A mixed picture for the people of Dorset. By far the worst figures locally are in Weymouth and Portland who sit at 71st out of 308 nationally. Next comes North Dorset at 141; West Dorset at 144; East Dorset at 264 and Christchurch at 276. Not surprisingly the City of London is least hit across the country.
The following report by Dr Éoin Clarke helps to make sense of the data.
The level of insolvencies nationwide
From the link it is possible to see that the poorest parts of England are ravaged with personal debt problems. They have the highest rates of insolvencies per 10,000 residents. Two things stand out to me. First, there is a concentration of places in the North East of England who suffer the highest levels of personal debt. Wansbeck, Easington, Teeside, Gateshead, Sunderland and Sedgefield all have desperately high levels of personal bankruptcy. The other frightening aspect of the graph is that 10 or more years ago many of these areas were outside the top 100 in the English rankings for personal insolvency. In many of the cases listed above the rate of insolvency has climbed by more than 400%. Wansbeck has climbed from 125 in England in 2000, to number 1 slot this year. As you can see, its personal bankruptcy rates are now far ahead of the rest of England. Mansfield has climbed from a ranking of 153 in 2000, to 3 in England for 2011. In many of the cases there was a modest decline in the rate of bankruptcies in the last year on record, and this should absolutely be welcomed. Questions, however, remain unanswered as to why the North East and other impoverished regions feature so heavily.
My own analysis is that the message of affluence preached under New Labour had no basis in financial reality. We were not all middle class now and we were not okay with the filthy rich. The derision of blue collar jobs in favour of the financial and service sectors greatly reduced the construction and manufacturing regions. The desire to keep up the appearance of affluence and the lack of controlled regulation of lending fuelled a debt boom in regions where wage inequality was already appalling. This in my view affected the North East of England more so than any other part of the UK.
- wage inequality
- poor regulation of lending
- decline in blue collar industries
- cosying up to the City of London
- poor national leadership on borrowing
by Dr Éoin Clarke (PhD)
