The East Midlands and Regional Devolution - Yes/No?

[davieG]

Does the East Midlands have enough of a regional identity for devolution?

By Ben TrusloveBBC News

Kasabian and their use of Les-tah helps Leicester's sense of identity - but does the East Midlands have a regional identity?

Continue reading the main story

UK: What next?

• Northern star
• A 'new and fair' future
• Devolution: NI's way ahead
• Would English votes matter?

Independence. A word which can inspire patriotic fervour, passionate debate and national pride.

Areas such as Northumberland, Cornwall or East Anglia have deep rooted regional identities making the case for devolution an obvious one. But as the devolution debate heats up, what of the East Midlands, a region largely drawn up by Whitehall mandarins? Is there enough of an identity to go it alone?

At a recent summit about HS2 in the East Midlands, former Pop Idol judge and rail enthusiast Pete Waterman, who chaired the conference, criticised the big councils, describing the region as "highly factionalised".

Last week, the councils were still bickering about the region's hub: Should it be built in Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire? Or, as some politicians in Leicestershire would prefer, should it be built at all?

But this competitiveness between the three counties is nothing new.

Each area has iconic landmarks: Mam Tor in Derbyshire, Nottingham's Council House and the Clock Tower in Leicester, but no one could represent the whole region

"In the 18th Century the knitting frames came to Leicester and Nottingham as manufacturers cut costs in London. Essentially, the cities were competing," said Prof Roey Sweet, from the University of Leicester's centre for urban studies.

"Leicester has always been a place with a lot of smaller, very wealthy businesses rather than the really powerful machinery and factory owners of the north west."

In the East Midlands, the raw materials needed for Victorian industry were sent from London and the goods returned to the capital to be sold. The three cities did not rely on each other and there were poor transport links.

Contrast that with the North West where Manchester operated as a hub, with materials passing through Liverpool and the satellite towns of Lancashire acting as specialist factories.

In both areas, this has left a historical hangover that lingers to this day.

When knitting machines came to the East Midlands it helped the cities become competitive

"What you have in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire are smaller enterprises which have never exercised regional power," Prof Sweet said.

Research by the department suggests very few people moved between Derby, Leicester and Nottingham, although there were strong links between the cities and their counties.

It also showed that Leicester looked to London and the south while Derby was much more north and west facing - Nottingham sat somewhere between the two.

Work at Nottingham Trent University by linguist Dr Natalie Braber suggests that even today, residents have a similar outlook.

It also shows how difficult it is to pin down what the East Midlands is and who is from the region.

"We worked closely with sixth form students and always ask where the north south divide is. They never hesitate to draw a line," she said.

"But when we asked where they were from, only about 15% said East Midlands. Most left the question blank. Interestingly, adults were much happier to say East Midlands."

Vicky McClure, John Hurt and Gary Lineker are all from the East Midlands but do people think of the region when they see them?

Even so-called experts might struggle to define its boundaries. Lincolnshire poses a tricky question with the southern area similar to East Anglia while the northern part is more like Yorkshire. What about Northamptonshire? And let's not forget poor old Rutland which gets lumped with Leicestershire despite being an independent county.

As a linguist, Dr Braber's work surrounds accents and dialects, something she says is crucial to a sense of identity, particularly regional identity.

If you meet someone with a similar accent you immediately have something in common, but who can pinpoint a Nottingham or Leicester twang?

"The East Midlands is a really odd and interesting region," she said.

"There's something lacking in this region - not in a negative sense - that people can point out as East Midlands."

There is also a lack of cultural icons from the area to provide an easy shorthand and reference point for the region as a whole.

It could appear then, that there are too many differences between the three main counties in the East Midlands for them to work together.

Kasabian, who played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2014, included a track called eez-eh on their latest album 48:13

But Dr Braber has noted something happening to the accent in the last few years .

Say "Leicester" in Leicester and it often comes out as Les-tah. Properly would be properleh and happy, happeh.

At Kasabian's homecoming gig in the city's Victoria Park (Vickeh Park), Sergio Pizzorno had the word Les-tah emblazoned across his chest. One of the tracks on their latest album is called eez-eh (easy) - both nods to their roots.

It all might sound like an ingrained, long-standing feature of the Leicester twang. Not so.

The three big cities arguably dominate the region but the East Midlands technically includes Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire

"It's quite a new thing, only the last 10 years or so, but it's quickly become something that people identify with," Dr Braber said.

And it has crept over the border to Nottingham.

Is there a hope then, that this disparate area could work together and become a genuinely devolved region within the UK? Prof Sweet thinks that, perhaps, if real powers are handed down then maybe, just maybe, it would provide something for the people to unite behind.

"The East Midlands is entirely a top down imposition, an administrative convenience in order to carve up the country and very difficult to impose.

"It's a problem with this idea of regional devolution. Whilst there are some areas which clearly have a broader regional identity there are also a lot of ill defined regions for the sake of administrative efficiency.

"If a lot more regional powers are devolved then they might have a common experience - electing someone, spending money locally - that could create a sense of identity.

"How quickly and how successfully would depend on how much power is 

[Finnegan]

kinell

[babylad92]

absolutely not britain is strong as 1 we dont need separatists in our backyards too now

 

edit: scotland and n.i. have had their troubles, spare the east midlands from it

[Fox92]

I met a girl once and told her I was from "East Midlands" and she said "where is that?". No joke. She was a one off though because most, if not all, people I meet know where it is. You don't need to be good a geography to locate Leicester, Nottingham and Derby, in particular. Surely? But I have always felt more people talk about Lincoln as if it's East Yorkshire/Humber (like Grimsby way on) because it borders that area.

[Vacamion]

Being an exile, I always enjoy sniffing an East Mids accent out at 20 paces and asking the person where they are from.

Prior to the setting up of East Mids local telly, there was no real concept of it as a region and there remains very little communal or regional identity.

[David Guiza]

I'm all for devolved power in the right circumstances. It's far more important in somewhere like the North West than the East Midlands however; London/Westminster has became so far removed from large parts of the UK that devolution is fundamental in my eyes.  

[indierich06]

I met a girl once and told her I was from "East Midlands" and she said "where is that?". No joke. She was a one off though because most, if not all, people I meet know where it is. You don't need to be good a geography to locate Leicester, Nottingham and Derby, in particular. Surely? But I have always felt more people talk about Lincoln as if it's East Yorkshire/Humber (like Grimsby way on) because it borders that area.

 

I met a girl who supported Chelsea once and she thought Villa vs Chelsea was a London derby.

 

I do find that southerners tend to class the Midlands as 'northern', and northeners tend to think the opposite. There does seem to be a general lack of acknowledgement for the Midlands as an area.

[ADK]

More power to local government and more accountability would be a good thing.

[Webbo]

I met a woman from Birmingham on holiday once, she ask me where I was from, when I said Leicester she said "where's that?"

 

On the wider point we don't want to break up England so I'm against regional assemblies. 

[FoxesAreBlue]

I've moved down to Hampshire for work and one of my staff members asked if Leicester was in Liverpool, I mean, he is as thick as pig shit anyway but that's just incredible.

[digitalalba]

They're throwing us 'devolution' as an attempt to make us believe that they care about our lives.

 

It's simple economics, waste our taxes on the EU, foreign aid etc and you make things harder for the people of Britain.

 

Spend those tens of billions on the British people = life is better for us all.

[Guest MattP]

Absolutely.

 

The East Midlands raises about 8.5billion in taxation, we don't get anywhere near that figure back.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/29831143

[fuchsntf]

What amazed me, were so called experts even some young historians, who hadnt done their homework, on the worlds or

europeans knowledge of Leicester, or other neighhbours in the East midlands.

Just pure pig ignorance and education.

just some examples, some top city markets visited by and invested in foreign and local produce for centuries.

Leicester was the biggest enclosed market in europe, that sold diverse produce and products.

One of the 1st outside London to take on european goods.

East midlands with Leicester again being in the forefront one of the largest Light- Engineering centers, including instruction schools for British and European clients, supported by several firms, going back again many years.

English historical conflicts, going back centuries,..de-monfort, guy fawkes plot, lady jane grey.

Ledecestre, ligeraceaster under Romans , and Nottingham played more than their part of settling the middle lands, under Anglos, Saxons, NORMANS Doomsday book entries, then Charles I laying siege on neutral settlements, before parliamentarians under Cromwell gave him good hiding.

plus, plus plus...Then I was born.

Leicester became probably the 1st woman town, because many earnt more money than some skilled men.