The View from 22 — Broken Britain, Osborne on the up and Spectator says no to a state-licensed press

Has national politics in Britain given up on the North of England? In this week’s cover feature, director of Policy Exchange Neil O’Brien argues that very little is being currently done to effectively close the growing North-South divide. In the latest View from 22 podcast, Neil examines the historical attempts to close the gap and why they have failed:

‘There have been endless rounds of discussion about structural reforms. Lord Heseltine on his piece ‘No stone unturned’ proposes this huge reorganization of local government and the massive transfer of powers and money to City regions. I don’t think that’s going to happen whoever is in government. I think the thing I would try and do differently —and the reason why we’ve failed since the war to close the growing gap between North and South — is that a lot of what we tried to do has been going against the grain of the market than trying to work with it.