Tim Leunig (pronounced "Looney") works for the shadowy organisation Policy Exchange (motto : "Death to the North") who are said to be David Cameron's favoured Think Tankers. He has on their behalf excreted a policy document "Cities Unlimited - making urban regeneration work".
If you feel like reading the full excretion, click here, although on second thoughts, please don't - you'll just encourage them.
In summary, what they suggest is that Northern English (mainly coastal) cities like Liverpool, Blackpool and Sunderland have had it and the inhabitants should quit moaning and move to Oxford and Cambridge so they can live on an overpopulated flood plain and be less of a strain on the country.
I'm sure the inhabitants of Oxford and Cambridge wouldn't relish a sudden influx of a million Scousers, Mackems and Blackpudlians and I'm damn sure the above would already have decamped south were they so inclined.
To David Cameron's credit, he is treating the document like a dead plague rat - after all this isn't the sort of stuff you bring up BEFORE you get elected.
The North is not all bad and the South is not all good (hint: Croydon). People are not relocatable economic units and there is definitely such a thing as Society. You do however suspect there are some undercover Thatcherites who still believe otherwise.
They got it spot-on for Blackpool though - the sooner they move everyone out, demolish the place and start again, the better.
1 comment:
I nearly had a pop at this one as well. I suspect the authors of having a CSE in mathematics between them.
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