Geography: She does well to find her way home – E

Stamford, Lincolnshire: Nowhere near Newcastle upon Tyne

Watch a few TV quiz shows and you will realise there are that two subjects the British public knows nothing about. More than that, they think it's funny if they are expected to know anything about them. Those subjects are British politics and British geography.

Kemi Badenoch is bound to know more than most of us about politics – she's heard of Kemi Badenoch, for a start – but she's no better than the rest on geography. Over to John Crace and his Guardian sketch on her series of short interviews today with regional journalists:

Anna reminded Kemi she had been a minister at a time when health and education outcomes in the north were considerably worse than in the south. Why were buses so much more expensive and infrequent in Newcastle? 

Kemi started talking about buses in Lincolnshire. "But Lincolnshire is nowhere near the north-east," Foster said, sounding completely bewildered. She had clearly expected someone with a working knowledge of UK geography.

"It is near the north-east," said Kemi. After all, Lincolnshire was quite a way from London so it might as well be near the north-east. In any case, it was all in the wilderness called "outside the M25". A nether world where people barely existed. 

Anna had another go. How could she put this nicely? Lincolnshire was two and a half hours from Newcastle. Next time, could she speak to someone who wasn’t a halfwit? Thank you and good night.

It's worth adding that this ignorance on part of the south-eastern establishment is often an affectation – a way of signalling that they are of this class through and through. 

Start talking knowledgably about the Midlands or the North and you will find people asking searching questions about what your parents do or which school you went to.