This evening I watched, on BBC 2, Evan Davis's second programme about the divide between London and everywhere else in Britain. It was a useful guide to some of the problems faced by this country. So much is now concentrated in the south east — and, in particular, in London — that it is having a seriously detrimental effect on the rest of us. I have argued previously that the problems have been generated not so much by forces of immigration, globalisation and wealth concentration as by the in-competences of various governments. Back in the days of Margaret Thatcher we had an economic guru in the shape of Sir Keith Joseph who believed totally that everything needed to be privatised because such businesses are so much more efficient — even though there was never the slightest bit of evidence to support such a proposition. On top of this there was a belief that we did not need to have any manufacturing — we could leave that to countries with cheap labour. The consequence has been an abandonment of almost all manufacturing industry and an increasing migration of people and business to the south east. Now it is being realised that to have a balanced economy we have to have both services and manufacturing.
Evan Davis was arguing that for any system to work there has to be substantial centres of business activity. London succeeds because it has these centres and they draw in more people with expertise in specific areas and that encourages more companies to move in. This makes sense. It was true in Victorian times when Lancashire was the workshop of the world. The county had coal mines — an essential raw material — a major port that connected us to the Atlantic and America — Liverpool — and railways and canals that connected us to all other parts of the country. We sometimes forget the magnitude of the achievement of the Stephensons in building a railway between Liverpool and Manchester that could carry goods and people between the two major cities in one hour. It was an engineering achievement that not only led to the transformation of Britain, but of the world. Evan Davis visited Liverpool, Manchester and Wigan — among other places and showed us the left-overs from the achievements of bygone ages — empty buildings in a Liverpool that has lost half its population and most of its factories . And a local council in Liverpool that tries to get to grips with old housing — probably no longer needed — and grand buildings — like St George's Hall, grade I listed yet devoid of a purpose and the empty palaces along the waterfront. These are impressive structures by any standards and it is tragic that we do not make full use of them. What we need is a big second city much bigger than these places like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, etc to provide a hub away from London that could pull in people and businesses. Of those cities I have listed, Manchester offers the best hope and was already pulling media companies and their satellites into the Salford Quays area as a result of the BBC moving there.
He visited also the small town of Hebden Bridge in the Pennines because a new and vibrant town was growing at the centre of a collection of undersize cities that had Hebden Bridge at the approximate centre and offered an attractive environment for people to live, while commuting to and from Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Preston and other towns in the area. There is much that can be done but it needs a major culture change in government — among London based politicians and bureaucrats. Local people can do much to build their communities but more and more central government has not trusted them to do the right things while still being ignorant themselves.
I look forward to England's second city being centred on Hebden Bridge. If it is such a good idea, perhaps we should just get on with it — without ten years of public enquiries, etc.
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