@Jonathan_Hinder
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When American prospectors mined for gold, and the gold ran out, they didn't expect the government to maintain the precise level of employment in the precise same area as before. In extreme cases they abandoned their ghost towns and moved.View quoted post on X
This is how our economy worked before 1945 too. At one point Norwich and York were among our largest cities. Then economic opportunities shifted and they shrank relative to places like Manchester and Newcastle.
Now the economy has changed again. Massive coal mining is no longer economically viable. And yet some people presume we must freeze the country in aspic as if the economic opportunity has frozen in time too. As if the jobs must be forced to be precisely where they happened to be when the mines ran dry. This is the death knell of economic dynamism.
Economic prosperity has to mean mobility. Britain needs a greater degree of internal migration.
Frankly jaw dropping the number of constituencies where welfare spend exceeds income tax and NI raise.
Real devolution would halt the extreme extent of current fiscal transfer away from the productive bits of the country.
Funny how our leading devo maxxers never address this.View quoted post on X
