Singapore on the Ship Canal - why it's the economy that matters in regeneration

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The thing about regenerating the North of England is that we appear to have tried everything - sometimes more than once. Or rather we have tried every variation of government intervention. And it hasn't worked.

The latest (and this is definitely a rehash) solution is the 'local enterprise partnership'. Now these things - which seem not to be local, not to be about enterprise and bad examples of partnership - are the favoured vehicle for regeneration. And as Neil McInroy from CLES observes:

I recently participated in a round table debate on growth, with northern business leaders in Manchester. Inevitably, the key vehicle for local economic growth came up – local enterprise partnerships (Leps). Starting with a few shakes of the head and the odd raised eyebrow, that bit of the debate was summed up by one participant who said: ‘I am not sure Leps are fit for purpose in the drive for local economic recovery’. He was understating it, but spot on.

The problem here is that Neil, having identified how LEPs aren't the way to do it, stumbles into that old trap of believing that some other form of government intervention will do the trick. Indeed the solution preferred here combines one good idea and several lousy ones. The good idea is that local councils should lead on regeneration - more to the point, that local councillors (who Neil insists on calling 'elected members') should take ownership of economic development strategies.

The bad ideas are these:

We must aim for business success and private gain with social justice. They are not mutually exclusive.

To be fair, I've really not the foggiest idea what we mean in this context by 'social justice' - it seems to be something that has to be said if you're a bit left-wing but want to talk about the necessity of free market capitalism. The problem is that it leads to mission creep - to setting environmental targets that squeeze out growth, to a misplaced belief that 'social enterprise' is an engine for development and to targeting based on social outcomes such as 'equalities' or 'community cohesion'.

It is evident from the recent fairness and poverty commissions and work in local authorities around social inclusion that there is need to match economic development with social growth.

Here's another example of this mission creep (and a warning that, while it's a good idea for councils to lead, they aren't always good at it). I'm sure Neil knows what he means by 'social growth' but it seems to me that, not only are Northern cities significantly more 'equal' than London, but that this is a direct consequence of their lack of success. More importantly, 'social growth' is a consequence of economic development not an alternative. If you trog round the poorer parts of Manchester or Leeds it's abundantly clear that the poverty results from economic failure compounded by poor government in crucial areas such as education and health. So the starting point for regeneration must be economic - get people into jobs, improve skill levels and encourage business creation.

In some ways we seem confused about what we're trying to do. On the one hand, organisations like CLES promote the ideas of an 'economy for all' that rejects traditional models of economic growth and opts instead for the idea of 'activity', for 'greening' and for more cooperative or mutual organisations. This is fine - although it only works if you set aside the desire to 'close the gap' with wealthier regions in the south - but I don't believe it offers genuine hope to the thousands of people stuck on benefits, in poor housing and with some of the country's worst schools and hospitals.

There is, in this argument, a view that equates the public and private sector in economic terms - ignoring the fact that, in general terms, the public sector doesn't produce but consumes (and we should remember that consumption is more important that production - even the squanderous consumption of the public sector). So in regeneration it is the private sector that matters - not the grandees that end up on LEP boards but all the others, the start-ups, the SME, the little manufacturers and the shops, large and small. Without this there is no growth - there might be spending but there isn't growth.

There are things that can and should be done - devolving tax-raising and rate-setting powers back to the local level and, at that local level, carrying through that 'double-devolution' idea to encompass schools, healthcare, leisure provision and much else besides.

But growth - and let's be clear, it's growth that the North needs not some sort of steady-state economy - will not come from this action but from an environment that celebrates business and enterprise however it is organised. From a society that finally escapes from the belief that some grand bloke in a top hat will arrive and give us all jobs for life.

If the North is to have a successful economic development strategy - or strategies - it has to focus relentlessly on the private sector and eschew the temptation to use regeneration plans to save the planet, eliminate poverty or create some mythical 'fairer' society.

Imagine 'Freeport Manchester' - a low tax, low regulation economy supported by local government and featuring investment in skills, education and business creation. A place focused on science and engineering, on export and exchange - a sort of Singapore on the Ship Canal. Wouldn't that be a better ambition?

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Campaign in the North...a message for the Conservative Party

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We often hear from London-based commentators that the Conservative Party has a problem in the North. Look, these men say, you have no councillors, no MPs and no organisation across the great cities of the North - Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle. How can you lay claim to being a national party when this pertains? And such wise men have a point.

Others tell the Party's leadership that they must have a plan for campaigning in the North. That the problem must be put right. And each time the psephological runes are read and Party managers decide that this isn't so - the solution (or rather the winning of an election) lies elsewhere.

The Tories have a 40:40 strategy for the next election. The aim is to defend their 40 most vulnerable seats and try and win 40 others to give the party a majority. So which 40 are in their sights? Normally, it’s an easy one to answer: you just look at the last election and count which seats have the most narrow Tory defeat.

If you’d done this, there would only be 9 Liberal Democrat MPs on the Tory hit list. But the Liberal Democrat vote has changed radically since the last election. So Stephen Gilbert, the PM’s political secretary,  has drawn up a new list, added in demographic factors, current polling data and consumer targeting. As a result, the  number of Liberal Democrat seats on the list more than doubled.

And of those 20 Liberal Democrat seats most aren't in the North of England - Solihull, Dorset Mid & Poole North, Wells, St Austell & Newquay, Somerton & Frome, Sutton & Cheam, St Ives, Chippenham, Cornwall North, Norwich South, Eastbourne, Taunton Deane, Eastleigh, Torbay, Cheltenham, Devon North, Carshalton & Wallington. Only Cheadle and Berwick-on-Tweed are in the North and neither are exactly typical.

There isn't going to be a plan for the North. There will be a few target seats - Bolton West, Wirral South, Halifax, maybe Morley & Outwood to annoy Ed Balls - but no plan looking beyond getting 316 MPs from anywhere. Right now the national Party's resource in the North consists of fewer than ten people working out of an office in Bradford. These people work hard and do a great job supporting campaigns from Carlisle to Grimsby and from Ellesmere Port to Ashington.

What there won't be is a strategy for the North or the redirecting of resource from London-based spin doctoring towards campaigning at the grassroots especially if those grassroots are a long way from nice London restaurants in places where people talk funny. The problem is that - as I'm sure Labour is in the South-West and Wessex - the Party is dying in the urban North. We are reaching the tipping point in Sheffield, Hull and Manchester where the situation is unrecoverable - as is undoubtedly the case in Liverpool. Worse still behind these barren places are a row of other places - Leeds, Bradford, Sunderland, Huddersfield, Salford - where only the efforts of a dedicated few folk (and the welcome collapse of Liberal Democrat aspirations) keeps the Party from the same oblivion as in those big cities.

We do need a plan but more than that we need some of the resources currently spent on sucking up to London-based journalists to be directed to the North, to supporting good quality campaign teams in these Northern cities. And this isn't just because it might help us win general elections in the future but because the alternative is to condemn Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and other Northern towns and cities to generations of corrupting single-party government from the Labour Party.

Having failed to resource - or actively support - campaigns for elected mayors, the Party now has to get back onto the ground, survey its wreakage and begin to build. We need to start campaigning against the deadening hand of the North's establishment - public sector panjandrums, Labour council leaders, trade unions and the occasional lawyer or property developer badged as "business".

What I do know is that, if we don't, there won't be a generation of Tories in Bradford to follow on from my generation. And I'm prepared to bet that the same goes for Leeds, for Hull and for Greater Manchester. It really is time for the Party to act. Further delay will be fatal for the Party in the North.

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On not needing extra troops north of the Trent - some strategy thoughts for my Party

Alex Massie writing in the Spectator touches on the vexed issue of the ‘North-South’ divide - at least in political terms. Referencing a piece by Michael Dugher in the Guardian, Alex says:

The north-south divide threatens Tory hopes of ever winning a workable parliamentary majority. Doubtless the Conservatives can make some gains in the south-east and the midlands but they must, surely, be closer to their ceiling in those regions. Which means they need to be more competitive north of the Trent.

As a Conservative in the North I find this subject fascinating. Indeed, the choice of the term “North of the Trent” is itself a historical curiosity. As players of the boardgame, Kingmaker, will know the northern bishops – York, Durham, Carlisle – lose their troops when venturing south of the Trent. Or perhaps, like modern day Conservatives, they need those troops to guard them from those who see them as creatures of a London-based, south-east focused culture.

The contention from Alex Massie – reflecting Labour commentors – is that the problem lies in political positioning. He appears to swallow the line that the issue is that northerners think Tories “nasty”:

But even when this is not the case there’s no doubt at all that being considered the Nasty Party and being seen to be just-fine-with-that-thanks is a more than rum approach to government. Politics is a communications business and it’s bizarre so many MPs and ministers seem to forget that.

It seems to me that – while I have a great deal of agreement with Alex on the “nasty party” problem – the core of the failure lies with policy not with communication. All the political parties have policies determined primarily by the culture of London but, for the Conservatives, this is compounded by the dominance of the South-East among the parliamentary party and (just as importantly) the voluntary party.

We see this policy problem with transport investment, with housing and with such issues as regional pay. There is no north of England filter through which to run these policies, no right-of-centre think tank in Leeds or Preston with the ear of ministers and policy planners. This problem is made worse by tokenism such as holding cabinet meetings in Manchester or appointing a “minister for the north”.

If the Conservative Party is serious – and I hope we are – about winning seats in Yorkshire, Lancashire and the North East, then it needs to find a real voice in the North.  Perhaps something as radical as recruiting the team to write the 2015 manifesto from the north and basing them in the north - not in Chester or Harrogate but in Barnsley, Burnley or Washington. And then making use of the great resource we already have up here – experienced local councillors who have spent decades fighting in Labour’s rotten boroughs.

It won’t happen but, if we are to take the north we have to listen to these voices. We have to appreciate just how the party is misunderstood by so many. And perhaps think a little about those folk living in three-bed semis near Oldham and on the hills overlooking Keighley. People who think they pay too much tax, who see too much waste and who worry about the cost of living. This was the simple message of the Thatcher years – work hard, keep what you earn, care for your family and look out for your neighbours.  And in return the government will take less from you, will help keep you safe, will protect our shores and will reward thrift and effort.

Even Tory voters in my neck of the woods think the party’s leadership too distant, too grand, and too posh. That they are, in truth, no more distant, no more grand and no more posh than that leaderships of Labour and Liberal Democrats does not matter; it is the Conservatives who are seen that way not the others. If we are to change then we must campaign in the language of the saloon bar not the language of the country supper. And this doesn’t mean being snapped holding a pint in some Berkshire gastro-pub but talking seriously about tackling inflation, cutting out waste and reducing taxes.

Above all, it means campaigning in the north – not by sending out patronising mailings from London or recruiting a few kids to work in “target seats” but by basing a real and substantial part of the Party’s activities in the north. By showing that we really do think the North matters.

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Is JUST West Yorkshire being intentionally disingenuous?

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In its latest bulletin (something it produces with staggering frequency), JUST West Yorkshire provides the following headline. Indeed it is the main headline on the whole bulletin:

The North is 40 years behind the rest of the country in terms of racism 

Now you and I understand that the term "The North" usually refers to Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and the North-East. So I was rather surprised given the years of innovation and effort put in by people in Bradford (where JUST has parachuted itself thanks to the generosity of those nice folk at Joseph Rowntree) to address issues of racism and community cohesion.

So I check out the article and (you have to smile) it's a link to a report in the Dail Mail that it headed with the above offending headline. But when you read the acticle it refers to "a study" led by David Craig who is:

...professor of community development and social justice at Durham University

And his study is about the North-East not the North:

The report says racism remains a ‘major issue’ in the North-East, with black and minority ethnic (BME) people still experiencing racism at individual and institutional levels across public and private sectors, and in particularly in the criminal justice system.

I'll give JUST the benefit of the doubt on this occasion (although they should know better than to faithfully re-cycle Daily Mail articles) but hope that, in future, they don't try and damage race relations in places like Bradford with wild allegations of racism.

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A depressing thought for those who like the North...

From a conversation this evening:

All the professional jobs in the North are in the public sector or in businesses servicing the public sector. If you want a good job in the private sector you have to look in the South East

I don't know if this is entirely true - although a quick scan of jobs websites does show a real paucity of professional jobs outside London and the South East.

If this is true - and it could well be - then there's no doubt at all that the public sector continues to throttle the private sector, to push it aside. There has to be a way out from under this problem but I'm absolutely sure it isn't through resolutions of councils, through economic development strategies or through another round of regional initiatives.

Perhaps we should try a little less government?

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A successful North - we'd love it but not that way Julian!

Julian Dobson, on his Living with Rats blog, wrestles with the long-standing – and seemingly intractable problem of the relative underperformance of England’s Northern counties.

Julian asks us what a successful North of England economy would look like and sets out a ten-point descriptor – covering the offering of opportunities to everyone, not compromising on “sustainability”, encouraging distinctiveness and diversity, valuing the contribution of the “voluntary and community sector” and, of course, a local ownership approach founded on mutual and co-operative approaches. It is a delightful collectivist paradise described by Julian and this Shangri la will doubtless be peopled by selfless men and women sacrificing their own individual success to the collective whole. Commonweal will be all!

I was tempted to carefully dissect what’s wrong with all this item by item but there was one of Julian’s ten points that stood out above all the others as something the would shackle the North to a permanent dawdle behind more successful places:

A successful northern economy is one that reduces its dependency on other parts of the world and on national government support. This means ensuring our money supports local and regional businesses, and strengthening links between the north’s businesses and communities. There should be a clear correlation between incentives for business and firms‘contribution to local training, skills development and community wellbeing.

In this we see – and I could cry – the ‘import substitution’ approach to economic development being rolled out. This is the strategy that blighted Latin America as they cowered behind high tariff barriers and anti-yankee policies. The most successful places are places that are open to trade – even in a world where free trade is compromised by restrictions on free movement and a dysfunctional system of development finance.

Julian, like so many of the left, thinks that there is a way to ‘collectivise’ the free market and a means by which it will be civilized (at least in their terms) and controlled by “the community”. By taking this view, we are led inexorably towards state direction and a society where economic activity is categorised into “good business” and “bad business”. The little local co-operative – even if like the Meriden Motorcycle plant a co-operative that destroys value – represents the former while an industrial complex manufacturing parts for power stations and managed by a multinational PLC represents the latter.

The problem with Julian’s utopia is that it would place an intolerable burden on those wishing to do business and most importantly those wanting to do business that involves something other than a grand scale taking in of each other’s washing – a business that exports.

Since Julian asks though I’d better set out how we get to a successful Northern economy (perhaps more valid than what that economy might look like when we get there). For me success lies in people being empowered consumers – in us having the wealth and income to consume the things we want to consume. After all we live to consume (in its widest sense) rather than to produce!

Getting to success must be founded on:

Low taxes on personal and business income

No or very low tariffs and duties

A regulatory environment that encourages choice and flexibility in employment

A pro-business and pro-development planning regime

Priority for infrastructure investment that support growth – roads, ports, broadband

An education system focused on core skills and employability

Aside from infrastructure this is all about less intrusive government, about a tax system that avoids disincentives and an education system that works.

And what would be my measure of success? Aside from us all being healthier and wealthier, I guess the ultimately successful North of England would be a place that looked at itself and decided it didn’t need government any more.

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Update: Seems I'm not the only person who finds Julian's prescription a little unworkable. Here's Tim Worstall on the subject:

Apart from the fact that high speed broadband (as opposed to the dial up/ broadband difference) doesn’t make any difference at all, it’s just the usual ritual cant about inclusiveness isn’t it?
There’s three things that are wrong with the “northern” economy.

1) The exchange rate’s too high.
2) Wages in one sector of the economy are too high.
3) The private sector is getting crowded out.

The solution is to cut government, cut wages (and taxes) and the exchange rate, well that’s more difficult.

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Perception...

How we perceive places is often set by what we first encounter. This photograph was taken outside The Grange Club & Community Centre in Pontefract. I guess it's not the first image that springs to mind when thinking of that former mining town.

Rather reminded me that what we think of a place is often guided by what others choose to present to us - good and bad. So Bradford is a riot-ridden city of beards and burkas, Liverpool is a place full of robbing scallies and Pontefract is populated by unhealthy, broken ex-miners.

Just goes to show how wrong we can be and how we should treat media bias (and especially the media's portrayal of the North of England) with contumely.

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