Right-thinking

David Lindsay

Welcome (just in case you hadn't already noticed) to the One-Party State of Britain. Or, rather, of England. The Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish still get to live somewhere recognisably British, whereas we are subjected to the whims and fancies of the nutters on the London think-tank circuit.

Anyway, London people routinely believe that things like electricity only exist in London, so it comes as no surprise that Policy Exchange (which might as well be Demos, which might as well be the Social Market Foundation, which might as wel be...) thinks that there are no airports, there are no motorways, there are no banks, and there is no Internet outside the South East.

Taken together with the apparently serious suggestion that yet more people should move to the South East, this report tells us all we need to know about the seriousness or otherwise of the Cameroon project, the participants in which, as much as anything else, seem blissfully unaware that their party already holds most of the seats in the South East (although for how much longer, if the plan is to strain the infrastructure there even further?), and will only return to office by winning seats elsewhere. For example, in the North of England.

That they want all development to be around London, Oxford and Cambridge says it all. They have no concept of anywhere except those three.

And remember, these are the people who would actually be running the country while "Prime Minister" Cameron and "Chancellor" Osborne spent every day recovering from the night before.

Puncheon

Which is why we need an English Parliament, located well to the north of London and the SE.

greg

Am i the only person who thinks that if this now is "the tories setting the intellectual running" then we are all doomed.

The commentariat just saying this is true, doesnt make it so. Lets hope for all our sakes it isnt - name me one really original idea the tories have come up with.

john problem

Aren't think-tanks where our leaders start their political lives, before going on to do political research, whatever that is? Scary,isn't it.

Steve

David, I am just wondering how you link an independent report paid for by the following people and organisations:
Natalie Evans – (not sure who this is)
Sam Freedman – Head of education at Policy Exchange
Phillipa Ingram – Times Higher Education Supplement
Max Nathan – Senior Researcher at the Centre for Cities
Nick Tiratsoo – Prof at LSE
Tha Hadley Trust – Charitable body wich appears to be big in the world of Social Enterprise

Has to do with the Cameroons, whose leader has dismissed this same report as barmy. I would contend that this report does not, as you claim "tell us all we need to know about the seriousness or otherwise of the Cameroon project" as it really has b****r all to do with them.

David Lindsay

An English Parliament, alternating between New Labour and the New Tories, would not improve this one iota, no matter where it was located.

The whole United Kingdom, as such wants, needs and deserves publicly funded public services, proper local government, free university tuition, free long-term care for the elderly, and even the free prescriptions of the early Attlee years now enjoyed beyond England.

What we need are new parties, ways of voting in favour of sanity or decency instead of whatever is currently fashionable among high-born undergraduates (and I work with undergraduates, some of them high-born).

So let's get on with it.

Ben

There is an easier solution to the inner city problem. The reason why middle class families have moved out is due to the comprehensive schools. They choose to live near the best schools in the outer suberbs. And they pay for it through high house prices, which exclude everyone else.

The solution is to create grammar schools in the inner cities. It would attract the middle classes back, and give some of the aspiring working class kids a break.

Johnathan Pearce

If this is what passes for Tory intellectual stuff, then one might as well stick with the Gloomster.

David Parker

The idea that Northern cities are failing and that their aspirational inhabitants should move South is a prime example of just how far removed from reality the political class (and their think-tank acolytes ) have now become.

In the first place, only the more successful "upper layer" of those failed societies would be in a position to be able to move, and of those it would predominately be the younger minority without older generation family ties.

The South East is already sufficiently overcrowded to detract from the quality of life, and will soon be unable to support the infrastructure needed to cope with its existing population, let alone any increase.

By all means, let us have open informed discussions, with specialist advisors, recruited upon an ad hoc basis to consider how successive Governments may have( in some cases) failed the North, with a view to devising more practical and constructive policies in the future. But, please, drown all these existing speciously accredited think tank members in their own tank.

TGF UKIP

David Lindsay, your posts always get my closest attention but I do occasionally wonder where you are really coming from.

Free university tuition, free long term care, free prescriptions with, presumably, these and more "frees" to be available on a universal basis.

Sounds all part of yet another social democrat programme and isn't three of those already quite enough, and, indeed, one of your (and mine) most frequent complaints?

TGF UKIP

PS, David Lindsay, your first post I completely agree with. One has only to look at the NOW YouGov poll to see that while the Tories have a massive 42% in the south east outside London, their lead in the North is an eminently bridgeable 7%.

One of the many reasons why the Tory euphoria so often witnessed on this blog is so very premature.

TGF UKIP

David Lindsay, your posts always get my closest attention but I do occasionally wonder where you are really coming from.

Free university tuition, free long term care, free prescriptions with, presumably, these and more "frees" to be available on a universal basis.

Sounds all part of yet another social democrat programme and isn't three of those already quite enough, and, indeed, one of your (and mine) most frequent complaints?

Teledu

Unless the think-tank condemned Wrexham, it can have no credence.

Dave B

The Tories have been holding their "post bureaucratic age" seminars at the CPS. What's the Demos connection?

Jack.B.Goode

"The whole United Kingdom, as such wants, needs and deserves publicly funded public services, proper local government, free university tuition, free long-term care for the elderly, and even the free prescriptions of the early Attlee years now enjoyed beyond England."

What everybody wants ? They have not (and never will have) any of these things.

This government is umming and arr'ing over £100 fuel vouchers to stop people freezing to death. The people will be dying in Sctoland as well as every other part of the country.

Why , because your beloved NuLiars party have p**sed all the money against the wall.

I'd love it if Labour won the next election , because they'd have to deal with their own mess rather than leaving the Tories to clear up once again...

David Lindsay

I cannot imagine where Jack B Goode gets the idea that I am any lover of New Labour! And these things are already happening everwhere except England. They are taken for granted, in fact.

TGF UKIP, I am far too conservative to be a capitalist, because I am far too left-wing to be a liberal.

Anyway, if the next General Election really does produce a Policy Exchange government dependent on the votes of the SNP, then perhaps in the three Northern regions (or, better, in the seven historic counties that they include - southern "Humberside" could, and would gladly, go back to Lincolnshire), we should declare UDI, and appeal for both American and Russian recognition and assistance, citing Kosovo to the former and South Ossetia (plus several others by then) to the latter? On what grounds could either possibly say no?

Hey

David Lindsay needs to learn how to operate a browser. The New Statesman and The Morning Star are ---> Spectator readers (and an insufficient number of editors) don't believe in "free" nor "state-provision". We are the ones who pay for all the "free" services and find they offer crap value for money.

As to there being something outside the SE - err yes, sort of. Great places to go shooting, surfing, riding, and get away from the exigencies of daily life. Cities and regions that are fit for purpose have no need or desire for government assistance. They rather complain about the government getting in the way.

Liverpool, Manchester, etc. didn't used to need government to keep the lights on (granted this was before electricity, but still). Now they do. Rather than continuing to steal money from the Home Counties, wind them up and encourage those on benefit to move and get a job. Learning how to speak and dress in a civilised manner would also be appreciated.

TGF UKIP

David Lindsay, I must admit I'm beginning to wonder. "I am far too conservative to be a capitalist because I am far too left-wing to be a liberal."

It's that "because" that bothers me.

David Lindsay

Oh, it's reversible, TGF UKIP.

But space is limited here, of course.

"Cities and regions that are fit for purpose have no need or desire for government assistance"? I don't know where that leaves London, Hey!