Risks and opportunities if power gravitates northwards

IT HAS become political truism of the age that those outwith London see the great metropolis as a malign influence on the rest of the UK, lavished with public infrastructure, wallowing in private investment, awash with the cash of the global super-rich.

Nowhere has that been more of an article of faith than among SNP parliamentarians, but one has made a much more nuanced argument that also finds space for the growing possibility of a “northern powerhouse” as another factor in the UK’s complex economic and constitutional equation.

Glasgow South MP Stewart McDonald argues that Scotland should see London not solely as a threat, but as a business opportunity to help Scotland compete with any resurgence in the north of England. Nine months before the independence referendum, the-then Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, Vince Cable, spoke of London as “a giant suction machine draining the life out of of the rest of the country”. One month later, Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics said: “London is the dark star of the economy, inexorably sucking in resources, people and energy. Nobody knows how to control it.”

Alex Salmond liked this analogy so much that he quoted from it in a lecture two months later, arguing that an independent Scotland with its own strong economy would benefit the north of England. “There would be a ‘northern light’ to redress the influenced of the ‘dark star’ rebalancing the economic centre of gravity of these islands.” Events have moved on. Scots voted to remain in the Union, Mr Salmond is no longer SNP leader and the Conservative Government says it is committed to strengthening the cities of the north of England, economically and politically. Two things will be central to the outcome of this initiative.

One is whether a second phase takes high-speed rail north of Birmingham, something that remains in doubt. The second is whether or not the voters of the north embrace the idea of devolution, given their decisive rejection of John Prescott’s proposals in 2004 for the north-east.

Failure to finance HS2 would fuel northern resentment but if high-speed rail progressed into Lancashire and Yorkshire and regional devolution took hold, Scotland might have a problem with competition from a re-awakened and re-energised north with superior connections to London. Glasgow Chamber of Commerce voiced this fear and it lies behind Mr McDonald’s idea of forging better links with London. “We should not look at dealing with London as if it was a boil on the back of our leg; we need to look at it as a source of opportunity,” as he put it.

It is also why Scottish ministers insist that if HS2 heads northwards from Birmingham, HS3 must commence simultaneously from Edinburgh and Glasgow to meet it. Besides, if northern devolution sees powerful city regions handed control of, say, health, will their MPs have a vote on health issues at Westminster? What of the West Lancashire Question and southern votes for southern laws?