SO THE row about snotty BBC presenters who’ve decided there’s no life worth living north of Watford Gap has escalated, with the Shadow Culture Secretary, Ivan Lewis, doing his bit to widen the north-south divide.

High-profile names such as Sian Williams, who snootily sits on the Beeb’s breakfast sofa most mornings, have apparently refused to move when the corporation relocates part of its empire to studios in Salford next year.

Former Strictly Come Dancing winner and sports presenter Chris Hollins has also said he doesn’t want to up sticks to live in the sticks either. Especially as he bought a house last year in London.

And veteran Bill Turnbull, another of BBC Breakfast’s main presenters, is thought to want to take early retirement rather than mix with the flat-cap-and-whippets hoi-polloi in the slums of Greater Manchester.

Given their apparently one-dimensional view of life Oop Nawth, they’ve now been accused of living in the Dark Ages and should drop their outdated prejudices, says Lewis, who also said us northerners “don’t want to be passive, grateful recipients of the proceeds of growth created in London and the south-east”.

As a proud Salfordian who infiltrated Yorkshire at a young age, I couldn’t agree more. I might be married to a southern softy who had the misfortune to be born in Twickenham, but having lived in both Oop Nawth and Darn Sarf, when push comes to shove I know where I’d rather be.

As part of my day job I have the purgatorial duty of spending several days a month in London, and to be a bit more gross than usual I only have to blow my nose following a trip on the Tube to know I’ve been there. Such is the grime underground, in a previous era I might as well have been spending a shift down t’pit.

Dirty hankies aside, I do get fed up of the London-centricity in this country of ours. If it doesn’t happen in London, it apparently doesn’t happen at all.

People living and working in the capital are supposed to be more sophisticated, get all the best jobs, and have a much more cosmopolitan culture, with better restaurants, nightclubs and bars, more hip concerts and a plethora of designer shops from which to choose outfits to wear while pursuing their allegedly superior lifestyle than us lot supposedly marooned up here. Sez who?

What we’ve got up here that they don’t have down there defies comparison. Just off the top of my head, how about these for starters?

Moors and dales in abundance and countryside where you can take a walk without having to dodge a plethora of honking hoorays, perched high on their 4x4 BMW leather seats. What do they have? Overcrowded country lanes full of commuters dashing for the morning train.

Wonderful coastlines where you can get away from it all or don a kiss-me-quick hat depending on whether you want to be part of a crowd or not. All right, they might have the sea at Frinton or Southend or wherever, but they’re hardly Scarborough or Whitby, are they?

Fine restaurants serving wonderful food where, rather than standing on ceremony, looking down their noses and making you feel as though they’d rather you’d gone for a meal in your local chicken shack or burger bar, they actually make you welcome.

Friendly folk in pubs and bars – not to mention shops where they call you “duck” or “love” – who happily strike up how-are-you conversations rather than just grab your money and fling it in the till.

Historic monuments, towns and cities where you don’t have to fight for pavement space with thousands rather than hundreds of foreign visitors who, so intent on drinking in the sights, shove you out of the way with nary a thought. I once saw someone in London wearing a badge saying “I’m not a tourist, I only live here”, and while we might all be tourists in life, I thought he did have a point.

Then there’s the property. I know the golden triangle that makes up York, Harrogate and Leeds has some piles that compete on price with the likes of West Ken, but you don’t have to travel very far to pick up lovely places to live that are a much better bet than overpriced London suburbia. Chris Hollins could always rent his house out and buy two for the price of one up here...

Perhaps the likes of the Hollins, Williams and Turnbulls of this capital-centric world should take the time out to come and see what life is really like in the north before dismissing it out of hand.

On second thoughts, perhaps not. For two can play at their game. We don’t need people bringing their fancy hoity-toity London ways here, thank you very much.