I think the north south divide is only useful in terms of England. Scotland which has an economic output comparable to the 'south' has it's own internal divides.
Indeed. Scotland has the Scottish National Party, which mucks up comparisons between Scottish and English politics.
However to answer your question, I think the Tories are definitely much weaker in the "North" than they used to be. In Scotland for example, they used to have respectable share of the vote and seats. I think they only have one seat in the whole of Scotland now, and they form government!
Scotland was once not only a respectable region for the Tories, it was dominated by the old Unionist Tories until the 1960s.
I like to point this fact out against separatists- that present political alignments are an absurd reason to create a country, considering how radically they can change over a human lifetime. 50 years ago Scotland was ruled by the Tories and Quebec by Union Nationale
