This does seem most sensible to us

So, we’ve been trying this for a century then:

Yet all governments in the past century have wished for faster growth and have still found the need for regional assistance.

The this being:

Fothergill notes that for almost a century, governments of all political stripes have pumped money into the less prosperous parts of the country in attempts to boost local economies and cut unemployment.

It doesn’t seem to have worked. The depressed areas are still depressed, the economically vibrant ones economically vibrant. Perhaps - as with that banning of new economic activity in Birmingham and Coventry the planners tried - having bureaucrats at the centre decide which industry goes where isn’t a good idea?

Therefore:

That support has now been largely removed.

Sounds entirely sensible to us. Stop doing things that don’t work. And?

As Larry Elliott asks:

The real question is whether there is a point to regional policy at all. If the north-south divide is now wider than it was in the 1930s, isn’t there some rationale for giving up on the idea altogether?

Yes. Sadly Larry disagrees but that’s hardly unusual between he and us. It doesn’t work. Don’t do it. We do not find this to be difficult logic.

As to what should be done there is that idea of freeports, special development areas and so on. Where the burden of the bureaucracy is reduced in order to try to puff the embers of potential growth. Which has some merits, but to us if we are now all agreeing that the burden of bureaucracy retards growth then why aren’t we lifting that burden for everyone, everywhere?

Tim Worstall