Life in a Northern Town

With the news that the author of the Policy of Excellence report on Northern Towns,Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, is leaving these shores for Australia complaining that the cost of living in London is too high,maybe this will bring an end to the dissection of the report in the media.

Before that though,It is worth reading John Rentoul in today's Independent.The report released earlier this week has come i for a fair amount of criticism,but John looks at the Tory reaction to it.

No doubt Cameron was alarmed that the Policy Exchange report might offend the residents of northern cities, who might think, if he did not repudiate it, that he agreed with it. So he rejected it as vividly and colourfully as possible. Not because he feared his support in the North was more fragile than in the South, but because he thought it might be damaging to him. Oh, and also, possibly, because he disagreed with it.

And also points out that the

striking thing about the Policy Exchange report is that its analysis is broadly correct. It specifically said that Liverpool, Rochdale, Bradford and Sunderland were not "doomed". The report went on, however: "We cannot guarantee to regenerate every town and every city in Britain that has fallen behind. Just as we can't buck the market, so we can't buck economic geography either."

and

The crowning paradox is that cutting stamp duty would do precisely what the Policy Exchange report advocates: make it easier for people to move house and therefore promote labour mobility in Britain. Which would make it easier for people to respond to market signals and move to where the jobs are, in the South-east, or to where the cheap houses are, in the North. As Tim Leunig, a co-author of the report, put it: "Internal migration has always been an important part of a dynamic economy."