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Why the dislike , and it seems to be just one way, Northerners dislike for Londoners , is it jealousy, would it be the different accents , I don't live in either place but I read enough about the dislike and don't get it, your all Brits. After all
It's just banter when it occurs. Some people in the North like to joke about Londoners being pretentious, rude or snobby and that they all talk in cockney rhyming slang. This occurs in a lot of countries about their capital cities - in France and Sweden for example. Likewise, some people in London/the South joke about northerners being uneducated, wearing flat caps and having whippets and so on.
Very, very few people actually hate Londoners - some hate London, but then a lot of people in London hate London too, because it's too big, too expensive, too crowded and so on. As a Northerner, I love London and think it is a real asset to the UK.
There are people around who actually despise Londoners. I once had a friend who attended Manchester University and when he was travelling home with a scouse friend (Liverpudlian) tried to stop his friend from being targeted as there is a rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester especially surrounding the football fixture.
When he did so he got a punch in the mouth for his troubles and his scouse friend caught the second blow. "Two for the price of one" the Manc wide boy crowed. "I hate scousers and I hate cockneys even more" was his sneering battle cry so of course there are some northerners who feel this way towards Londoners.
Also, many believe the media to be very London-centric with the plight of neglected towns and cities often ignored in favour of coverage of issues concerning London and the South-East. And to be fair there is an element of truth to the media's London-centric bias just as politicians are often primarily pre-occupied with issues that mean more inside 'the Westminster bubble' than more pressing concerns that are often side-swept or routinely ignored.
It isn't all one way either. Londoners in general can be very ignorant about life outside the big smoke and the old adage "It's grim up north" once painted on a wall or on a bridge somewhere north of the Watford Gap on the motorway encapsulated the disregard many southerners once had for life north of the commuter belt of London and many still subscribe to the old adage when confronted with the chilling prospect of a night out in Grimsby, Stoke or Bradford.
Also, I've heard people who live as far north of London as Welwyn Garden City claim to be from north London and I once attended a Watford game with a friend of mine who was a Watford fan in Blackpool and many of them broke into the "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner" song (even though Watford is in Hertfordshire not London) in very contrived mockney accents (which appeared to become more heightened with every swig of beer). Something happens to people from the South-East when they travel up north, something that some northerners find extremely irritating. And to be honest I can't blame them.
There is certainly a political divide and I've always found that invariably social attitudes up north vary greatly to those of Londoners and the ever expanding commuter belt encompassing 'motorway towns' such as Milton Keynes and London Colney which are seen as increasingly decisive areas as far as General Elections are concerned.
Northerners for example have been known to deride "poncy, shandy sipping southern softies" whilst southerners have been known to revel in either their sophisticated superiority or their indignant "it's all the same innit" ambivalence towards anything that occurs north of the Watford Gap.
To summarise yes there are northerners who hate Londoners and Londoners who begin to feel queasy as soon as they get putside the M25.
I think this is a great, honest post.
Yes there are a few ignoramuses who despise Londoners and vice versa.
Note I said a few. There are arseholes wherever you go in life, that doesn't mean they represent the majority. Most people would look upon such ignorance as exactly that - ignorance.
There's what I'd call 'friendly rivalries' that exist all over the UK. Most of them stem from football rivalries.
Portsmouth / Southhampton, Liverpool / Manchester. But I'm a Liverpuddlian married to a Mancunian so there you go.
I lived in Whitstable for many years, - its a seaside town about an hours drive South-east of London. We used to call the visiting Londoners 'DFLs' (down from London) - these Londoners started buying up holiday cottages in the town that they'd only visit twice a year so there was a bit of ill feeling about that, but again more tongue-in-cheek than anything.
I imagine this kind of thing exists all over the world doesn't it?
I visited Seattle this year and discovered there is a similar friendly rivalry between Seattle and Portland.
As Dunno said its usually more friendly banter when it happens.
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