Is This The Real North-South Divide?
Sathnam Sanghera is one of my favourite columnists. He wrote a piece called, Not on the right track to get the UK moving, saying that it was training that the West Midlands needed and not trains.
In some ways I agree with him, but we actually need both. This bit from his piece stood out.
Nothing, not even the fact that some London bars charge £18 for a cocktail, shocks my fellow Midlanders more than the fact that I have never owned a car. Most families in my parents’ suburb seem to have two or three vehicles per household. Getting them to use a train instead is going to be more difficult than weaning them off pork scratchings.
I’ve come across this attitude before. I have even been accused of being a loser because I travel everywhere by public transport, by an idiot from Middlesborough.
I’m afraid that some parts of the rest of the country are going to have to do a lot of readjustment, when the oil runs out.
The Anonymous Widower 
I don’t think the people you are referring to will be around when the oil runs out. There is enough oil for a long time to come if recent reports on new oil fields are ti be believed. Even the USA has considerable oil reserves.
Comment by John Wright | August 2, 2011 |
I probably agree with you, but affordable oil for driving cars will run out, more by green policies than anything else.
I once calculatedv the area of the Forties Oil field. It’s a lot smaller than you think. Drilling for oil is almost like looking for needles in hay stacks. The real problem is that most of US oil is in Federal lands, where oil drilling isn’t allowed. But oil drilling can be done in the most extremely sensitive areas like Dorset without causing any problems. Incidentally, Wytch Farm in Dorset is Europe’s largest on-shore oil field.
Comment by AnonW | August 2, 2011 |