A remembering of the Yorkshire devolution debate...(and why we need real devolution)

In my time as leader of the Conservative Group on Bradford Council, I sat through a lot of meetings about what they call 'devolution' down in Whitehall. Some of these meetings were in public including Bradford's Corporate Scrutiny and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA). Others were cross party but private - cosy (and they were too) meetings prior to the public WYCA meetings and enthusiastic jaunts down to meet people in London. Some were internal party meetings with other West Yorkshire group leaders, with the wider Yorkshire 'Conservative Family' of MPs and leaders. A few were with advisors to ministers of one sort or another (as an aside many of these advisors now seem to be MPs).

You'll probably have read about the antics and shenanigans around Yorkshire devolution captured in David Cameron's snarky "we just thought people in Yorkshire hated everyone else, we didn't realise they hated each other so much." There's a reason for all these problems - rather there's two reasons: firstly Yorkshire is a lot more Tory than people think and secondly the most powerful position (at least while there's a Conservative government) in the county isn't a mayor or a metropolitan leader, it's the leader of North Yorkshire County Council.

We were trapped between the model preferred by Whitehall - "functional city region governance" as they like to call it - which proposed a mayoral model for the Leeds City Region that included Harrogate, Selby, Craven and York but not the rest of North Yorkshire, and the varied political preferences of local politicians. Now Labour leaders in West Yorkshire did not like the government's model much (most of them at least) because, after some frantic calculator wielding, they worked out that it might result in a Tory mayor, and that would never do. Meanwhile Tory leaders in West Yorkshire were happy with this idea since it gave us a chance of winning plus a permanent and strong Conservative voice under any governance model.

The bigger problem, however, was that this Leeds City Region model was not acceptable to North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC). Quite understandably NYCC were miffed at the prospect that a large part of the county would be lumped in with Leeds leading inevitably to a new unitary council of Harrogate, Craven and York (and god knows what with the remainder of the county). This existential worry was couched in terms of 'transport powers' currently residing with the county but that would need to transfer to (or be shared with in some occult manner) the new mayoral authority. Leaders from Craven and Harrogate were keen on close links with Leeds - unsurprising given the geography of the old West Riding - but the county leadership was implacably opposed.

Meanwhile some of West Yorkshire's Conservative MPs had set themselves against the idea of devolution. This combined two objections: devolution was just another tier of government and unnecessary; and devolving to West Yorkshire just creates yet another powerful Labour voice. In North Yorkshire, the MPs (all Conservatives) were less cynical but just as doubtful and influenced by the view that any devolution settlement should not break up NYCC.

From out of this confusion came a new proposal (slightly sloppily) dubbed Greater Yorkshire. This called for an elected mayor for all the county except the four South Yorkshire councils (who were building up into their own row about devolution) - West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, York, and East Riding. This idea was (slighted reluctantly and very slowly) drawn up by NYCC and put to government. If George Osborne had shown even the slightest nous or even a modicum of cynical party preference that would have been an end to the matter. But his ministerial team (this is what happens when you appoint people as ministers in a Conservative government who aren't conservatives) were too wrapped up in the technocratic Heseltine model of city-region governance and a load of shuttling back and forth between Leeds City Hall and officials in The Treasury and elsewhere in Whitehall.

The impasse could not be resolved under a government with no or a small majority. And to make matters more confusing (and probably worse) the row in South Yorkshire over Sheffield City Region blew up and two councils, Doncaster and Barnsley, stalked out to join a new proposal, one backed by NYCC and the five West Yorkshire councils, One Yorkshire. The problem with this was that (while the opinions of us Conservative leaders in West Yorkshire didn't matter much) not only were some MPs still opposed but the idea clashed with the already agreed deal with Sheffield City Region and the four South Yorkshire councils. It did not matter that Doncaster and Barnsley were in a huff about the arrangement they had agreed to, it was going to happen, they were going to elect a mayor and that was the end of it.

This pretty much brings me to the end of my tenure as leader of Bradford's Conservative Group. Since then things have moved on as South Yorkshire has elected a major and a devolution settlement for West Yorkshire is agreed (we will be electing a mayor next year). You can read and comment on the wondrous cascade of cash (in truth it's not that wondrous and not that much cash) that will flow to West Yorkshire once a nice mayor is installed in a smart Leeds office. There will be money to build Leeds (just Leeds not the rest of the city-region) that ultimate symbol of metropolitan virility, a tram system, as well as a little bit more control over colleges and some money for housing. West Yorkshire gets a little regeneration slush fund of £38m a year - remember that the budgets for the five councils add up to over £5 billion - that our new mayor will splurge on pet schemes designed to get him or her re-elected.

This is not devolution but the further emasculation of local government. The model proposed does not offer any say over most things government does to or for people, lacks real accountability and is immune to real scrutiny. Do people in West Yorkshire really want a tram system, especially one that does not go anywhere near where they live or work? Are we going to get an expensive and self-important elected mayor to run the buses and FE colleges and why is this somehow a good idea?

For me there is a missed opportunity here, an opportunity killed by the cynicism of municipal leaders who are prepared to smash up 150 years of city governance in return for a little bit of central government cash. That opportunity was for the leaders of Yorkshire - political, municipal and business - to insist that the right settlement for Yorkshire isn't a bunch of squabbling mayors and leaders but a proper Yorkshire Parliament with the same sort of devolved powers as Wales or Scotland. If the history of how we didn't get to an agreed (or agreeable) devolution settlement for Yorkshire says anything, it's that chopping Yorkshire up into competing pieces doesn't work and results in inequitable arrangements, poor governance and bad leadership. Sadly, this is what we're getting.

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How migration caused the North-South divide

Yorkshire Day perhaps isn't the best day to share these findings but they tell a different story from the one we're usually told. I also appreciate, since I live here, that whatever they say all the best and brightest live in Yorkshire.

The thing is, however, that some clever folk at the London School of Economics (Gregory Clark, UC Davis and Neil Cummins) have looked at whether the North's relative economic underperformance is about "bad geography" or "bad people". And I hate to be the bringer of bad news but these folks at LSA have analysed surnames, probate records, MPs, doctors and other measures of social status like going to Oxford and discovered that the North's relative problem is down to the best and brightest in every generation heading South. Not just recently but more-or-less since records began (for the purposes of this research that is about 1840).




Our researchers conclude:

The poorer economic and social outcomes in the north of England have two possible sources. The first source is negative economic shocks in the early twentieth century that blighted the traditional industries of the north, and disadvantaged thereafter those born in the north in terms of employment opportunities, education and health. The second source is the selective outmigration of those with greater social status from the north to the south. In this paper we present good evidence in favor of the second interpretation, both using surname evidence and data on individual families.

Holders of surnames concentrated in the north in the 1840s were not disadvantaged in recent years in terms of education, occupation, political power, or wealth compared to the holders of surnames concentrated in the south in the 1840s. Since they are even now disproportionately located in the north any geographic disadvantage of that area would have reduced their social status. Further holders of northern surnames dying in the south were wealthier than holders of southern surnames dying in the south. And in sign that migration to the north was of less advantaged southerners, holders of southern surnames dying in the north were no richer that northern surname holders dying in the north. These northern surnames dying in the north were an adversely selected group, so the southern migrants must also be adversely selected.

To put it more simply: since about 1870 there has been a net out-migration from the North of England to the South of England and most of the migrants are, for want of a better term, the 'best and brightest'. The often noted regional inequality isn't down to the actions of government but rather to the choices of people.

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The North-South (Housing) Divide - a lesson

So I'm at a seminar in North Yorkshire and a question is asked about housing and house-building. The person answering - a senior councillor from 'down south' - responds by asking a question:

"How many of you own your own house?"

Nearly the whole room - consisting mostly of councillors aged 50 or more - raises their hand. One group, all professional staff up from London, don't raise their hands. These twenty- and thirty-somethings in good jobs are all renting. And some are having to share just to make that renting possible.

The senior councillor asks another question:

"How many of you have children who aren't able to buy a house?"

The expectation was that a forest of hands would rise demonstrating how housing is unaffordable and inaccessible. That's what would happen in London.

Not a single hand was raised. All of the twenty- and thirty-something children of these Northern councillors, whether from Teeside, Bradford or leafy North Yorkshire, have got onto the housing ladder.

That senior councillor from 'down south' was a little surprised. Later he told me "I knew you were all rich in the North".

Because of the extent to which London''s economic success has created jobs, the south has struggled to meet the demand for housing. Even were there an adequate level of new housing development (and, as that same senior councillor observed, people want a house not a pokey little flat), London would have faced problems given the difference between the number of people looking for a home and the number of homes available - across all tenures - at any given time.

This is not true for the North. Our slower growth and balanced population (with modest outward migration in some places) means that young people who get a halfway decent job and save a bit can buy a house. There are some parts - Manchester, North Leeds, Ilkley, Harrogate - where some of that London-style overheating is happening but most of the North does not have a housing crisis, is not short of housing supply to meet current market demand, and presents the chance to manage future housing supply without huge government bungs or running roughshod over the green belt.

The problem is that national policy is determined by London's genuine housing crisis, not the North's more balanced and inclusive economy. Maybe those of us 'up here' should both be grateful for this and also careful about what we wish for?

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Creating a Yorkshire Powerhouse - it's down to us not the government in London

My eponymous great-grandfather was born in East London. Tragically he died young - in his thirties - leaving a widow and young children. He died in Wakefield.

This isn't some terrible story of loss or tragedy and nor was my great-grandfather one of those victims of industrial capitalism. He was a wine merchant. Not only is this a noble calling but it explains why he ended up in Wakefield. Put in simple terms there was better business to be had (and perhaps less competition) in Yorkshire than there was in London. As my boss, Judith Donovan, said to me when I arrived in Bradford on 27 July 1987 - "A hundred years ago, Bradford was the richest city in the richest county in the richest country in the world."

How things have changed. Now, too often, Yorkshire paints itself as a victim, bashed and battered by the tides of globalisation, ignored or patronised by the powers down in London. It is a theme we hear again and again from 'leaders' in Yorkshire - that somehow the economic gap between England's greatest county and those southern nancies is down to the perfidy of national government. London is rich because, as if by a dark magic, all the good stuff in England is sucked away from places like Yorkshire for the folk living in that huge city to spend on fancy bus tickets, overpriced coffee and criminally-priced one-bed apartments in Stockwell.

Here's the Yorkshire Post:

Yet the frustration is that Yorkshire has so much more to offer and that this region’s limitless potential will not be maximised until the Government invests sufficient sums in this county’s human capital – school standards have lagged behind the rest of the country for an unacceptable number of years and are having a detrimental impact on job prospects – as well as the area’s transport and business infrastructure so more world-leading companies can be persuaded to invest here.

Today is Yorkshire Day and it is worth giving the Yorkshire Post its due for setting out an agenda for the county that genuinely reflects much of the debate going on up here. But it's a shame that the habit of holding out the cap and fluttering those Yorkshire eye-lashes still remains. No-one's denying that Yorkshire - and the North for that matter - needs investment but when all they hear is the regional politics version of "got some spare change for a coffee" is it really a surprise that government doesn't rush to help out?

Take education. The Yorkshire Post rightly highlights how Yorkshire's levels of educational attainment lag behind those elsewhere in England and in many ways this is a scandal. But what's the bigger scandal - that politicians in London aren't throwing cash at the problem or that the leaders in Yorkshire haven't got any plan, policy or strategy to address the problem? Where's the education 'summit' bringing together political and business leaders from across the county? Why haven't local education authorities - along with schools - pooled their investment in educational development and improvement?

The same goes for transport. Again the Yorkshire Post reminds us that Leeds is the only big city in England without a tram system or metro. And that - quite rightly - the government pulled the plug on that city's latest wheeze, a new 'bus-on-a-string'. I recall sitting in a meeting - in some slightly tatty, anonymous office block in Leeds - and formally giving Bradford's support for what was dubbed 'supertram'. And I remember adding, at the end of the presentation, that it was a great shame said 'supertram' wasn't going to Bradford or, indeed, anywhere near Bradford. The single busiest inter-city commuter route - Leeds-Bradford and vice versa - didn't register.

So - again - where's Yorkshire's transport plan? Have the transport great and good gathered to set out how we'll respond to 21st century challenges in transport? Or have we just sat mithering about ticketing and real-time information as if they're the answer to the question? Why should - other than for reasons of political calculation (hence Cameron launching the 'Northern Powerhouse' in Shipley) - central government do anything for Yorkshire when Yorkshire's not doing much for itself?

Even on devolution, political calculations - both sub-regional and by the political parties - has meant deadlock. Yorkshire - after London itself - is the only English region with a genuine identity. Yorkshire Day really is a thing (my friend Keith Madeley and the Yorkshire Society deserve a lot of credit for this). We really did showcase the glories of the county through the Tour de France and its child, Tour de Yorkshire. And the county really does have everything - except, that is, the leadership to get on with devising responses to our challenges without waiting on someone in London first giving us the thumbs up.

I learnt a couple of important lessons recently. The first was during a meeting with Lord Adonis following the National Infrastructure Commission publishing reports on Crossrail 2 and Transport in the North. The lesson was that London had prepared, done the legwork, written a plan and set out how that city would fund half the cost in the time Northern leaders had drawn up a scope for a possible plan the content of which wasn't set. London will get the money because London knows what it wants. Here in Yorkshire we just ask for more transport investment - we have no plan.

The second lesson is that London's planning is far deeper - more granular as the trendies put it - than any spatial or urban planning anywhere else in England. In part this just reflects the fact that London is a city and has a coherence (and obvious centre) that Yorkshire doesn't have but it also demonstrates that our fragmented systems of government, business leadership and administration won't allow for that level of planning. Here's what I wrote in June about New London Architecture's exhibition:

During a brief visit to London, we called in to the New London Architecture exhibition at The Building Centre - it's just round the corner from the British Museum and well worth an hour of your time not least for the splendid model of central London at the heart of the exhibition. The NLA uses this magnificent visual to present a vision of the new London emerging through investment, initiative and development and is accompanied by a series of short films featuring NLA's urbane chairman, Peter Murray, talking through the challenges - homes, transport, place-making, environment - and setting out what's already happening and how built environment professionals including architects, masterplanners, designers, engineers and builders can deliver a better city.

What comes across in these films is the scale of engagement between public and private sectors - the projects highlighted on the grand model or featured on the wall around the space are mostly private sector projects. For sure there are the great transport schemes sponsored by London's government and supported by national governments but we also see investment in public realm, privately or in partnership with boroughs, by the great estates - Cadogan, Bedford, Grosvenor and the Crown - that enhance the City's character and variety.

Above all there is both a sense of vision - one shared by mayor, boroughs, transport chiefs and developers - and an intense granularity to that vision. We're so familiar with vision being just that - grand sweeping words accompanied with carefully touched up pictures. But this London vision comes with hundreds of individual projects, with emerging plans across the 32 boroughs (all pictured on the walls around the huge model), with examples of individual masterplans for smaller places and with specific project plans ranging from hospitals and university facilities through housing schemes to pocket parks or street markets.

The Yorkshire Post is right to make the case for the county and to present it to the Prime Minister. But we also need to make the case for bringing the county together, for a new agreement - with or without devolution deals - to work together on planning for Yorkshire's future. If - in some few years - we can take people to an exhibition put together by a private organisation demonstrating how Yorkshire's people, businesses, charities and landowners share a clear, radical and creative plan that is being put in place then we will be changing the county for the better.

I fear that, after a brief flurry of excitement and a modicum of political grandstanding, the Yorkshire Post's welcome initiative will be lost. Not because folk in Yorkshire don't want their county to be better but because we've not made our own plans for making the county once again, the richest place in the richest country. So long as we wait for handouts from London this won't happen.

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A Yorkshire tale or "We get the media we deserve. And it ain't pretty."

This morning I went to listen to the Prime Minister. And he had a lot to say - about prison reform, promoting digital government, the case for deficit reduction, payment by results and getting decision-making closer to ordinary people through devolution. It was interesting and important - it doesn't matter whether you agree with the Conservative agenda or not, what he said mattered.

As I left the venue for the PM's speech a BBC TV reporter poled up to me accompanied by a cameraman. The camera was pointed in my face and a microphone shoved at me.

"Did you listen to the Prime Minister's speech this morning," asks the reporter.

"Yes" I reply.

"Would you like to comment on something Mr Cameron said before the speech that we picked up and recorded. Something about Yorkshire people hating each other?"

"No" I reply.

This conversation was repeated (only more brusquely) with another BBC reporter - this time a local one.

Now I could at this point have a good old go at the priorities of the media - how a mild gaffe by the Prime Minister is more important to them, a sort of "ha ha ha, he he he, gotcha, you're an idiot" approach to the news. But the reality is that the media are just a mirror to society - this petty and irrelevent news-making reflects our sad pleasure in schadenfreude and childish slapstick. Instead of reporting the actual news, we prefer to either point and giggle or else (and worse) adopt a faux-outrage for the sake of political point-scoring and the indulgence of our prejudices.

The problem here is that people who disagree politically with Cameron will dollop their prejudice all over social media, will ring up phone ins and generally behave as if the Prime minister had suggested the rounding up and summary execution of every Yorkshireman (perhaps followed by raising towns to the ground and ploughing the earth with salt). It's not simply that these people have conveniently mislaid their vestigial sense of humour but that they see Cameron's comment as the most important element of the news.

It's fine for such an approach to feature in gossip-mongers like Private Eye or Guido Fawkes but the BBC is not there to peddle eavesdropped gossip but to report the things that matter. Ramming a microphone in my face is fine if you're going to ask me about the speech I've just heard but not if you just want to find someone to express the faux outrage that will make your pathetic piece of tittle-tattle into a better story.

In the end this sort of focus - taken up with self-important comments like "this shows the utter contempt that Cameron and the Tories have for the North and exposes the whole devolution agenda as a con" - shows the complete lack of any depth or substance in much of our political debate. And the fault lies with us, with our preference for ad hominem, our obsession with trying to catch people out, and our tendency to conduct political debate in the manner of two ten-year-old boys - 'my Dad's bigger than your Dad', 'we've got a bigger car and two tellies', 'you're stupid with a snotty nose', 'bogey boy, bogey boy, na na na'.

I'm not being partisan here - it's just as bad when the focus is on Ed Miliband eating a sandwich or Andy Burnham talking to a fake donor (isn't is odd how the media think it fine to use deception but are so judgemental about deception in others). Not only are we a staggeringly hypocritical society but we a in danger of becoming down right nasty - only a degree away from picking on someone because they've a runny nose or spectacles or ginger hair or a funny walk. For sure we can all have a laugh at what Cameron said and, if you like that sort of thing, at his discomfort. But it really has nothing to do with the Government's programme or with what are today's important news stories.

We get the media we deserve. Petty, insubstantial, snide, gossipy and, at times, just nasty. The media do this because it seems to be what we want. Laughing at others misfortune, ogling celebrities' divorces, manufacturing offence, and conducting debate on the basis of gotcha rather than a considered assessment of the issues and challenges facing political decision-makers. Not very pretty.

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Ludovic Stur and the revival of Yorkshire identity - a nationalist romance

This piece of modernist statuary is a memorial to Ludivic Stur - the words below the monument describe him as 'Slovensky Narodny Buditel'. Roughly translated this means 'Slovak National Revivalist', which describes what Stur did (at least according to the Soviets):

Štúr studied philosophy and philology at the Bratislava Lycée from 1829 to 1833 and at the University of Halle from 1838 to 1840. With J. Hurban and M. M. Hodža, he carried out a reform of the literary language that based the language on the Central Slovak dialect; he organized the cultural and educational society Tatrin. From 1845 to 1848, Štúr published Slovenskje narodňje novini, the first Slovak political newspaper, and a literary supplement, Orol tatrański.

In 1847 and 1848, Štúr was a deputy to the Hungarian Diet. At the Slavic Congress in Prague in 1848 he demanded recognition of the Slavic peoples’ rights to free national and cultural development. He took part in the Prague Uprising of 1848, and in the Revolution of 1848–49 he led the struggle of the Slovaks for national liberation.

But I'm not here to talk about the birth of Slovakian nationalism although it's worth noting that it took over 170 years from Stur's revival of the Slovak language to the creation of the first independent Slovak state. And it's that independence - or the idea of independence - that I'm struck by here. So let's speculate by talking about Yorkshire, remembering while we do just how long it took to realise Stur's Slovakian dream.

Here's something from a Yorkshire regionalist party in the recent European elections:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the 19017 that put their faith in a different future. We salute you for giving life to Yorkshire First. The fight goes on to convince all parties that the time for change is now. It is time for Yorkshire

Yorkshire has a larger population than Scotland and an economy twice the size of Wales, but with the powers of neither. We support the devolving of powers to the least centralised authority capable of addressing those matters effectively – within Yorkshire, the United Kingdom and Europe. 

We can have a little giggle at such a ridiculous idea - there's never been an independent Yorkshire, this is just some sort of indulgence. Except that this is how such ideas start - with a romantic dream such as Ludovic Stur's idea of Slovakia. I know that the Soviets paint him as some sort of noble revolutionary but the truth was that he was just a man who was steeped in the language and culture of the place he called Slovakia. And in the first instance it is that cultural identity combined with a romantic view of past and future that creates nationalism.

The origins of Scottish and Welsh nationalism don't lie in the dry world of economics or even in the technocratic, ideology-free statism of Alex Salmond. Those origins lie in the myths and legends of these places, in the vaguely remembered events of the past, in a set of wrongs felt unrighted and in the saving of language from extinction. These romantic ideas - the spirit of nation, if you wish it - are what makes separatism a possibility not dry analysis or logic.

Checking on Wikipedia reveals a long list - over 100 organisations that in one way or another seek independence or greater autonomy. And there's an association, the European Free Alliance, that brings together about 40 separatist political parties including the UK's Scottish, Cornish and Welsh nationalists. And these movements are making progress - we know of the independence vote in Scotland and may have spotted the recognition of the Cornish as a nation. But there's more - tens of thousands of Basques formed a human chain to call for the Spanish government to grant them an independence vote. There's an ongoing debate in Catalunya where the regional government wants a vote but the national government is trying to prevent this happening. We saw an on-line poll showing overwhelming support for secession of the Veneto from Italy (and the arresting of some separatists in a weird tank incident).

There is no certainty in nationhood or in the boundaries that are drawn to create those nations and we are fools if we believe these things to be either eternal or sacrosanct. Nations only remain nations by consent - where that consent is taken for granted or worse abused then the case for change, which will nearly involve a new nationalism, is made. We look at Europe and see the EU, a sort of Frankenstein's monster version of the Holy Roman Empire filled with unaccountable and distant bureaucrats governed by entitled autocrats who owe their power to patronage rather than the will of Europe's populace. Add in economic collapse on a scale, for Southern Europe especially, not seen since the aftermath of the last world war and we have the recipe from fragmentation, for that cherished multi-culturalism to descend into distrust, blame and the desire to break from the state that led people into this disaster.

I'll finish by coming back to Yorkshire and that sense of identity, the essential first ingredient for nationalism. How many medals did Yorkshire win at the Olympics?

Some say it’s the Yorkshire water. Others say it’s the Yorkshire beer. But Nicola Adams, born and bred in God’s Own County, is in no doubt over the reason for Yorkshire’s stunning success at the Olympic Games.

‘It must be all those Yorkshire puddings,’ she said in the aftermath of her historic boxing gold medal, the first ever won by a woman at an Olympic Games.
 

When Luke Campbell, proud son of Hull, fought his way to a boxing gold medal by defeating Ireland’s John Joe Nevin in the bantamweight final, he took Yorkshire’s medal haul at London 2012 to five golds, one silver and two bronze.

If Yorkshire was a country, as some of its more fanatical supporters might prefer, it would be 15th in the London 2012 medal table, just behind New Zealand but ahead of sporting giants South Africa, Spain and Brazil.

In past Olympics (the ones where we managed to win medals that is) this regionalism was never noted but suddenly, when the Games are back in London, that sense of Yorkshire pride is apparent and rampant. So when Yorkshire coming knocking at Britain's door saying "we want what Scotland's got" it will be a brave government that turns them away.

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A thought on the end of England

Norman Davies in his 'Vanished Kingdoms' speaks of the impermanence of states and at one point of Britain:

"Having lived a charmed life in the mid-twentieth century, and having held out against the odds in our "Finest Hour", the British risk falling into a state of self-delusion which tells then that their condition is still as fine, that their institutions are above compare, that their country is somehow eternal. The English in particular are blissfully unaware that the disintegration of the United Kingdom began in 1922, and will probably continue; they are less aware of complex identities than are the Welsh, the Scots or the Irish. Hence, if the end does come, it will come as a surprise."

In some ways this observation is a convenience, a way for Davies to make topical a history of places that don't exist any more - the half-forgotten Europe of Burgundia, Litva and Rusyn. But it also reminds us that empires, alliances, unions and nations are fragile, requiring only a little nudge to tip from unity into fragmentation. We can see the obvious examples in Europe today - Catalonia, the Basque country, Venice, Flanders, Scotland. And the break ups of the recent past - Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union.

We should be reminded that modern nations only sustain where people want them to continue. And that simply drawing lines on a map doesn't define a nation if the people within those borders do not wish themselves part of that nation. I spoke recently with a Russian-speaking Jewish Ukrainian whose parting words at the end of a discussion about the situation in that benighted place were; "our home is in the wrong country."

Keith Lowe in 'Savage Continent' describes how a million and more 'ethnic' Germans were, quite literally, marched from their homes in Pomerania because the powers that be had decreed it part of Poland. And how the gap was filled, in part, by Polish Ukrainian-speakers who were uprooted from their homes in the East and scattered across the new part of the nation, banned from speaking their language and forbidden from gathering together.

It may be that these wounds are healed but the scar tissue remains, the memories of wrongs not righted, of what might have been and of what is no longer. And, for all our 'unity', Britain is no different. We have become used to nationalism - the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Mebyon Kernow, the republicans of Ulster, even the English Nationalists. But we don't seem to realise that these are movements that reject Britain, that want to continue the break up that began in 1922.

And while Simon Jenkins writes with a smile on his face in speaking of Yorkshire identity - how far away are we from its political manifestation?

I am sure Yorkshire's self-confidence has no need of a "cultural leg-up" from the Council of Europe. I doubt its people even regard themselves as a "minority" where it matters, which is in Yorkshire. But when it is payback for decades of London centralisation, their time may come. Then, who could deny "country" status to a proud land with the same population as Scotland, nearly twice that of Wales and 10 times that of Cornwall?

We should watch Yorkshire this year. It needs only another twist of the centralising screw from Cameron and Miliband. It needs only the emergence of a Yorkshire Alex Salmond and perhaps a cup final or county championship victory. Unthinkable thoughts may then stir in the noble Yorkshire breast.

Go to a rock concert in the county and you might hear this gentle chant at some point: "Yorkshire, Yorkshire". This isn't a nationalist exhortation but an exclamation of identity. But it is a very short step from the latter to the former.

Norman Davies believes Britain will break up - is breaking up (as is Spain, as is Italy) - not because of some innate failing but because that's what nations do. They tire, become inward-looking, obsessed with past glories and what might have been. And the world from before the nation wakes again, flags are cherished, new ones invented and flown with pride and before you know it Yorkshire - or Lancashire, or London -  becomes more important than England. And then England dies.

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Why our "City Region" shouldn't be called Leeds

****

I like Leeds. It's a fine City with a great history. But the "City Region" in which Leeds sits shouldn't be called after that city.

1. Leeds isn't a strong enough brand when set against "Yorkshire" or "York". Most of the people we want to reach will more likely have heard of the county and its eponymous city but won't have heard of Leeds.

2. Yorkshire means something to people - both cultural identification (verging on the nationalistic at times) plus a distinct and powerful appeal

3. Using Leeds alienates and distracts from the point and purpose of the "City Region" - inevitably (and to date accurately) the accusations are made that all the attention is on the City of Leeds itself rather than on the rest of the region

4. There are five actual cities within the "city region" - why pick just one of these even if it is the biggest

It seems to me that, if we are to make the most of this opportunity, we need to get a brand that isn't divisive and that resonates for a much wider audience. "Leeds" will never do this - we have to change the 'city region's name.

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Ending up at the Russian Tea Rooms...

The sun was shining. We'd almost forgotten about the bright shiny thing in the sky - weeks of seemingly unremitting rain, grey cloud and general global warming had washed away the best part of the summer.

So we struck out for the hills, heading in the general direction of the Lake District - we'd been there at Christmas and the drive was only a couple of hours which made a day trip feasible. Unless of course every other car owner in West Yorkshire decides exactly the same as us and the roadworks on the A65 aren't tucked away for the weekend.

On the Settle by-pass with the stationery traffic snaking out of sight before us, we opted to take to the tiny little roads on the North East edge of the Forest of Bowland - which means you get to see countryside rather than the back bumper of the car in front. Countryside like this:

Wonderful stuff - little roads where you have to get out of the car to open gates. Slight moments of panic at the apparent absence of passing spaces on the road badged as "one track with passing places". And moments of irritation (sorry Bradley) at road hogging Lycra-bedecked bunches of cyclists.

At the end of this winding - and taking the usually reliable guidance of the Good Pub Guide - we arrived cheery but thirsty at Tunstall in the Northernmost bit of today's Lancashire where we lunched at the Lunesdale Arms. This experience I can recommend - lovely light dining room, decent beer and excellent food. I had a pork and herb sausage roll (a really big one) with piccalilli - home made not mass produced from a jar, some chutney, red cabbage and salad. Kathryn enjoyed a light cheese souffle - equally tasty and served with another interesting, fresh and pleasantly dressed salad.

Fed and beered we pondered on whether to plod on to the Lake District and opted not to but rather to swing over the highest part of the forest, drop down to Slaidburn and from there cross country home. Good choice (cyclists aside) - plenty to explore and a pleasant drive in lovely sunshine. The last part of this drive - having failed to find somewhere to park for tea at Bolton-by-Bowland - was something of a tea shop search that brought us into Skipton for the last scrapings of the market.

If you've never been to Skipton market, you should remedy this soon. It is one of the very best. Not so much a foodie heaven - although there's plenty of great food - but a good old-fashioned, street market selling everything from fine cheese, olives and vegetables to hammers, washing-up powder and fancy shorts. Everything a market should be. And busy:

We bought some cheese (it is a scientific fact that it is impossible to walk past a cheese stall without buying cheese) and, still hankering for a cuppa, considered the little row of tea and coffee shops that the top on of the main street. And there it was - a new shop to us - The Russian Tea Room. With women in traditional Russian dress, samovars, Russian dolls, a glass Kalashnikov design for pouring vodka shots (complete with bullet-shaped shot glasses and a grenade filled with balsam liquer) - we had to go in and try it out!

Upstairs is the tea shop - complete with a six page tea menu and a choice of cake. Tea was ordered - Russian Caravan for me and First Flush Organic Darjeeling for Kathryn. Plus cake - a seed cake (essentially madeira cake with caraway seeds) and a Russian honey cake. The tea arrived in a nice see-through pot (see picture above) accompanied with a little timer to make sure we didn't over or under brew the tea. Lovely touch.

When you visit Skipton Market - and you will I know - give the Russians a call. They make you welcome and serve good teas and fine cake. Could you ask for more?

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Tories wouldn't vote for UKIP if the Party listened to what they are saying

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You disparage the electorate at your peril – tell them they’re committing one of the great sins of political correctness (racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia and so forth) and they look you in the metaphorical eye and tell you politely to shut up and go away. And this lesson is especially important for the Conservative Party because those slightly grumpy, politically incorrect voters are part of our core audience.

So when we adopt a superior position – proclaiming in the cause of “detoxification” that we will be saints of political correctness – we annoy that audience. Now, in times past they’d nowhere to go – just as Tony Blair could patronise the traditional, working-class, council-estate dwelling Labour voter secure in the knowledge that he’d nowhere to go, the current Conservative leadership seems hell-bent on doing down my sort of lower middle-class, beer-drinking, cigar smoking, steak-eating Tory.

The problem is that UKIP has provided a place for those voters to turn. And don’t give me all the “elections are won from the centre ground” twaddle. I’ve seen what the residents on my ward – a ward that returned a Conservative councillor yesterday with nearly 60% of the vote – have to say about the issues. Not much mention of climate change, gay marriage or constitutional reform. But a great deal of worry about immigration, crime, jobs and, of course, Europe. For the older of these Tory folk, there’s the stress over living on a fixed income when government policies have led to higher inflation. And everyone is annoyed by ever higher taxes – Granny-tax, Pasty-tax, fuel duty, the cost of fags and the price of a pint.

These people – let me remind you again that they are good Tories at heart – look at the government and see waste. They look at the welfare system and see spongers. They like the NHS but think it over-filled with pointless form-filling and political correctness rather than focusing on the core point – treating us when we’re ill. And these people would rather like to see the occasional policeman other than on the television. You know – on the beat, dealing with noisy kids, catching burglars and keeping an eye out for trouble.

I could continue – talk about schools and how the refusal to accept selection fails young people, ask why we send millions to India in aid when even the government there says they don’t want it and enquire gently as to how it is that we can deport an autistic kid to the USA but can’t send a known terrorist supporter back to Jordan.

If the Conservative Party wants to become a party of the wealthy shires – of Beds, Herts, Bucks and Surrey – then it’s going about it the right way. If it wants to remain relevant up here in the bit of the North no-one ever mentions – decent, family-oriented, hard-working, not especially wealthy but OK – then it needs to stop implying that UKIP are the BNP in blazers and start engaging with the issues and problems that are making very loyal Tories turn away in sorrow and vote for another party.

In our survey of Bingley Rural residents – not scientific but a pointer none-the-less – we’ve seen response after response indicating these very concerns. And a goodly chunk saying they might just consider voting UKIP.  Respond to their concerns – on Europe, crime, immigration, schools and taxes – and they’ll stay loyal and contribute to a real Tory government after 2015. Ignore those worries and we'll have another disastrous Labour government.

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