I'm rather less convinced after reading this that Yorkshire is the powerhouse of English regionalism.

Trying to find some online stuff but mostly failing atm, alas.

That's a rather pointless statistic, if you don't mind me saying so. "What region you're in" doesn't mean much as far as regionalism is considered. Nobody knows what the regions are, they're so obscure, and the reason why Yorkshire is lower is probably because it's the only one with a unique name ("Yorkshire and the Humber") rather than North East, South East, etc. which will mostly just be people guessing randomly from geography. We're talking about the "idea of Yorkshire", which existed long before the regions were thought of - which is rather the point.
 
That's a rather pointless statistic, if you don't mind me saying so. "What region you're in" doesn't mean much as far as regionalism is considered. Nobody knows what the regions are, they're so obscure, and the reason why Yorkshire is lower is probably because it's the only one with a unique name ("Yorkshire and the Humber") rather than North East, South East, etc. which will mostly just be people guessing randomly from geography. We're talking about the "idea of Yorkshire", which existed long before the regions were thought of - which is rather the point.

They weren't asked for the specifically correct title, (Although 'Yorkshire and the Humber' is hardly that different to 'Yorkshire') they were asked for the basic identifier, which I would guess in this case would be Yorkshire. If I'm reading the polling notes correctly, even Humberside would have been a 'correct' answer in Y+H. (In the North West, 'Merseyside' also seems to have been classed as a 'correct' answer)

Sorry, but the idea that Yorkshire has an dominant sense of regional identity, even though 1/3rd of people in it don't know they're Yorkshiremen doesn't add up.

I'm quite prepared to conceed that Yorkshire is the grand old man of english regionalism and it has a better 'pedigree' than the NE - I did that already - but I'm not prepared to conceed that it now has a stronger sense of regional identity or groundlevel support for devolution than the NE, because that goes against everything I both know personally and have read on the subject. The government picked the NE for the first crack at the whip of devolution for a reason, and it was a good reason.
 
Actually, thinking about it, the Y+H response may be so low because people were going for West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire etc rather than 'Yorkshire', which is of course the official region. That mitigates the low response somewhat, but of course if people are identifying more with modern county designations than 'Yorkshire', it still doesn't chime with the idea that people have a Yorkshire uber alles attitude there; surely it would imply that a good number of people regard North Yorkshire etc as distinct from other parts of the region, backing up the 'too divided' response.
 
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What about Liverpool/Merseyside gaining devolved powers? :p After all, Scousers are a race of their own! But if the North East couldn't get it I don't see how Liverpool could get it.

Incidentaly, if our region's representation was football-based, it should be Everton representing, as we all know Liverpool supporters mainly hail from Norway! :p
 
The idea of "Yorkshire" is much stronger than the North East where each city has a very different idea of their identity. I remember once describing a friend from Hartlepool as "from Newcastle" accidentally which didn't go down so well :s

I don't see how this proves anything; If I described you as being 'from Hull', I doubt you'd be that chuffed either. People on Teesside generally do have a chip on their shoulder about Tyneside, but that doesn't mean they reject the idea of Teesside being in the North East. As I said earlier, there is a lot of low-level, essentially not particularly serious bitching in the North East, but it's firmly intra-regional. Ask any ten people in Boro which region they were in, and I'd bet at least eight would say the North East.

To put it another way, I'm a Newcastle supporter and I have been all my life, but as much as I want to thrash Sunderland on derby day, I still want to thrash them and for them to stay in the premier league. I'd like Boro back up there as well, incidentally.
 
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