Conservatives discover "the North is massive"

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     The massive North           

Mark Wallace has written an enlightening article for Conservative Home about the strengths and weaknesses of the party's campaign in the Copeland by-election.

But I was most struck by this passage:

Most recent, viable Tory by-election efforts have been in the South and Midlands, within easy striking distance of most Conservative MPs’ constituencies. Cumbria is rather further away – and, as one MP puts it, some have been surprised to learn that “the North is massive” – which has deterred some from attending.

It reminds us that, while Britain is divided by social class, there is a related geographical division too.

As I once wrote of David Howell and his views on fracking:

One of the problems we face as a country is the way the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge dominates our national life ... 

The result of this is that many otherwise educated people have little knowledge of large tracts of their own country and indeed think themselves rather clever because of it.