Words Dept.: entry

The Policy Exchange, a “centre right” think tank, has suggested in a new report that people in Liverpool and some other places in the north should abandon their cities, which are “beyond revival”, and move down south.

While that is undoubtedly a daft suggestion aimed at stirring up controversy, the fact remains that Liverpool is a city in a place where, in the 21st century at least, nobody really needs a city. I love Liverpool (some of my close relatives are Scousers) but it’s out on a limb and can’t compete with Manchester. Until the day when the docks make a comeback, that isn’t going to change.

As the report’s co-author, Dr Tim Leunig of the London School of Economics puts it:

People in Liverpool are better off than ever before. But they have only got better off at the same rate as the rest of the country, so Liverpool is not catching up with London or the south east. It is not because people [in Liverpool] are lazy or feckless. It is because Liverpool is less well-placed to do business. The chance of Liverpool catching up with the UK average in the foreseeable future is close to zero.

Predictably, the Liverpool Echo doesn’t quite see things that way. Grabbing enthusiastically at the bait, it dismisses the “boffin” and focuses on Liverpool’s new shopping centre (which, incidentally, lost its developer £190m before it opened), concert arena, cruise liner terminal and “Capital of Culture-led rebirth”.

How these projects benefit the city’s deeply deprived outer areas is not explained. They may lead to economic uplift on some level but the uncomfortable truth is that competitor cities like Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow have made equal or superior attempts at city centre regeneration during the last ten years, putting Liverpool back at square one.

Anyway, if you are an irate Scouser with nothing better to do, the Echo has printed speccy Tory boy Leunig’s e-mail address, so you can tell him what you think of his poxy little report.