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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:46 pm Post subject: Thinktank says northerners should head south |
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| Quote: | Thinktank says northerners should head south
Millions of people in northern England should move to the southeast because years of regeneration has failed to improve cities like Liverpool, Hull and Sunderland, a thinktank said on Wednesday.
The right-wing Policy Exchange, often described as Tory leader David Cameron's "favourite thinktank", said there was no chance of reviving many northern towns that thrived during the industrial era.
Instead of wasting more taxpayers' money, the government should help residents to move to more prosperous areas, like London, Oxford and Cambridge.
***Have your say on the idea here ***
One Liverpool MP called it "utter nonsense", while another in Leeds said it was "offensive" to write off whole towns.
The report's authors said they had expected the idea to come under fire, but insisted that radical change was needed to help people in declining cities.
"No doubt some people will claim that these proposals are unworkable, unreasonable and perhaps plain barmy," said co-author Tim Leunig, of the London School of Economics.
"But the issue is clear: current regeneration policies are failing the very people they are supposed to be helping and there is no evidence that the trend will be reversed without radical changes."
The report says coastal cities like Liverpool, Hull and Sunderland lost their raison d'etre after the decline of ship-building and ocean-going shipping. They are too big, too isolated and lack jobs.
The report called for a dramatic expansion of Oxford and Cambridge, with two million new homes built in the university towns by 2020 to help make them economic power-houses.
A further million houses should be built in London, where the best chance of economic expansion lies, the report said.
"No one is suggesting that residents should be forced to move," the report concludes. "But we do argue that they should be told the reality of the position: regeneration, in the sense of convergence, will not happen, because it is not possible."
The Conservative Party, which traditionally struggles to win seats in northern towns, distanced itself from the report.
Cameron last year set up a group to try to boost its support in northern England as he tries to end the party's long spell in opposition.
"We wholeheartedly support the regeneration of northern cities," said Chris Grayling, shadow minister for Liverpool.
Peter Kilfyole, Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, said the report made no economic or political sense and people in the north would not want to head south.
Liverpool City Council Leader Warren Bradley said: "Even the report's authors said it was likely to be dismissed as barmy -- it's the only thing they got right."
The report is online at: www.policyexchange.org.uk/Publications.aspx?id=704 |
from http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKLD17847720080813?sp=true
this could mean the end to the occupations of iraq and afghanistan, we'll need those troops to protect the south from the invading northern monkeys!  maybe its part of plan to create a buffer zone between england and those troublesome scots 
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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It's not often you hear of tories promoting economic migration.
Still, if all those people were to move south it would make property values drop like a stone in the northern areas, thereby making a nice long term opportunity for any common or garden right-wing thinktank member to invest and buy up large swathes of land. Then, when the pressure down south becomes too much, the move back north will be hugely profitable for those who were smart enough to get in... |
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Ash
Joined: 22 May 2007
Location: Al-Ard
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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 If it was possible to libel against that TT on behalf of the Northern cities, I'd ask them to do so...
As an economics research student, (who is concentrating on theoretical Economics,) I can tell you that it's simply baffling to me... Even pure theoreticians wouldn't recommend such things. It's probably a product of causality, that born out of prebuilt misconceptions that northerners are stupid, bla bla bla. It sounds like what I read in literature about corruption and economic underdevelopment developing countries. Underdevelopment leads to corruptions in poor countries, not the other way round. link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=88868 |
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