How long can this Government turn deaf ear to North?
OVER the years, this column has lamented on multiple occasions the fact that our local MP Jake Berry, hasn’t taken more of a stand against his own government on issues which have an impact here in Rossendale.
Council spending cuts, police cuts, real-world school funding cuts (if headteachers say they are doing more with less, we should believe them), lack of transport fundings… the list goes on.
That changed at the weekend, when Mr Berry emerged as the new leader of the Northern Research Group, a band of Northern Tory MPs who have come together to make sure the voice of the North is heard by ministers.
As Mr Berry notes, the Tories can’t win a general election unless they win seats in the North. While it’s a good decade or more since Mr Berry won Rossendale and Darwen off Labour’s Janet Anderson, it’s only last year that the Tories got a manageable, long-term majority after winning areas like Hyndburn and, remarkably, Burnley too.
Make no mistake, if those in Government have any sense about them (a debatable point, given the utter shambles of the supposed simple tiering of Coronavirus restrictions announced this week), they will be alarmed by Mr Berry’s decision to lead the NRG.
Mr Berry has been nothing but loyal to his party’s leadership over the last decade, even at times when it will have put him at odds with local feeling.
That’s not to say he’s not stood up for the constituency against government, but most of the time he’s done that behind closed doors, as is often the way when you are a government minister.
The Conservatives have treated the North with contempt since the General Election. Grants get flung at us every now and again but the promises to ‘level up the north’ have so far proved hollow. A fast railway line between London and Manchester does not level up the North. Nor does a fast train between Leeds and Manchester. It does nothing for areas like Lancashire, which not only suffer a North/South divide but also suffer an interregional divide too.
Mr Berry was the public face of the Northern Powerhouse under Theresa May. He kept the post after Boris Johnson, who he campaigned for to become leader, for a while, and expressed hope that the frustrations of doing the job for Mrs May - lots of talk, but little to show for it - would be replaced by real action.
Instead, after Northern seats added to the Tory majority, Mr Johnson essentially scrapped the role of Northern Powerhouse Minister in a reshuffle, when many in the North had been expecting to become a fully-fledged cabinet post.
Instead, bits of the job went to multiple people.
Yes, it’s possible to blame Coronavirus for a lot of things not happening this year, but even the Government’s behaviour this week towards the North, trying to bully councils into going into the most restrictive tier of restrictions when the evidence doesn’t back it up, shows that areas like Rossendale are utterly alien to them.
That Mr Berry, along with others like Hyndburn’s Sara Britcliffe, are joining up to ensure the Government knows it needs to deliver on its promises, is a powerful statement. Whether it makes any difference, time will tell.
When it comes to Government delivering in areas like Rossendale, for North you might as well read Narnia.