Money and Power
Philip Collins writing in The Times makes a strong case for rebalancing the economy by devolving power away from London which everyone agrees with, but no one ever tackles in a serious fashion - is the essence of his argument.
Except that it isn't quite true because the Scottish Government has proposed a cut in corporation tax north of the border to encourage projects and investment that would otherwise be drawn towards London and the south east.
Except that it isn't quite true because the Scottish Government has proposed a cut in corporation tax north of the border to encourage projects and investment that would otherwise be drawn towards London and the south east.
But because the Scottish Government is led by the SNP this proposal has been roundly attacked, perhaps excessively so because of the looming referendum on independence, although there is much to commend the policy in general terms because as Philip Collins says - where there is money there is power.
And at the moment there is too much power and influence concentrated in and around London, a great city though it is and one that I lived and worked in during the 1980s.
Power to the regions! We mean it, honest . . .
By Philip Collins - The Times
We don’t, actually. Britain is grotesquely lopsided because of London’s dominance, but we shy away from the remedy
With an election on the horizon, politics is noticing the provinces again. The Tories suggest the cities of the north come together as a joint rival to London. Linked by high-speed rail, the combined might of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield will help the north catch the galloping south. Then Lord Adonis, in a report on growth for the Labour party, made the case for metropolitan mayors and carving £30 billion out of Whitehall’s budget to be spent as the local burghers see fit.
Britain is the most centralised country in the world. It is a rare capital city anywhere that is, as London is, the centre for finance and business, politics and culture. London is New York, Washington and Los Angeles run together. This is not a force of nature. In the 1970s London grew more slowly than the rest of the nation but after the liberalisation of the City in 1986 capital flew into the capital. The debate over the influx of labour into London is anguished but the real source of problems, notably the 26 per cent annual rise in house prices, is the influx of capital.
The dominance of London is now profound. A quarter of the nation’s income tax is paid in London, more than the northeast, northwest, Yorkshire, Humberside and the East Midlands combined and three times as much as all Scotland. London is now the third most productive city in the world and, if it were to declare independence, would be the ninth largest country in Europe.
Since 2010 the coalition has made a lot of its desire to take power from the centre. Police commissioners are locally elected. Council tax benefit and the social fund are subject to a local rate. Led by a genuine believer, the excellent cities minister, Greg Clark, the government has negotiated “city deals” that hand powers to groups of local authorities case by case.
In the past the idea of linking Liverpool and Manchester was like asking Israel and Palestine why they just can’t be friends. And as for Leeds and Sheffield, well they appear to be in Yorkshire. In fact, the blood feuds of long ago are being forgotten. In 2011 the ten councils in Greater Manchester created a combined authority for transport and planning. The regions around Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and the northeast are now in committee devising plans to do the same.
There will be more of this stuff in election year. It is probable that the election manifestos will be full of worthy suggestions that cities should have more discretion over greenfield sites or that they should keep a fraction of the business rate revenue. These are, for the most part, sensible, desirable schemes but they do not begin to amount to the geographical rebalancing that the political class, now with one voice, purports to want.
There have been some obvious setbacks. The government’s failure to impose mayors on recalcitrant local councillors was then compounded by its failure even to campaign for them. As a result, only Bristol out of ten urban electorates voted for an elected mayor.
Coalition ministers have also found that responsibility does not depart even when they relinquish control. The care system is on the verge of collapse as a direct result of extending local authority control. When the central grant was cut, councils responded by refusing to fill in the gap from their other budgets. The publicity for this will soon be awful but it won’t be the council bosses in the dock; it will be the secretary of state working out that Pickles is a common noun as well as a proper one.
In truth, a lot of what a city needs to thrive is already available to it. From the day that a white transit van packed with more than 3,000lb of explosives blew up on Corporation Street in 1996, Manchester has thrived its way to unofficial second city status with a combination of inventive local government and private investment. This has given Manchester its best days since that fake old charmer Disraeli was calling it “the philosophical capital of the world”. The one big financial reform that central government could offer, which it won’t, is to change the money flows so that more of it is raised locally. Where there is money there is power.
No Westminster politician is even suggesting anything so bold but, happily, there is more that they can do. The whole chattering class industry can start to disperse. Let’s start by relocating the House of Lords to Birmingham. The only physical connection between Commons and Lords is that a clerk in a wig carries a manuscript of any disputed bill between the two houses. If the Lords were in Birmingham he could get the train. Or, if we can bear the modernity of it, send an email. The golden kitsch of Pugin’s chamber could be opened to the public as living proof of the wisdom of Adorno’s remark that the connection between the museum and the mausoleum is more than phonetic.
Commentators should take their own medicine. Not only should The Guardian follow the BBC and return to Manchester, it should be sold only in Manchester. It’s not exactly my decision but I am sure all my colleagues at The Times would not mind if I sent them all to Coventry. The radical civil service reform dreamt of by Francis Maude has dwindled, as it always does, so send the civil service to Newcastle and save a fortune.
Then let’s send the monarchy to Manchester. Kate and William could be recast as the Duke and Duchess of Crumpsall and Daniel Libeskind could be rehired to turn an old warehouse on the ship canal into a custom-built palace for the Queen. The lesser royals could have the penthouse suite in Salford Quays that used to belong to Mike Baldwin from Coronation Street. Tatton House, in the chancellor’s constituency, can become the new weekend retreat. It can all be paid for by selling Buckingham Palace as flats for Qataris to not live in.
If you have detected an air of frivolity in these suggestions it trails the fact that the political class never means it when it suggests power should vacate. Local authority is something that happens to someone else. Set your watches. It appears a year before an election and disappears a year after. London is growing fast but the people of the rest of England will not be speaking just yet.
We don’t, actually. Britain is grotesquely lopsided because of London’s dominance, but we shy away from the remedy
With an election on the horizon, politics is noticing the provinces again. The Tories suggest the cities of the north come together as a joint rival to London. Linked by high-speed rail, the combined might of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield will help the north catch the galloping south. Then Lord Adonis, in a report on growth for the Labour party, made the case for metropolitan mayors and carving £30 billion out of Whitehall’s budget to be spent as the local burghers see fit.
Britain is the most centralised country in the world. It is a rare capital city anywhere that is, as London is, the centre for finance and business, politics and culture. London is New York, Washington and Los Angeles run together. This is not a force of nature. In the 1970s London grew more slowly than the rest of the nation but after the liberalisation of the City in 1986 capital flew into the capital. The debate over the influx of labour into London is anguished but the real source of problems, notably the 26 per cent annual rise in house prices, is the influx of capital.
The dominance of London is now profound. A quarter of the nation’s income tax is paid in London, more than the northeast, northwest, Yorkshire, Humberside and the East Midlands combined and three times as much as all Scotland. London is now the third most productive city in the world and, if it were to declare independence, would be the ninth largest country in Europe.
Since 2010 the coalition has made a lot of its desire to take power from the centre. Police commissioners are locally elected. Council tax benefit and the social fund are subject to a local rate. Led by a genuine believer, the excellent cities minister, Greg Clark, the government has negotiated “city deals” that hand powers to groups of local authorities case by case.
In the past the idea of linking Liverpool and Manchester was like asking Israel and Palestine why they just can’t be friends. And as for Leeds and Sheffield, well they appear to be in Yorkshire. In fact, the blood feuds of long ago are being forgotten. In 2011 the ten councils in Greater Manchester created a combined authority for transport and planning. The regions around Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and the northeast are now in committee devising plans to do the same.
There will be more of this stuff in election year. It is probable that the election manifestos will be full of worthy suggestions that cities should have more discretion over greenfield sites or that they should keep a fraction of the business rate revenue. These are, for the most part, sensible, desirable schemes but they do not begin to amount to the geographical rebalancing that the political class, now with one voice, purports to want.
There have been some obvious setbacks. The government’s failure to impose mayors on recalcitrant local councillors was then compounded by its failure even to campaign for them. As a result, only Bristol out of ten urban electorates voted for an elected mayor.
Coalition ministers have also found that responsibility does not depart even when they relinquish control. The care system is on the verge of collapse as a direct result of extending local authority control. When the central grant was cut, councils responded by refusing to fill in the gap from their other budgets. The publicity for this will soon be awful but it won’t be the council bosses in the dock; it will be the secretary of state working out that Pickles is a common noun as well as a proper one.
In truth, a lot of what a city needs to thrive is already available to it. From the day that a white transit van packed with more than 3,000lb of explosives blew up on Corporation Street in 1996, Manchester has thrived its way to unofficial second city status with a combination of inventive local government and private investment. This has given Manchester its best days since that fake old charmer Disraeli was calling it “the philosophical capital of the world”. The one big financial reform that central government could offer, which it won’t, is to change the money flows so that more of it is raised locally. Where there is money there is power.
No Westminster politician is even suggesting anything so bold but, happily, there is more that they can do. The whole chattering class industry can start to disperse. Let’s start by relocating the House of Lords to Birmingham. The only physical connection between Commons and Lords is that a clerk in a wig carries a manuscript of any disputed bill between the two houses. If the Lords were in Birmingham he could get the train. Or, if we can bear the modernity of it, send an email. The golden kitsch of Pugin’s chamber could be opened to the public as living proof of the wisdom of Adorno’s remark that the connection between the museum and the mausoleum is more than phonetic.
Commentators should take their own medicine. Not only should The Guardian follow the BBC and return to Manchester, it should be sold only in Manchester. It’s not exactly my decision but I am sure all my colleagues at The Times would not mind if I sent them all to Coventry. The radical civil service reform dreamt of by Francis Maude has dwindled, as it always does, so send the civil service to Newcastle and save a fortune.
Then let’s send the monarchy to Manchester. Kate and William could be recast as the Duke and Duchess of Crumpsall and Daniel Libeskind could be rehired to turn an old warehouse on the ship canal into a custom-built palace for the Queen. The lesser royals could have the penthouse suite in Salford Quays that used to belong to Mike Baldwin from Coronation Street. Tatton House, in the chancellor’s constituency, can become the new weekend retreat. It can all be paid for by selling Buckingham Palace as flats for Qataris to not live in.
If you have detected an air of frivolity in these suggestions it trails the fact that the political class never means it when it suggests power should vacate. Local authority is something that happens to someone else. Set your watches. It appears a year before an election and disappears a year after. London is growing fast but the people of the rest of England will not be speaking just yet.
