About 30 years ago the comedian Nick Reville had a comedy routine about Yorkshire people. It went something like this.
The locals were enjoying a pint down their pub in Castleford last Friday night. Everything is fine until a group of lads from the pub across the road walked in. The regulars didn’t like this, and after a few words a fight started.
It was getting serious until the door opened. Everyone froze: another group had arrived. These blokes were from a pub on the next street. Perceiving a new threat, they suddenly realised that they were from the same street, joined forces and took the fight to the outsiders.
Ten minutes later with the scrap in full swing the doors open again. A group from Pontefract walk in. The “they aren’t from round here” mentality kicks in, unifies the crowd and they set on the Ponte lads.
As things are getting out of hand another group walks in.
“Where are you t**ts from?”
“Leeds, what it’s to you?”
The Cass and Ponte thugs join forces against the big city t**ts.
And so on, through Manchester, London, France, USA until finally some Aliens arrive and the Friday night drinkers of the earth unite in a pub in Castleford for a bar fight with the outsiders.
It was a very funny routine, it’ll be online somewhere.
A couple of weeks back, this came back to mind as the Yorkshire Devo deals hotted up.
I’ve not followed the ins and out of the Yorkshire devolution close enough give a detailed description. There are many different options moving on and off the table. Leeds City Region (LCR), Sheffield City Region (SCR), Greater Yorkshire and One Yorkshire. Greater Yorkshire appears to be North, East and West Yorkshire lumping together without South Yorkshire. SCR will be its own devo deal. One Yorkshire is everybody in together.
According to James Read of the Yorkshire Post, two councils support SCR (Sheffield and Rotherham), 16 support One Yorkshire, one wants Greater Yorkshire (Harrogate) and Wakefield is undeclared.
The usual Yorkshire in fighting, you could say – or as David Cameron infamously said. The reason why the old comedy routine came to mind is because it offers a solution.
In the pub, it was always the outsider that created the threat that achieved the improbable unity. What Yorkshire needs is an outsider to walk through the door and cause the Yorkshire councils to fight a common enemy.
Helpfully, Sajid Javid did just that. The communities secretary recently wrote a letter to Yorkshire MPs letting them know how he wanted things to pan out.
Yorkshires response should be:
“Where are you from? Westminster? What do you think you’re doing round here? Come on lads, get him!”
