7 times Tories have taken a pop at North London

North London is being cancelled again - so don't you dare cross the Thames.

The proportionally tiny part of the UK is back in the news after new PM Rishi Sunak used his first appearance at PMQs to show he has the whole country in mind when making policy, by ranting against the portion of the capital city.

It is not the first time they have desperately tried to conjure up a metropolitan villain, who usually lives in Islington, to unite the party. And most of the time they have done it, it is revealed to be hypocritical claptrap - just look at where some of the people who spout this rhetoric live...

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Here are a few occasions when Tories have shown they'd much rather live in Battersea than Barnet.

Rishi Sunak's PMQs

As mentioned, Sunak used his first PMQs appearance to slam leader of the opposition Keir Starmer for living in North London. How dare the Labour leader live near the constituency he represents (Holborn & St Pancras)? How dare he?

Starmer had brought up footage of Sunak bragging about taking money out of deprived urban areas, and instead of explaining himself, Sunak simply said: "I know the right honourable gentleman rarely leaves North London".

Banter...

Liz Truss's conference speech

Before Sunak became PM, we had Lizz Truss and she used her first and only conference speech to rage against the nebulous "anti-growth coalition" which includes (you guessed it) people from North London.

"We will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back," she said, going on to list the group as "Labour, Lib Dems & SNP, militant unions, vested interests dressed up as think tanks, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion".

She claimed people "taxi from North London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo."

Downing Street did not rule out that Jamie Oliver and independent think tanks were also part of the list of enemies.

How ridiculous.

Liz Truss's Tory hustings

She was just continuing an earlier idea. At the final Tory leadership hustings this year, Truss, used her time on stage to slag off London mayor Sadiq Khan who is from Tooting, South London before saying Labour have too many North London leaders.

Classic.

Boris Johnson's conference speech

And maybe Truss is borrowing from her predecessor's trope. Johnson has also used conference speeches to rail against a geographic region he has lived in.

Las year, the then PM said: "What I found most incredible of all was the decision by Labour, now led by lefty Islington lawyers, to vote against tougher sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders.”

He didn't reference leader of the Labour party Keir Starmer by name but it is pretty clear he was talking about the politician who, incidentally, is believed to live in Camden, and is the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, not Islington.

And Johnson lived in an Islington townhouse between 2009 and 2018, and sold it for £3.75 million when he moved out when divorcing his second wife, a former lawyer Marina Wheeler.

Boris Johnson's speech to MPs

It really was one of Johnson's favourite jokes. Earlier that year, speaking during a meeting of Conservative backbenchers, he reportedly criticised Starmer for living in Islington. He said: “You can take the lawyer out of Islington but you can’t take Islington out of the lawyer.”

What taking Islington out of a lawyer would look like, we don't know.

Boris Johnson's PMQs jibes

We could go on and we will. Earlier this year, when Johnson's fall from power was just an apple in our eyes, the lazy orator got flustered during PMQs and called his counterpart a "Corbynista in an Islington suit”.

The pair had been arguing about Partygate, one in a series of scandals that ultimately made the Tories sick of their leader.

Boris Johnson's private views

If that wasn't enough drivel, the former leader also thinks Starmer is part of "a privileged, metropolitan, narrow-minded elite",

According to reports in the Sunday Times in May 2022, Johnson "despises" the leader of the opposition and hit out at a man he “genuinely does not like”.

It is all ridiculous and disingenuous rhetoric and no-one should pay any attention to it at all - much like most of what the Tories talk about really.

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