If one wants to look at an example of why the government is messing up so consistently then look no further than parliamentary under-secretary of state for levelling up Dehenna Davison who managed to send the wrong video link to a major conference.
Davison was scheduled to be speaking at the Great Northern Conference that took place on Wednesday at University Academy 92 in Manchester. Like all the other Conservative MPs and ministers scheduled to appear she managed to find some other pressing business to avoid coming up t’North.
So the hapless minister sent a pre-recorded video – it’s just that the wrong video was sent and instead a bemused and packed audience had to watch a short TikTok piece on the day in the life of Davison.
Look, it happens to the best of us but at a time when the government looks as though not only has it lost the plot but also most of the North then you would think they would try harder.
Government no-shows
The stand-out thing from this #OneNorth Great Northern Conference is that only Labour have turned up, Tom Forth complained onTtwitter. The CTO and co-founder @TheDataCity went on to say that “[Labour’s] Metro Mayors turned up. Their shadow cabinet turned up. Their MPs turned up. And the Tories, just as many will have been invited, any could have come, haven’t turned up”.
Yes, that’s right, not one Tory managed to make it to Manchester despite the fact that this is THE annual showcase conference for business in the North. And yet this government may well need all the support they can muster in those pesky red wall constituencies in the coming months.
It was eight years ago that the then-chancellor George Osborne first floated the idea of the Northern Powerhouse. He spoke of how, combined, the northern cities of this country could “take on the world”, waxing lyrical on how specifically getting the connectivity right would unleash all the power of the North.
Eight years later and we are no further forward. In fact, this particular train has never left the station. If anything it is going backwards and is beginning to cause real anger amongst Northern politicians, with Labour’s Rachel Reeves claiming that plans to downgrade Northern Powerhouse Rail, also known as HS3 “[are] a huge let down for the North and a betrayal of everything that was promised”.
Reviving forgotten places through connectivity
This conference kept coming back to transport and connectivity. Most notable was the speech from Finbarr Dowling the localisation director of Siemens Mobility Ltd.
He talked of how the forgotten places of the North need to be remembered. Places like Goole which has the UKs deepest inland port and could be part of the northern renaissance. Instead it punches below its weight due to poor connectivity. It is hard to get anywhere by train and notably poor connections to get to Leeds – one of the financial and jobs centers of Yorkshire.
It would be easy to have a pop and say nothing has changed since Osborne talked of unleashing the power of the North. Having been to most of the annual Powerhouse conferences since its inception there is the pessimist in me says that the only thing that changes is the year – content and issues have not moved on.
This is patently unfair. The technological advances, the people making the difference are there in abundance. And so much of this conference heard from business leaders that were women. That certainly wasn’t the case eight years ago.
Listening to Philippa Glover, MD CNC Robotics (Hull) talking about advanced creative thinking and the need to develop more learning factories as they do in Germany was quite inspirational. Then there was Tristia Harrison – CEO of TalkTalk – explaining how we need to think differently about building new technologies. And Sara Prowse, CEO University Academy 92 provided an educator’s lens on the skills gaps. Trish Blomfield, country manager, Intel UK posed the question of whether Generation Z were ready for the new wave of technologies.
Resources and talent in abundance but still lacking investment
But the issue of connectivity in the North still was there lurking like the elephant in the room that it has become.
“I’m fed up with us being treated as second-class citizens. We should not accept what we are given”, said Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham. Going down a path well-trodden now with Burnham, he spoke of how it’s simply no longer acceptable for the government to say no to the public infrastructure we need and at the same denying giving the North the tools it needs to resolve the problem.
It’s a theme picked up by South Yorkshire mayor, Oliver Coppard, who says that we are simply fed up of “having things done to us”. “I will not have it that we simply lose out again in the North”, said Coppard.
“Our Conservative mission is to spread prosperity to every part of the country – £1.7 billion in new Levelling Up Fund will help deliver that”, gushed the government in the autumn statement.
Seriously?
The audience at this year’s Northern Powerhouse are still as committed to the North as they were in 2016. There are some amazing things going on. Advanced medical technologies, manufacturing, new green energies are just that – advanced and in some cases world leading.
Perhaps though, if this government really takes the North seriously they should consider actually turning up at these key events that showcase the best that the North has to offer. Choosing not to will be remembered. And quite rightly so.
