So now we know how Labour intends to try to head-off the threat from Reform UK. It is going to fight them on the tram lines. Rachel Reeves will announce this morning £15 billion worth of new tram lines in the Midlands and the North as part of a £113 billion package of public investment. There will be £2.4 billion for trams in the West Midlands, £2.1 billion for a new tram system in Leeds, an extension of the Manchester tram system to Stockport and an embryonic tram system between Derby and Nottingham.
The idea of a ‘north-south divide’ is 25 years out of date. The gulf now lies more between the large, prominent cities of the North – Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle – and the much less-favoured hinterlands
‘A Britain that is better off cannot rely on a handful of places forging ahead of the rest of the country,’ she will apparently say.
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