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Cameron: Insane to move northerners to London
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor13.08.08
David Cameron today lashed out at "insane" calls by his favourite think tank for a million northerners to migrate to London.
A report by Policy Exchange said it was time to give up on cities such as Liverpool and accept that the best solution would be to expand the capital to take in newcomers.
But Mr Cameron, on a three-day tour of the North-West, distanced himself from its conclusions saying: "The authors have themselves admitted it is barmy. It isn't, it is insane. Regeneration of our northern cities has been a key Conservative theme over the past three years, and one of the first things I did as leader was to set up the Cities Taskforce to look into how we can further renew and regenerate our great cities."
Government minister Vera Baird, the MP for Redcar, said: "Cameron can distance himself from this all he wants but he needs to explain why his friends have no faith in the North. This is exactly the sort of vindictive, anti-northern thinking that led to the widespread industrial decline of the North under Thatcher. Apparently this is once again in vogue in Notting Hill."
Authors Tim Leunig, from the London School of Economics, and James Swaffield, from Policy Exchange, say in the report, Cities Unlimited, that a decade of Labour's regeneration policies had failed to narrow the North-South divide and that cities such as Liverpool should be allowed to shrink.
It also recommends expanding London by 450,000 homes. It says: "There is every reason to think that London is currently below its economically optimal size. No one is suggesting that residents should be forced to move but... regeneration, in the sense of convergence, will not happen because it is not possible."
It recommends allowing landowners to convert half the 6,528 acres of industrial land into residential land for 50,000 houses and increasing London's size by a mile to allow for another 400,000 houses.
Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, chief economist for Policy Exchange, said: "No doubt some people will claim that these proposals are perhaps plain barmy. But the issue is clear: current regeneration policies are failing the very people they are supposed to be helping." An independent survey in Country Life of 1,100 city dwellers found that 80per cent would prefer to live in the countryside with 97 per cent believing it had lower crime levels than the city.
Reader views (14)
It would be daft to bring all the Northerners down south. It would make more sense to stop all the money made in the south being spent on the people in the north which is what Nu-labour are doing.
- Tom, Watford UK
If they carry on expanding London it will soon reach Liverpool anyway. I used to live in a quiet suburb on the green belt called Enfield, now it is part of Greater London and still growing. Not far now to Watford.
- Anon, UK
Presumably moving the people to where there are (some) jobs is, from a Tory perspective, more acceptable and less dirigiste than directing the jobs to go where there are at present people available to do them?
- Hedgeblog, London UK
Oh don't worry about this. Its just another darned 'Out of Touch' Conservative Politician flapping his fat lips, just to hear the sound of his own fat voice!
Just shows how out of touch some Politicians really are. He does not understand his history. The 'Engine Room' of the British economy started in places 'Oop North', not in the money Markets of London.
London might be the centre of this Geezers Universe, and civilization might stop north of the Watford Gap for some ignorant people. The 'Real People' do live Up North. They are the Salt of the Earth and posh nincompoops like this geezer would to well to remember this.
As for this Tory 'Stink Tank', that is all it is - just opinion. The old statement of 'Empty Vessels Make Most Noise' comes readily to mind!
- B Clark, Chelmsford England UK
Labour MPs can say that this is Conservative "vindictive, anti-northern thinking". It isn't Conservative policy! Labour MPs should mention their "vindictive, anti-London, anti-British, anti-England" thinking.
- Cameron, London
I only have one question.
Will they be given elocution lessons, or will we be offered free lessons in understanding Scouse?
- George, London
At first sight I thought that you had at last published something correct about the Conservative Party. However when I looked closer I saw that the headline was not 'Cameron Insane'. Oh well at least I've still got something to look forward to.
- Charles Hurst, Hammersmith
It's funny really. Dave's favourite think-tank have got it wrong this time. I thought that the bloke was going to take advice from all of his think-tanks to discover what he believed in. Think-tankers must be cockney rhyming slang!
- Barrington Hurst, Hammersmith
Liverpool's port is dealing with more cargo in its history and expanding. The port is having massive Post-Panamax container and Fruit & Vegetable terminals built to cope. At no time has the UK traded more with Europe than the rest of the world and Liverpool trades mainly with the rest of the world. The airport is Europe's fastest growing. The regeneration in the city is largely private money - Shanghai interests are proposing one of the UKs tallest building in the middle of a dock. The World Heritage Site dock areas are being rebuilt. The skyline of the city has changed dramatically in the past 5 years. Not one penny was given by the government for the current Capital of Culture year.
The Liverpool conurbation is over 1.5 million. Are all these and those of Leeds, Manchester, Sunderland, etc, to re-locate to London, Oxford and Cambridge? Madness indeed. If this is Tory policy, then I prey for a Labour government at the next election.
By the way, London is predicted to go the way of New Orleans. Many Londoners should be re-located elsewhere and large flood prone areas abandoned and made into parkland.
- John, London
Is Mr Cameron's think tank serious?! If London's suburbs are to be expanded by 450,000 homes then how on earth will London's infrastructure and council services cope! Furthermore, some people move to the suburbs because it's quieter, not because they want to be swamped by more and more people.
London's transport system is at bursting point and can't cope with commuters as it is. I can't even get a seat on the train most mornings and had to wait for 6 tubes to go past before I could even get on one of them! Perhaps Cameron's "think tank" would like to see what Waterloo and the other stations are like during the week. Go there and actually see and get real. You have to cue up for ages to buy tickets, and the station is so crowded because of the number of commuters and delays, you can't move.
Who or what on earth is this "think tank" - they need an IQ test! At this rate I will be moving up North!
- Jenny Elliott, London
Is Britain a society or a business park?
- Mike Newland, London
Policy Exchange's proposal is indeed absolutely crazy. To deliberately increase the size of London is just going to increase everyone's commute times and add to the congestion on commuting routes, which must reduce the quality of life for most people in the capital!
And haven't they read about the already enormous pressure on natural resources, water supply and so forth in the South East? You have got to find ways of encouraging people and businesses to move AWAY from London, not into it.
- Martin Lowdon, Lutterworth, Leics, UK
London is massively over-crowded, over-priced and under-serviced. All but the top few percent have a very low standard of living largely due to a lack of housing. Who on the national average salary can afford a flat here these days? Very few I suspect, certainly not if you want a sub-90min commute. Many people spend every penny on transport and rent with very little to show for it at the end of the month.
More people in a city that already can’t cope? On a hugely over-priced transport system that is filled way beyond bursting point? Commuting what, 3-4 hours a day? Expanding the suburbs and destroying the green-belt, the last refuge Londoners have from the dirt and chaos of the city? Are these people serious?
I think this conservative ‘think-tank’ needs to pop out of the old etonian gentlemans club once in a while and take in a bit of the reality of the average tax-payer.
I don’t see why, in a world of technology and the internet, we all need to sit in these huge Conurbations to find work. If anything we should be looking at encouraging businesses to open in other cities, providing incentives to move people out of the South East and distribute people more evenly around the country. This would benefit both London and the other cities that would get an injection of life and money from the new businesses and people.
I for one would be out of London in a heartbeat if I could get similar work elsewhere.
- Luke, London, UK
So you build on 3,000 industrial acres: where do those jobs go? China? What 'high-skilled, high-wage service jobs' do they have in mind? The City is laying off, if these people haven't noticed, and it'll become progressively easier for the rest of the world to raise their own service industries than to pay our 'high-wage' prices: as we already know, you can put call-centres anywhere, so this is a long-term structural shift, not just a blip.
In my Borough all the workplaces are being gradually replaced by housing: thousands of places have gone, so most of the population commutes outside the Borough to work. This obviously cannot be a solution for every Borough!
The subtext of this paper is that northern proles should be imported to live on peripheral Sowetos to clean up for the city-wallahs. Not a new idea, but we already have eastern Europeans doing just that.
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
