Why have accents in Southern England declined more than accents in the Midlands and the North?

[Tooting Carmen]

Related threads:
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...English-people
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...n-Irish-people

[Tooting Carmen]

Estuary English is the default pretty much everywhere and the boundaries between RP and EE have closed quite a lot in recent decades. what i find puzzling is the prevalence of EE, you can hear it pretty much anywhere between Wiltshire and Norfolk but in the North something like that hasn't happened on a wide scale though some accents like Manchester or a generic NW accent with strong influences of Manchester has basically become dominant everywhere between Cumbria and Warrington.

Re what we were talking about above: how would you describe Harry Aikines' accent?

[Oliver109]

Re what we were talking about above: how would you describe Harry Aikines' accent?

I would say estuary English with a more black sound as expected, not a strong accent like what might be heard in gangs in Peckham etc.

[Tooting Carmen]

I would say estuary English with a more black sound as expected, not a strong accent like what might be heard in gangs in Peckham etc.

He's from Sutton, so lower-middle-class I suppose. Anthony Joshua sounds more MLE to me than him, though still far from being the strongest/most ghetto accent either.

[Tooting Carmen]

I would say estuary English with a more black sound as expected, not a strong accent like what might be heard in gangs in Peckham etc.

And Rob Holding sounds lower-middle-class Mancunian IMHO.