Michael Gove should be a bishop, not a politician. He smiles. He nods. He declares “missions” and blesses all and sundry. His current diocese is Britain’s northern cities, which are suffering the worst regional disparity of any OECD country and said to be crippling the British economy. Boris Johnson has acknowledged this in his “levelling up” agenda. But to govern is to govern, not just to mean well.
Gove’s Wednesday sermon on levelling up meant well, but he might have been speaking of a distant province of a forgotten empire. The people of the north, he said, deserved better transport, better education, better housing, training, health, science, anything you cared to mention. They should have it, God willing. He promised that mayors would be appointed, plans formulated and 22,000 civil servants sent out from London, like missionaries to the unwashed. But please don’t mention money. It is so vulgar.
The clear reality is that British regional policy has barely moved on since the days of Clement Attlee. Gove’s speech could have been delivered in 1947. To him, the cities of the north need big government and central spending. Making them level with the south is about more infrastructure and more welfare. That is what macho British ministers always say: theirs is a job for spades, diggers and hi-vis jackets.
If this was the end of the matter, the outlook for levelling up would be bleak, as it would seem there is no money to spare. Yet I tried to imagine the citizens of Frankfurt, Toulouse or Milan, let alone New York or Los Angeles, hanging on the goodwill of distant politicians for their future. I tried to imagine them being patted on the head by Gove and told to be patient. The whole Gove project is unreal. The only region Whitehall recognises is London. Reality is the chancellor Rishi Sunak’s infrastructure mega-projects: Crossrail in central London and a high-speed commuter line into London from Birmingham. Sunak embodies the so-called Matthew effect: “To them that hath shall it be given.”
The great unmentioned truth in any debate on the north-south divide is not the deprivation of the north, serious though it may be. It is the magnetism of London. It is summed up in a meeting of Manchester businessmen I once attended. They never mentioned infrastructure. They cried with one voice, “Why does London steal our young people?” I likewise recall a northern woman telling me that all her children and grandchildren had gone south, and never would return. When I commiserated, she beamed and said, “Oh no. They’ve all done very well.”
Gove did hint at this in his mission to improve something called “pride of place”. The dominance of London over all other English cities is unlike that of the capital of any other developed country. At its root is the steady disempowerment of these cities, stripped of their self-government until they are mere agencies of Whitehall.
Northern cities cannot now await London cash, least of all those not among Gove’s bizarre “top 20”, chosen for his special favour. Their revival will only start with a newly confident local leadership. Gove hints at more devolution and localism – a political promise so often made but never fulfilled. England’s current elected mayors are a powerless shambles that confuse cities and regions. Liverpool and Bristol both have two overlapping ones.
Every city and town should clearly have one mayor, executive and plenipotentiary. This is extremely common in Europe. The additional devolution of wider local control has had mixed results in Wales and Scotland, but it unquestionably boosts local pride and morale. Gove should give cities and counties tax-raising powers and far more fiscal discretion. With local taxes accounting for such a tiny percentage of public sector revenue, this is a recipe for Whitehall deciding everything.
Virtually the only real discretion British provincial cities have is over property development. This is why the leaders of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol can think of no way of competing with London other than by erecting garish towers of luxury flats in their central areas. They ignore the evidence that modern “creative clusters” – in design, marketing, the arts and entertainment – are drawn to historic neighbourhoods and old converted buildings. Manchester’s Northern Quarter and Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter are the Sohos and Shoreditches of the future, yet they are desperately under-protected.
Northern cities regard their Victorian heritage as a liability not an asset. They should ponder last week’s lavish London edition of Country Life. Significantly not a single modern development was pictured. Every up-and-coming neighbourhood, street or house in the magazine was built in the 19th century or before. That is true magnetism. The idea that government bulldozers and concrete mixers will reignite the vitality of these places is absurd. They need saving, not digging.
If conservation is one spur to civic renewal, the other is culture. Britain’s artistic and creative life is dominated by London. To see Hull and now Coventry declared “UK city of culture” is heartwarming – for Hull in 2017 it was worth a reported £220m in investment. But it demonstrates the yawning gulf with the capital. Every modern city should be a city of culture, all the time, and not have to be declared it (by London). The report last week that the V&A and the British Museum had brushed aside Gove’s request to establish northern branches spoke volumes about modern Britain. He is the boss. He should emphatically redirect cultural spending away from London, and compel its museums to disgorge from their basements hidden treasures that belong not to them but to the nation.
Last week the streets of London’s West End were heaving as the capital roared back to pre-Covid prosperity. You could feel the excitement. But the metropolis is truly blessed. Its galleries and museums, its music and opera are heavily subsidised, as is its transportation. We all know that London’s taxes support the north, but as my Manchester businessmen complained, it “taxes” the rest of Britain of its youthful talent in return.
If Johnson is to deny the north large sums of public spending, he can at least demand that London offers instead some of its magnetism. For it is that magnetism that will help the north back to prosperity. England’s great cities should be liberated to recover the civic pride they once enjoyed. That is their one secure renaissance.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
