Freedom for the South-east!

I once got bashed up by the late John Smith. It was at one of those charm-offensive lunches in the City, and he had asked why London’s booming financial firms kept all their jobs in the South-east rather than sharing them round the rest of the country. My mistake was to suggest that dispersing jobs like that might damage competitiveness and profitability. Such innocence. A couple of charming karate chops later, I was stretchered off and never asked back.

Afterwards, of course, I realised what had been required: regional empathy, some breast-beating about past failures, and a People’s Pledge to forge a new …er, well, partnership. I could then have settled down to the rest of my prawns.

But I would still have spent the next ten years brooding about it. Because surely the South-east already provides massive support to the rest of the country, without hobbling its most successful industries with some half-baked job-sharing scheme.