It was a grumpy bus journey to Stockport that prompted the Guardian’s recent London Versus series. When I moved up to Manchester from London in 2013 to become the Guardian’s North of England editor, it soon became clear that public transport was the great divider between the capital and everywhere else. We didn’t need a northern editor until 1964, when the then editor-in-chief, Alastair Hetherington, moved from Manchester to London, taking with him large numbers of editorial staff. (There was, however, a London editor from at least 1902, sometimes referred to as the “London manager”.) There are readers who only want us to write about the north’s sunny side, perhaps mistaking us for the North of England Tourist Board.

Source: The Guardian June 08, 2019 07:30 UTC