Would you set up a business in a northern city like Liverpool, Sunderland or Hull?  Be honest, does it sound like a good idea? The Tory think tank The Policy Exchange (TPE) thinks that you would be barmy to do so and believes that the future of these cities is so bleak that they are actually encouraging its existing inhabitants to leave. The Cities Unlimited report has stirred up all the inflated headlines and controversy that you might expect.
 
Politicians condemned it, the authors were accused of snobbery, elitism, racism and hating Coronation Street. Tory leader David Cameron, who normally agrees with TPE, also felt it necessary to brand it ‘complete rubbish’. In short, the report is set to be totally ignored by all key decision makers and will soon be forgotten. 

For those of us who have read the report (Labour MPs please click here www.policyexchange.org.uk ) it is clear that it isn’t complete rubbish. It is also clear that the report doesn’t damn ‘The North’ at all, but says that taxpayer’s money spent on regenerating former shipbuilding cities isn’t working and unemployment is still rife. It didn’t condemn Leeds, Manchester or Newcastle; all these have ‘decided strengths’, the report said. Also, the authors, who are senior economists and academics, were just taking data and following it through to its logical conclusion. Economists and academics tend to do things like this which is why we find them so annoying. Logic is a beast that cannot be tamed by sensibilities or politics and it doesn’t care who it offends.

But journalists can’t resist a good headline (I am no exception) – ‘Go South, UK think tank tells northern English’ was how Reuters told the story – and politicians generally avoid rational argument for fear of upsetting anyone. The core of the report was ignored which is a shame as it raised some good questions: 

Should we really have spent £2bn to create 5000 jobs in Sunderland? Can we really ignore the fact that Liverpool’s population has been in decline for over 70 years and is now half of what is once was? Should we maintain tight planning restrictions for housing in the South East which means that only the very well-off can afford to buy? All of these are debates worth having and the report’s authors were right to raise them.