The Political Economy of England

Transcript- The Political Economy of England

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to this webinar organized by the Center for English Identity and Politics.I'm John Denham.I'm the director of the center and very much like to welcome you to this event.The center's role very often is to raise issues that are all too rarely discussed. England itself is often not discussed in the national conversation.Politicians often refer to the country or Britain.The role of English identity is rarely acknowledged in academia.England position in the Union is often ignored in debates about.The Union and England cultural inclusiveness is rarely discussed when there isn't.A football team.Well, today is probably a topic that is even less frequently discussed.England political economy.Why is England economy the?Way that it is.And what does that say about our politics and our governance?I've got a great panel today.James Meadway, who's the director of the progressive economic?Forum is going to lead off.James of course was also adviser to John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor of the Exchequer.Simon Lee is a lecturer in politics at Whole Universe.Pretty Sarah Longlands is the director for the Center for Local Economic Strategy and we're hoping we'll also be joined by Arianna Giovanini, the acting director.Of IPPRNHaving waited a year and a half for a leveling up white paper, it's come out on the same day as this seminar, which is quite frustrating.Arianna has some.Media duties to carry out, but.Will be with us as she can be just to say to the people who've joined us. Please do use the chat function if you want to comment on what's being said, and please do put questions into the Q&A button.You can also vote there for questions.You would also like to see.Ask that have been put in by.Other people and I will try and lead the discussion from the questions that come in from that Q&A. So welcome everybody. And could I start by handing over to James Midway?Excellent there we go and that seems to.Be working I hope.Can people hear me?Yes, Yep.Good all right.Well, thank you.Thank you for the introduction.Thank you for the invite to to speak.I mean I, I suppose the the the the short presentation here comes out of the back of discussions with the the Labor government process, the.Labor together set-up and then produce a series of documents on the the kind of future Labor Party in the labor movement.Generally and really, I wanted to pick up on the idea of England having a political economy at all and trying to situate that in the the the sort of broader historical context of what is what we've taken as read as the experience of the British economy in particular over the last 100 and 5200.Here's the way in which the institutions that we have are not geared up to to think through the consequences of having this highly unequal, very unusual in many ways.Sort of developed capitalist economy.That that is produced all sorts of tensions, some of which have already made themselves very, I think, very manifest in in terms of regional inequality in terms of particularly demand for sort of Scottish independence.Increasingly sort of glimmerings of more autonomy in in Wales.Of results like we saw with the.Brexit referendum results in 2016, offload sales in 2017, general election result into a certain.Sent what Michael Gove will now be talking about in about probably about half an hour's time, which is the the leveling up White Paper is a response to to some of those pressures, but I wanted to put that in a kind of historical and economic context, so I thought it was quite a useful way to try and think about what it means. To say that England has a a political economy at all. That this is something that's sort of slipped.Under the radar, otherwise in in how we tend to think about sets of economic questions relating to what happens in the United Kingdom in general, and Britain in particular, and especially for anybody on the left, there's a sort of mindset.There's an image.It's sort of unexamined set of assumptions about how the economy works, which tend to immediately locate themselves in terms of thinking about British economy, rather than any subset of that, and I think the working David Edgerton has been particularly useful in sort of cracking that open a little bit and historicizing the idea of a British economy in particular.So yes, as it says, the leveling up white Papers is finally arrived and I think it's possibly even more delayed if that's possible than 18 months.I'm pretty certain jump Boris Johnson started talking about this when he became Prime Minister all the way back in the dim, distant past of summer 20.19 So so this thing has been delayed and delayed repeatedly, finally being issued forth onto the world today, to to, well, you know, slightly less than brilliant reactions from some some quarters people have seen the briefing over the weekend about its contents and and what we seem to have is 400 pages of various thoughts from Andy Haldane and his team and the how.We might deal with the.Inequality and and the problem of leveling up variously defined in practice, or it's entirely about what happens in England.I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated, but leveling up is about what happens in England and Scotland and Wales and forget Northern Ireland of course are very very separate questions from that point of view.It's interesting that this is now an established fact in in in British politics.So the problem of English inequality is something that that gets addressed at all.I think 2016, the Brexit referendum. The the striking result that you know every devolved administration, voted to remain in the EU. That but if you look at England.Nowhere except London. If you take the English regions voted in its majority to stay in the EU. So there's this, you know, dramatic sort of political disruption that that's taken place there. And of course 2017 general election. It was. It was a a leading.Theme for labor at the time, and I think it's particularly with the reactions to that election result.The loss of the Conservative Party majority, the way that Tories in particular reform themselves and successfully won.You know something great majority in 2019 is it is a response to to some of the sets of questions that were thrown up around the problem of.Giving this regional inequality and it is, I think, an issue of English inequality.We have to look.I wanted to to sort of throw this structure, which is the first time.I mean the.Inequality, particularly sort of geographically inequality, is something you kind of see in sense, particularly after 2008, and then just going back up to to waking and and seeing this.States that what was in the 2000s or relatively sort of prosperous high streets on me converting like lots of place.It's outside of London, actually inside of London, which is a point we could come back to, but outside of London we saw lots of formerly quite a prosperous High Street suddenly turning into these.Streets where there was a procession of shops which basically went charity chop shop, charity shop, Fried Chicken Shop, closed down, closed down charity shop, or at least that was the impression and then somebody saying it's not represented graphically like this and the the the the scale of inequality.That was occurring inside of the United Kingdom. This was tucked away at the back end of an ONS report for about 2012.2011 I think we found in 2012 shows all the EU members at the time arranged alphabetically which kind of makes the shock of it even more dramatic and shows the spread of gross value added.Person across each of those countries from the poorest areas to the richest and richest out on the right hand side.Porris on the left hand side and basically you can see that every country in the EU at the time has kind of spread different outcomes.There are four areas on the left and the rich areas on the right, and the organic cluster.And of course you look down, you find out what happens in the United Kingdom is incredible.Range of outcomes that goes all the way from.If you look at right at the top end, that's basically central London down to at the other end of time.If you go, you're talking about the.Maybe West Wales all the way down the bottom into the United Kingdom there.And that's an incredible range of outcomes.Economic outcomes to be contained within single sort of developed emotionally rather rich country and various specials that graphing and on their own.Simpson the economists have done version of the the as as the salience of this.Issue regional inequality really so.To take hold something along these lines is being reproduced, and there's been discussion about how meaningful is particularly sort of measures, but the other bit that's that's quite striking this in the phrase is less graphic way of looking at the same thing, it's just how far that spread of inequality relative to other European countries and developed countries in general.Kind of looking at.Something like the United States.If you if you want to get that kind of range of different outcomes within one one within one single country, how far that range of outcomes is driven by what happens in England and how far that out coming down is driven by what happens as a result of London?What you're looking at here is is first of all on the right hand side the the sort of.The mean the.Average outputs per person for each of those those regions in those nations.And then the.The dispersion on the measure of standard deviation from that mean.So it gives you a sense of kind of where the average sits and then how far everybody varies from the average and what you find if you look down is that the English regions mostly.Look quite a lot like Scotland that in terms of.The average color output per person that you'd find there in terms of the spread around that average and southeast is a little bit more unequal.You can see it's slightly higher standard deviation, but basically every bit like Scotland in terms of that sort of fairly crude overview of what an area is like, and it's London in particular, wildly skews absolutely everything else.That that.It's it's London that is both the.The average output appears to be high and everywhere else, but this is in create itself incredibly skewed on the measured output per area in terms of just a few areas within London.So in other words, there's there's a couple of places that, on the way we measure our productivity in the various.Fairly significant difficulties winter, but on the measure of productivity we tend to use a gross value added per person.There's a couple of places in London that dried this and then everywhere else is is far far below the the apparent meet, so the dispersion inside of London.The inequality in London itself derives what PSP, English inequality and that if you take London out of the picture, the rest of the country.At least in terms of its region, starts to look a little bit more like what you might see in Scotland in in particular, that isn't at all reflected in how you govern these places.It's not even slightly sort of picked up in terms of how these different regions these different parts of the country are actually able to to govern.Some steps and then of course the leveling up White Paper stays is supposed to be addressing some of that problem, but I suspect weren't really capture all of it.Now if you put in the kind of historic perspective for a historical perspective, what that process of of a specifically sort of English political economists also look like, this is these are sets of feeds from.Nicholas Crafts ignore historian Nicolas, crossing a few years back that attempt to calculate and again, there's all sorts of caveats and how.What this figure really means and how we used it, but let's take it something like output and a measure of development over a period of time.So spirits value added per capita across what I call 3, so.Of amalgamated Super regions in England, so S Midlands and.The north these.Are basically just the standard sort of English regions jammed together in their appropriate geographical areas, and then what you get is this sort of period from 1871, which is when crafts figures begin, and that's the kind of the end of the industrial revolution.The classic Industrial Revolution period.You get a process of divergent away from London.You can see that what's happening here is.The output per person is falling away. Everything here is being measured against what you see in London. London has this historic lead for centuries now relative to the rest of the country, you get a process of divergent from London as you come out of that industrial revolution period. There's any period of convergence across the rest of the country towards London from 1911.1980One and then what you see from 1981 is again even in the southeast of falling away a divergent away from London that London pulled further and further away since the early 80s.And this is quite a different growth process to to what was experienced and that actually really quite a long period of time over over much of the 20th century.So you can think of this.In terms of.It's different regimes of growth that you have rapid growth, and even before we look at this graph, rapid growth in the North of England, especially it's an of an unusual kind.These are cutting edge industries. This is cotton in particular that leads economic growth in Britain all the way through to the 1850s.Before economic growth becomes more spread.That it is quite distinct from what's happening in the rest of the country.Most of the country isn't industrializing, it's confined to a few places.It leads to the gap as far as we can tell between the North.Especially in what's happening in London, closing closing quite rapidly over that period of time, but it doesn't necessarily affect the rest of the country until really you start against the the the last part of the 19th century.There's a particular kind of politics associated with that.There's particular politics of the relationship between the most leading parts.Less developed uh industries and the rest of the rest of the economy that you see around demands for redistribution, in particular, that demands for constitutional change.Uhm, especially growth in charters in the 1830s through to through to really 1848 in the in the mid 19th century focus on corruption, dimancea redistribution, focus on constitutional changes.As as the answer to some of the to some of the particular sort of problems of inequality that developed there.This stabilizes after the 1850s as you see on the graph. There's a process there of what turns into divergents, and the rest of the country from London, but nonetheless a more widespread process of growth as other industries develop as different English regions start to grow in addition to to those in the north and those the leading edge of that.Of that period, there's also, I think.I think it's very clear there's also a sort of generalization growth in living standards that the falling wages really collapsing living standards of early industrialization starts doing.And then what you see is what what David Edgerton is described as the growth of British nation.Really from the Inter War period and this sort of instability and lots of other things happening obviously not least a couple of world wars that happened during this period of time.But there's an assembly of a a more egalitarian, more nationally focused more British.Specially focused economy from the Inter War period onwards right away through in his descriptions in 1970s, this comes out of the interval.Crisis that missed.Yeah many many different processes taking place, but by the 1970s you have a relatively a gala tarian, quite heavily Sentinel manufacturing, quite high investment, relatively fast growing economy, in which the different regions actually start to catch up with London for the first time. Essentially since the early Industrial Revolution period that falls apart, and by December these for.For a set of reasons that we don't need.To particularly cover here.What you get under neoliberalism since the end of the 1970s?Is separate parts of the of those earlier growth regimes sort of being reintegrated that you have London, especially charging ahead of the rest of the economy based on service sector growth as it was under this period of of sort of empire growth that was the London growth regime, there doesn't have the same process.Of manufacturing growth in this country, quite the opposite, stark sword industrialization that this does deliver relatively higher rates of growth, especially in the 2000s, and with some redistribution it looks relatively egalitarian.But the underlying process.This is 1 where you have the diversions of English regions. False part really in two parts in 2008, and then the the economic crisis and the political crisis.2016 to 19, partly resolved by the the the economic by the general election in 2019. Although then of course we fall straight into to COVID just to wrap up on this point what you see.Throughout all, this is not much change in terms of the British regime, the sort of national regime that are overseas.It's some devolution in the latter.Part of this growth ratio.To Scotland and to Northern Ireland and to to Wales, but very, very little affects England that you have the politically correct.You have a a political setup which is designed around and works well.When you had a British national economy that's functioning this way, it sort of makes sense to have the degree of centralization in Westminster and to have a a British.The government overseeing this.But once that starts to fall away, you're left with these structures that are not particularly well adapted to a growth regime that is.Producing divergance that isn't creating a national economy in the way that you would have seen from the 1930s through to the 1970s that you have structures that don't fit well with this, that perhaps in Scotland.In Wales you start to see new structures being created that can deal with their own sort of national growth regimes.You don't have anything like that up here in England, and of course you you at the same time and and I'm going to.Wrap up in this point you have in particular Social Democratic left, that nonetheless tends to think about the need for British growth.It doesn't think it's all about what it means to have different nations operating inside of this sort of British economy that it hasn't really thought beyond.And the point is saying well, we need some kind of return to British national economic growth by user in a you know, back to the 70s sorted version the the parody version of of communism that you must go back to this British national economy and make it really good again.Or you can see some of the versions adaptation I think in in in attempts to sort of.You know, do a sort of post Corwin Aurora Post 70s version of this, which is it's to start to try and talk a lot about Britain.How important is to wave flags and talk about Britain without getting into the the the obvious divergent?This is an obvious inequalities of British economy.We actually live with, which is increasingly looking like several and separate economies as a result of the, you know, the sort of failures and neoliberalism.The collapse of the British growth regime and a political economy that that, or at least understanding in politics, especially on the left.That doesn't take much account of this.This process has changed the shift in the growth regimes and then of course, and I just want to sort of run speculatively end in this, then very great difficulties that we're likely to face in actually returning to any form.Of sustained economic growth, or at least the high levels of economic growth we've seen in decades past.Looking into the future that once you have a relatively low growth regime, not just applying in Britain but applying across the developed world in general models of economics and models of political economy.Built around saying, well, we're going to get.Growth and this will make everything else a bit easier for it starts not very difficult.Think it works.You start to actually I I would suggest end up with a a politics that looks a lot more like that of the.Early part of the 19th century where growth looks very uncertain rather than the politics of the latter part of the 20th century, where growth seems to be something that everybody accepts and we we still ready to to adapt to a political adapt, our political imaginations to a world that that's starting to look like look like this.I'll finish.On that point.James, thank you very much.Thank you very much indeed.That's a great introduction to RR.If you can share your screen for a moment then we can see the other speakers.That's great, lovely thank you, so I'll go straight on now to get some commentary on what James has said.Firstly from Simon and then from Sarah.Please do if you're.What any webinar do? We've got one question in, but do put some more questions into the Q&A button for me because I'll find that helpful when we come to the discussion. But Simon, can we come?To you next please.Well, thank you very much, John, and thank you very much for the invitation to to speak today.It is an absolute pleasure to.Be discussing this subject, which is something that my longstanding students have heard me Wittering on about.Now for for three decades, and it's great that now the actual public policy debate is is starting to focus on this issue.I think just to follow on from what James said, and indeed what John has said in all his.Contributions of recent years when he's been very much a lone voice, often in the the dark on this particular topic.What the political economy of England is, and indeed the subject of inequality, is a political and an ideological choice, and I think we should never lose sight of this, as indeed on this very day.Is the the governance, or perhaps now we have to call it the governance of England itself.And so I just wanted to make.Three points sobriety about this particular subject of the political economy of England. Because my research and teaching is very much dedicated in the spirit of my once and long-suffering PhD supervisor David Edgerson is about challenging the established way of understanding.The history and the political economy of ink.So first of all, just to return to the theme of inequality in England, I think obviously we do need to repeat the point in relationship to the short term causes of inequality that since 2010 austerity was the wrong political and ideological choice for.England we need to do that because I suspect in the forthcoming months, depending upon who succeeds Boris Johnson, we are going to be revisiting some of these arguments.Particularly she sunak, is Johnston successor and given.The impact upon public services and poverty and inequality in England that's arisen from this mistaken political and ideological choice.I think it's very important that we can test that. Secondly, we need to go back in the medium term to 1974 and the way in which Margaret.Thatcher is Keith Joseph.Changed the terms of the debate about British decline and their understanding of the history of the United Kingdom and indeed England.They promised us a a restored enterprise culture driven by entrepreneurial initiative where the market would be the discovery process.For a renewed period of prosperity of new services.Books what they have delivered is what I would call not an enterprise, but are enterprise economy in England.That is to say, an economy where successive governments and their legislation, their policies have promoted a rentier rent seeking economy.They've boosted the property market.And I think again, if we want to understand the causes of inequality and the political economy of contemporary England, we need to understand that particular narrative and how.If you look at the the figures for economic growth in subsequent governments, the economy has been slowing progressively ever since.Indeed, the the heath government.Of the early 70s.But the Third Point I want to make in the most fundamental one is and it goes to something that James also addressed.We need to think about the history of England and how it's being misunderstood and misrepresented, particularly by the Brexiteers people like Mr.Daniel or such.Course he now Lord Hannan.Who have argued that?That the the English invented history that we are a country whose and and the English speaking peoples who share the common law and free trade and free markets.And this is our gift to the world and what my research is dedicated to is trying to show that in fact, although England.Was one of the, if not the first industrial nation.Just because it was the first industrial nation does not mean that it was not a developmental state.That is to say, it was not necessarily a state that didn't pick and back specific industries.And indeed you know the great project was the construction of the empire, because what?We've had in our thinking about the political economy of England is a narrative.What I would call the other country narrative where.People both on the left and the right when they look at England they they tend to argue that all our problems arise because we've not followed the path of other later industrializing states, notably Germany.Japan, in particular South Korea, whereas what I would want to suggest.To you is that if we look.Back before the industrial Revolution, before the era of Adam Smith, when a lot of the stories about political economy start, what's not been acknowledged is that England was a developmental state, and indeed there was such a thing in the 17th century called the English Enlightenment.And a major part of that was the development of political economy as a discipline in England.So when we come to look at these contemporary questions for me, it's not just about as I'm sure we're all to do today.Looking at the leveling up White Paper and looking at the short term challenges, fundamentally I think that what we need to do is to look back at our actual history and acknowledge.That in the past in England the state was proactive and very successful in in so doing in promoting.The development of the national economy, and indeed within that that nation.Various parts of the economy we need to challenge the idea for the last 40 years of what I would call the developmental market that Margaret Thatcher, Saki, Joseph and all their disciples have put.Ford, subsequently, which argues that for England, the appropriate political economy is 1 where we roll back the frontiers of the state.We liberalize and deregulate in the spirit of Britannia Unchained.I would submit to everyone that if you look at the condition of England today, if you look at the figures that have been highlighted by the Marmot reports of 2010 and 2020 England and the condition of its people is one that demonstrates in every respect that the pursuit of that agenda over a 40 year period.Has been nothing short of catastrophic for large parts of our country, and we can do better.So let's recognize that this is a question of political economy and I'm very pleased that that is the the phrase, because the economy has a constitution, it is not something that appears spontaneously.It is something that is shaped by laws, legislation, regulation.On policy it is a political and ideological choice.And I think as we develop a better understanding of England's distinctive political economy, that is the basis for then developing an alternative to the the policies that are currently being advanced by the present Conservative government.Thank you very much.Simon, thank you very much indeed and Sarah can I turn straight to you please?Yeah, thanks John and and thanks and thanks also for the opportunity to come along with this afternoon and give you some of my thoughts on on what is a really fascinating discussion.So I I just wanted to to talk to this subject from the perspective of an organization that that that I work for.Which is Claire's the Center for local economic strategies and and we do a lot of work in local economies in local places across the UK.We describe ourselves as the National organization for local economies, and we've been looking at these questions for since we were set-up 35 years ago and and so I want to kind of explore what's being said already, but through the lens of that kind of local economic perspective and and and.I I very much agree with with what James and Simon have have said so far, and the first point I wanted to make really speaks to to Simon's point about the sort of developmental market approach that we've seen.Because from our work you typically in in the UK the approach to intervention in local economies has been characterized very much by a rentier model by a very kind of a very kind of neoclassical approach, where it's about property development is about infrastructure to open up the market.It's about training.In skills for people because of what they can offer to the market rather than to themselves, and it's about the development of places for the, for the good of economic growth rather than because we want to create a good place for for people to to live and work.And and and where that model doesn't work.Uhm, we we tend to blame the people or or we blame the neighborhoods you know the left behind the hard to reach the disadvantaged and and.And of course, this is also predicated on the idea that if you develop enough of this growth and this mythical growth, then then that will will eventually benefit people on the ground.Will eventually sort out the economic and social challenges.That you face.But of course, you know.From our work and from lots of analysis that over the years.We know that even where that growth has appeared, so places like Knowsley, you know the second most deprived Umbra in in in in the country.Even when you get growth, even when you get the height, the housing we get the investment it it.It very rarely touches the sides when it comes to the economic and social challenges that that those places face and and similarly.In Manchester, you know years decades of investment of off now or transformation of the city centre.And yet the same long term and the challenges around health inequality, about long term unemployment.And now an increasing trend towards inactivity, which is which is really at an all time high.So there's there's a.There's a real, a real challenge there, in that there's a failure to ask who is actually going to benefit.From the interventions that we're making in the short and longer term and whose interests are we serving through this approach and nine times out of 10, it's not that.People who could stand to gain most from from any investment that that's coming from Whitehall or from the private sector.And there's a real fit.There's been a real failure, I think from from where we are sitting to connect the wealth that this country does have to, to communities and a real failure to give people a a proper stake in their own future so.I think that that's the first point, and the second point I wanted to make was just to reflect.The whole the whole notion of growth. I mean, James, talked about the growth regime and and Simon talked about the sort of developmental culture the enterprise culture which was hesseltine big thing in in in the 1980s and 90s. I, I think growth growth has been the driving ambition for most areas since.The 1980s, you know, when I was.Working in economic development 2 decades.Ago and and and.And more recently, everywhere you go in this country and you ask a chief executive of a council.You say well, what, what, what do you want to achieve in this area?So we want to grow.We want to develop our economy we wanna we want to see a rise in in our product.But very rarely do people say well what.What do we do if that growth never arrives?And then what do we do in the meantime while we're waiting for the great White Horse of Growth to come over the hill, and there aren't any easier easy answers to those questions and and, and I think from me growth 9 times out of 10 when you start to dig into what people mean by growth.They really mean a.It's a metaphor for positive change.It's a metaphor for purpose.It's a metaphor for progression and implicit, in that is about making people peoples lives better, but explicitly all you see is the is the narrative of growth.And so I think the question about the end of growth and what that means for the debate.Locally, I think is a really important one.A little bit touched on in in what we've seen in in in Germany, and the debate around your reunification.But it there's a lot, there is a challenge there about political choice, because politicians don't want us to start talking about the end of growth, particularly at a local level and.Of course, there's also an.Overlap there with the current debate about the transition to net zero.And it remains one of the ways in which I've tried to look at this in in in my own research is through it is to a metaphor of the ship of Theseus.So you know Theseus, you know as as well.I'm sure we're aware it preserved this ship.Basically, in in mythology to celebrate his victory of the Athenians over over the mind.At all.And it was.Preserved for so long, then they started to rock and they had to start replacing Timbers and they had to start like fixing it up all the time and and after a while people started to ask.Well, is this.Still the same ship, or has it turned?Into something else I.I I always think of that when we talk about place and identity, because there's there's places who.Have you know?Suffered huge transition, huge restructuring during the 1980s and 90s. Places like Oldham or Rochdale and and there's a question there about identity.Are these places still Rochdale?This space is still Middlesbrough or have they become something else and and how do you come to terms with that?That sense of law?Plus a sense of of a loss of identity as well, and similarly in places which are seeing massive growth.Places like Cambridge.There are several questions over people say you know Cambridge used to be a really nice small place.She's able to walk really easily.Used to be able to see the view across the whole city, and that's all gone now.And there's a similar sense of loss.Because of the the amount of growth that that has happened, that is, that has.Happened in in those areas.So there's something about you know so, So what is?You know, what is that sort of trip down Greek mythology tell us?Well, I think it.It's about.And it it.It tries to show how our thoughts on economy are about identity.When we talk about growth, we're not necessarily talking about the economy, but we're talking about place in peoples lives.And and I think trying to to to to broaden our scope to to to think less about growth and productivity, and and that that that.Economic question and tie it down more to what actually do people want to achieve.Well, actually kind of places to people where they live in the longer term, and that doesn't necessarily have to be about a rise in in in GDP.And about all the kind of interventions that you would normally make to try and accelerate that process.That's so sad.And then the last point, I wanted to make briefly is the one about democracy.The fact that it's not just our economy that is skewed by London but also our democracy and that most of this.From this, this market LED development this guy.There's very strong.Focus on on growth as the ultimate outcome has been driven by.People and and local areas have had very little choice in a context of austerity other than to put up their assets and their people for sale on on the market.And whether it's about building new homes to boost Council tax incomes so they can pay for social care, or whether it's about financialization of place with local government taking a much bigger stake.In local property, in order to boost their own coffers again because of the cuts that we've seen.And and that the absence the loss of capacity at a local level to think about this stuff and to start to to imagine what you could do differently, I think is a real challenge in the longer term.If we want to get to grips with the the levels of inequality that we've got and they and the real kind of insistence upon a particular model driven from white.Well, there there is no oxygen.There is no capacity at a local level to be able to to resist this or or to do anything and to to to to try a different approach.Which is why we, uh, class have been doing so much thinking about the royal community wealth building in this.Uh in this.Debate and whether that might be a way of of disrupting some of this, some, uh, this hegemony, in in, in in, the in the conversation about local economies.So that that.That's some all I wanted to say really just.A small note at the end, just the point about regional.About Scotland.Northern Ireland.Uhm, I think it's really.It's really interesting.'cause I think we are starting to see a slightly different conversation in Wales with the discussion around the foundational economy and Scotland around.The well-being economy and I and and some of the stuff we're doing at the minute, particularly Wales, suggests that there there is oxygen. There is a there is an opportunity there to to think about some of the stuff differently.And then to use that to to influence the conversation in England and at Westminster more generally.So I think that that that might be a an opportunity for for this conversation and and for the role of the political economy longer term.So thanks.Thank you very much, so thank you, Sarah and Simon and James.The initial introduction.Let me pick up a couple of questions and then draw out some themes if I can from the things that you've been saying and do invite, I'd like to invite other questions in as well.From one I think is probably one is fairly technical, maybe political too, but from Peter May, which I'll ask James to answer, which is to what extent are the figures you get for lunch?And essentially being London position at.The core of the frontier economy. So taking resources out to the rest of the nation as I understand Peter May's question.So if you could answer that, James, but could we then go on to pick up Martin Peppers point?And come to all three of you.I think we need to pursue this question of growth and the possibility of slow growth.Martin Pepper says what?What's what impact, in terms of regional growth, might or could the growth of climate change developments have I?I guess that's a question partly about ideas of the new deal.You know green, green new deal?Is that a new way to growth?A new way to regional development?Or are we?Looking perhaps at growth in itself being difficult.And therefore needing to look for another model of redistribution.And they you've all touched on that some part.But if I could throw that back to you but I'll come to you first.James, if you could pick up the London point.Yeah no, no thank you.I mean, I think it's a very good question.I mean, it's sort of unspoken and I I didn't mention it in the presentation that although I did reference the the problem with gross value added as as a measure for which which.Sarah picked up on as well as as a measure or a proxy for sort of well-being in a whole load of other things.You might actually be concerned about it.It doesn't necessarily tell you this, and for a very heavily financialized economy.In other words, one.Where there's a very large financial system, there's a lot of people in debt.There's a lot of people involved.In the management of debt in.The creation and trading of financial products.That's what we have in Britain, and for an economy where you also have and this is quite a weird one where you also have a very high rate of owner occupancy.And very high rates of property price growth.Both of these things distort.That's what gross value added or gross domestic product is going to be telling you about economic activity, because both of them kind of getting corporate imputed rents get incorporated into gross value, added the ways of facing, which is what financial intermediaries sort of activities gets incorporated into gross value added.So if you don't have a particular part of your car.Farming, which is heavily centered on financial activities and sees a property book.Then your measure of the output of that particular area is going to be distorted by those two things relative to what you might want to be looking at.So in other words, what you see is huge amounts of prosperity in London.Is registering something like clearly somebody there?It's making a large amount of money.But whether it's making money in the sense of doing something that's genuinely productive and useful, and making new things happen, or whether it's just sort of money shuffling exercises and that money coming from elsewhere in the country elsewhere in the world is much much harder to distinguish.So I think we have to be quite careful about just saying gross value added is going to tell you a desire.Yeah, but you know he's going to tell you that this is just a desirable thing for this economy to doing itself.I think I think Sarah is absolutely right to raise that and and it's not just the the sort of the subjective bit of well, there may be other activities that we do that don't necessarily featuring gross value added.It's that if we focus too much in Geneva, we'll get a slightly distorted or even a very distorted.View of what the different economies are actually like and how they interrelate to each other and the kind of activities.That are taking place there.Uhm, Simon Sir?Do you want to say anymore and and then I'll ask James to come back on the green green growth this Year 5 member Simon James.Do you want to comment on the.Yeah, I think. I mean, there's clearly a long term issue that goes back, I think to 1971, not just for England and the United Kingdom, but also it dates back to Richard Nixon's near economic policy. Because if you look at the development of the industrialized economies up until 1970.Austin Peppers question.The one the the share of Labour had in terms of how much of national income was going to to workers had increased, but ever since then we've seen a decline of about 10% of GDP in the UK and in England. As far as I can determine and that money.Has largely disappeared into the pockets of.Of financial services and rent seeking interests now. Why was that in the UK? Well, of course in 1971 the heath government passed the competition and Credit Control Act, which for the first time since the end of the Second World War, loosened up the banking system. So it had the freedom to lend.To anyone and not just to be directed by political authority. And of course, money flooded in 1972 into the property sector.And of course, Keith Joseph Margaret Thatcher saw that, and that's why when Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister, one of her first acts was to get rid of all remaining exchange controls and to free up this part of the economy.But you know there is an issue, not just for the UK, but what what's called secular stagnation across.All the industrialized economies.This long term failure of both the private sector to invest in a new real economic activity in growth.And of course there's been a problem in the UK and particularly.England have relative to other countries of declining public investment, but that again is a political choice. We could do things differently, and of course the original Green New Deal, which was Roosevelt's which was a green New Deal because it had to fix the Dust Bowl and the destruction to America.His environment, Roosevelt demonstrated 15 pieces of legislation in the 1st 100 days.You could, if you wanted to make a different choice.This is not a ineluctable development.This is a political choice that has been made by successive governments.It's about legislation and policy.And we could do things.Is differently and I think if you look at the various green, New Deal's all the way from the original ones of the United Nations in 2009 and the Green New Deal group in the UK in 2008 all the way through to the modern incarnations. The one thing that they share in common is that they are putting forward an alternative political economy.And it's very much about making different political choices, and all we need to do.I think in England is give people at the local level.Well, the freedom to to do what in Howell in my home city we used to to do was, you know, when the the Council built its own telephone network cubit housing after the war because it had the freedom to be able to do so.So it's not that we don't know how to do things differently, but if you've got a situation where successive.Governments have now imposed, I think at last count over 1400 statutory controls on local government in England, and every time there's been a change in government, the one thing they've.Never done is.To repeal any of those centralizing power.Hours, then if we want to do these things again, it's simply a matter of making different legislative choices, I think.Thank you Sarah, and what role the Green New Deal ideas fit into the the pictures of local economies that you've been trying to develop.Ah yeah, so uhm, I think what we where we've where we're starting to see it is in in conversations about some cost of living and in conversations about business support and and and skills and training.And we've also seen it in conversations.With local councils, who are?Are you know keen to to be trying to support net zero in their own areas because they've all got a fairly ambitious target to to reach.Net 0 by 2030 in some cases and and their explore well, how can they use their own influence to try and accelerate?And bring forward.A kind of.Green New Deal in in their own areas, but I think the the the discussion about.Net Zero is also a bit of a fault line for for some of this debate too, because obviously.Uh, there's a a real sense that it it it.It puts further pressure on you know what is I sometimes regarded as your kind of traditional British economy and and a sense that you know, manufacturing some traditional industries are are not wanted anymore and and and.And there's a real kind of, uh, I think fault line.There may not.And and and how we how we manage that longer term will will also be, I think a a political choice.And how we support workers who will have to have to.Kind of, you know, live through that transition is also going to be critical.And I think local councils have a have a key as well as unions have a have a key role to play in that.And just on the GBA point, I think one of the I mean, I think we there's a is a kind of a a fairly well established argument.Now that as.As James said, that GBA is a.Is a very poor proxy for.Uh, for for almost everything and and it's tends to be used in in quite a in a very, uh.I could get way in the UK so the international if national GBA is growing in well hey, everything's fine.We can carry on as we wear when in fact in some places you know GBA hasn't.Has has has has.Never recovered from from the 1970.Using eddies and so, I think the way which is used to generalize about our economic state and the condition of our people is is very problematic and and particularly so I would say I'd say in.London because you know.The GBA in in London is, you know, is is is always being used as a stick to beat other places with, but yet highest levels of child poverty.You know a a real issue with people having.To move further and.Further, out of the centre, particularly those on the lowest incomes.So you know that there's some.It's a even.It's not even really telling us what's going on.And even in the most successful places, and never mind in in those areas where where GPA is low.Thanks, can I pick up a point now from James introduction where he made the observation that we've been through all of these series of different periods of economic development without really having any significant changes to the Constitution and the way the British governance worked you have had now devolution?To Wales and Scotland, and to echo Simon's point, a big withdrawal of powers from.Local government a long time ago 1981 either Hampshire County Council or on the Education Committee, at which point we ran every school in the county appointed.Every headteacher were responsible for the curriculum and ran the entire skills and most of the higher education system in Hampshire.Nothing in the leveling up White paper is likely to bring that back.In fact yesterday.Observations seem to be taking more local authority, more schools away from any local influence or or leadership.But with that introduction, what sort of, in the broadest sense, constitutional changes this redistribution of power in England?Would each of you put forward as a priority to?To what extent is this taking seriously, very much about empowerment at local level?To what extent that's more emphasis from Simon, though he talked about localism, but changes of policy in central government that are required to do things differently.So, had you been writing the levelling up white paper, what what differences might each of you have made to the distribution of of power within England?Sarah can I come to you first?Yeah, I mean, you know, speaking as someone from rather I always find this question really interesting because.What we've seen in the devolution?Well, there's a question for me.But purpose of devolution, you know what is it you're trying to achieve, and I think a lot of the times with the devolution agenda.Today it's been about you know, securing competitiveness, economic growth and and all the things I've just been talking about, so.Uhm, I think there's a uh, need to recognize that that that constitutional reform that devolution is and.It should be.Driven by a desire to to improve the way our democracy operates.And and my God, doesn't it need a bit of a a bit of our life support at the moment, given you know what what's happening in.In Westminster, so I I think there's there's something about getting the purpose of of constitutional change and and uh, and devolution right?Longer term and.There's you know.With in in some sense, you've got demolition orders in Scotland, and they are.They're kind of getting on with it.There are questions about how well it works in the sort of the the centralism within those models, which I.Think is is.Problematic at times where you end up with everything focused on Cardiff, Belfast or or or.Edinburgh and other places feeling kind of disenfranchised from from that process.So, so there's a there's a there's a.There's a an issue there, I think for England they there is a real need to invest in local democracy and and I think all too often local authorities, local councils are scenes basically.Oh, they provide.The the services, they empty the bins and and and and and and and a few other bits and pieces and and slowly but surely more and more of their powers and their funding under influence has been eroded through the austerity regime.And that's not just that, you know, that the more of that they.Lose the less and they're less credible, their democratic role becomes because.There's less that there's less to argue about, basically.So, and there's less to hold them to account.And so, uh, but yet they still get the blame, obviously.So there's I think the we need to invest in that local democratic tier.Do we need tickets seriously, we need to, uh, resurgence of understanding and respect for for local government and and we need to to to really kind.And rethink how that interacts with.With national government, we've got the new deep millisor devolution now at.A regional level.But you know, I think during.The pandemic it was really.Striking just how poor the the the.Structures for communication and for.Coordination are between national government, local government, and even the devolved mayors who have, you know, arguably, more influence than than your typical local authority leader.And yet you have just a total meltdown in terms of communication and and poor coordination and.So we we.Through any kind of constitutional change we.Need to counter grips with that and.We need to start working.I would think.Towards a a much more federal light system, which really really starts to put in place.Proper institutions and investing in proper structures, which which means that it's not just a beauty.Contest between mayors.And it's not just local authorities having to try and do everything on the cheap and get the blame for it, but it's a you know, a proper functioning country.Where where there's a clear line of accountability and where power is transferred.So how was the long window?No, that's very good.That's very good.Thank you very much, Simon.The department for leveling up.Page about the today's White Paper says it's it's is going to deliver a complete quote system change in how government works.If only that was true.I mean, the first thing to acknowledge is that England has had a massive constitutional change over the last 40 years.But that change has been through the economy and again it comes back to my point that when you're passing laws and legislate.Asian constitutions are power maps, and the power map in England has changed out of all recognition, because the calculation that Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph Mate made.And I know this 'cause I I went and interviewed Keith Joseph at his London flat took him 20 minutes to open the door because they he just had an IR, a proof door fitted and he didn't know how it worked.But leaving that aside, you know he said to me that there they wanted to pass power to the individual as a market actor.As an entrepreneur, as a shareholder, as a property owner, not to the individual as a citizen, and I think when we talk about England.Compared to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the first thing is we need to debate.We need the starting point needs to be to talk about the language of representation and citizenship, not about functional management of territory, economic development.As important as these things are, the starting point has to be about the principles.Of representation, accountability, participation, transparency and legitimacy.OK, that's the starting .1 also has to make the point, quite frankly that for 1000 years England has not done Regents.We have done nation and we have done local and the the regions of England are Sykes Picot, top down civil service lines drawn on the map.Of England, so I live in a place that's called Yorkshire and the Humber that does not exist in the mindset of people in this part of the world. Indeed we had a campaign to get rid of Humberside County Council successfully in 1996.I live in a in a a National Health area called Humber Coast and Vale.Nobody voted on this.Nobody been given a voice about this, so my starting point would be the principle that whatever changes we make like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they have to be agreed by prior referendum.If we're talking about the Balkanization of England into quote.Regents we have to apply the same principles that somehow stop at the borders of England which have been applied in the legislation that's affected devolution in England in in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.But also we do need to address the point that the Constitution of England the power map, has been changed.By the very changes wrought to its political economy, the two cannot be separated and above all we must have a national debate about England that is separate from that of the United Kingdom, and we must banish the phrase our country.That horrible phrase that hides the conflation and confusion of England with Britain, the UK and GB. This has to be a national conversation and a national vision for England, not about designing the governance of England, just so that we can say Theresa May's precious.Union, because if the price of saving Theresa May's precious union is that the governance of England is so dysfunctional. Well, for me, you know the Union, RIP.Thanks son James.I want to pick, gosh and sort of follow following.Now I suppose I'd also put in a sort of fairly big picture argument, like why?Why would you do devolution?What would you do?Differently, I think the the the argument.There at least part of it starts from this.Issue of what do you do if economic growth isn't the thing?You're going to be doing.Uhm, that once either economic growth is undesirable or or unachievable.It it you you have to come up with a different set of reasons as to why you're doing any economic activities.Activities active.Any at all that if you can say to everyone, why are you doing this thing?It will produce more economic groups.This is broadly something that everyone will accept and say. Yes, that is why we we will do this, that if you dig out the justifications for for New Labour's devolution or the coalition smashed up New Labour's sort of semi devolution through the regional development agencies. Introduce various other things.Instead, it's always just defined as economic growth, 'cause once you have economic growth, every other justification doesn't matter so much.It just overwhelms everything else you could say it's something good.And then once you have.The growth you go and decide what you're going to do.With it, if that doesn't apply, if you don't have that right, you have to then step back and say well, what is it that we're doing with this?The economy that we have, how are we going to try and organize it?What is it that we want to achieve?And if you're going to have that conversation, that's going to have to be one that's a bit closer to where people are.It's no good having an abstraction.Of TDP's gone up, we'll try and redistribute out of this.It has to be OK.What is the purpose of all these people in this place?And why would they want this place to work like this?And why would these things happen?Interestingly, we'll see what they actually said, so I I think the leveling up White Paper does touch on some of this.It does try and define.Leveling up as something that's a bit bigger than just like we will close the gap in GBA per capita between this place in that place.And by the way, I think Simon's absolutely right to say that this also means that the the regions that we have and it's a statistical shorthand to try and use this 'cause it captures something about the geography they don't actually reflect where people live in any meaningful setting.Trying to corral people into saying, would you like a a regional assembly from the northeast and you find in 2004?They say no, no, we don't, and part of the problem there other than having Dominic Cummings campaigning again.Trying to make that happen is that you you had a regional assembly which had very few powers, which was just another layer of bureaucracy and it was written into its constitution that it would be there to try and deliver economic growth.Well, if you have something that develops from the ground up and somewhat inadvertently, I don't think this is design, but somewhat inadvertently the the metro mayors do look a bit like that.Then it might be an institution that's close to what people want that can define more broadly.What is it's doing in that area, and is represents more meaningful transfer of power.So that would be one part of it.The other bit I think is something we touched on there and the that Simon and Sarah both reference.Which is that the devolution exactly assignment says isn't just what does the government do?It's also water, all water, all your other big institutions doing.And when you have an incredibly centralized financial system, when you have all the power and authority almost of that financial system concentrated really in just a very, very small part of the country, and drawing on people.And information and thinking about just a small part of that country when it thinks about the country.Talks heavily internationalized.That is also a loss of power for for.For the rest of England in particular, and that means at least one of the things you want to think about, and the levelling up White Paper does not touch in this store is setting up alternative financial institutions that are far closer to where people live and work, and they have some relationship with and that actually Once Upon a time.England did have this and he did have a network of far smaller banks and this is, you know, one of the things that powered the industrial revolution very much back in the day smashed up in the last part of the 19th century and centralized and centralized and centralized again.Until we have the financial system we have today, so if you're going to bring something up, I'd suggest sit on either building new local, maybe in regional financial institutions, something that is direct and immediate and people have control over.I preferably publicly owned and with a sort of public mandate under the control of local authorities and the local democratic institutions.That would be a critical part of what devolution might look like, and making a more meaningful process and just, you know you vote to for some additional mayor every few years.Or so.But thank you, that was a a really rich set of responses, but it seems to me that there's a a running theme that sees this about citizenship representation, political power as an underpinning beneath what we normally talk about as economic policy, and secondly, this question of.Building the institutions that can actually matter over time and we actually had a fascinating discussion.Two or three months ago with McCann, Tanev and other people from Wales about in a sense, how the empowerment of the Welsh Parliament.And have actually increased the sense of Welsh national identity and wealth politics.So it wasn't that it reflected something that was always there, but it enabled it to develop in a different way.So can I come now to a different question which was put in by?John Wilson and I think is prompted by your historical.Overview at James, but possibly also Simon's comments too.You might say that the British national economy that was.Described by David Edgerson in the post War period is the thing that's historically unusual that there wasn't a British national economy at the time of empire.In the same way, and it we now seem to have dissolved back into regional economies, and John asked the question, does that provide a different starting point for the sort of economic?Policy that you want to pursue if we actually.That much more diversity in your economy and much more locally based economic activity.Does that give us a different way of thinking about economic policy for England as we go forward, I'll come to James and then Sarah on that first.I, I think he's I think he's right.I'd agree with with John.Sort of.Promising the question there, which is that?That is, it is exactly as as as as David Edgerton says it's a relatively unusual feature of British history that there was a British economy in the British nation at all.In in the sense of being a modern developed and assignment.Developmental state of a particular kind and with the Heidi Group subsets, the entire sort of discussion of declinism of whether you know it.It's right wing variant that that Keith Joseph, of course was was particularly keen on promoting, whereas left wing version we kind of Perry Anderson taken picked both versions.This end up still, I think in in the.Debate today the the Britain always failed badly and that the model was failing badly initially.Edge description the British nation was a comparatively successful modern country, similar to other European modern countries coming out of the Second World War.This lasted for a period of time and it no longer holds together in the same way, but once you remove the idea that this is the thing that you ought to be thinking about and start to instead try and think about, well, what is the economy, we actually.Live it rather than let's see it through the prism of either the art that is the British economy or the statistical problems that we have that we just all the data we get arrives like this.Then then you can start to think see it in a in a much more interesting fashion and also just in terms of the political imaginary of how you might want to talk about.Of this, especially if you're on the left, it means that reaching back a lot further than just the kind of left politics or Social Democratic politics in particularly getting the post war period centered on the British nation and instead getting back into the redistributive, the constitutionally focused politics of the Chartists or or even further back to the Levellers.Or the diggers?Or you know, really getting into the fairly deep history at this point.It gives you.A different way to sort of conceptualize the problem you're up against, but also a different way, I think to talk about in potentially quite attractive way that that taps into some of that radical radical tradition.Yeah, I I agree with them. I agree with a lot of that and and and dumb John .2.I mean, I guess I come at this from a an assumption that that that the idea of a national economy is, you know, a very much a construction, and that that in reality we are.You know, a collection.Of multiple regional and local economies, and I guess I, I guess that will be very much how how we see it and how it how it appears to us.When when you work at that level?But of course, the.The system of governance and democracy in the country is is some slightly different, or maybe that's not really.It's more about the power where the power is is some very much at the national level so.Uhm, I think there's a.There's a mismatch there and I need to address that.And I also think there's something about that some.That that there's a sort of a sense in with us or national economy narrative.There's a sense that there has to be that the Westminster Hills has got to present this image of the national economy.It's gonna it's gonna come up with the answers to the national questions that as as it sees it and and and so you know you have to have a massive level in.Update white paper.To address, you know what is a hugely complex and and and often and very localized issue rather than, you know, a little bit more of a secure approach where you you work with local areas to try and come up with solutions in a kind of Co designed way.Yeah, or even just letting look.There's just get on with it and and I think was I think the the the devolution that we've got them in.It is interesting in the and whilst it's been kind of enforced by Westminster, you are seeing.How some of?Those new mayors, those devolved structures are kind of now pushing back at at the at the national debate.On our our kind of bringing home that idea that things are different in in Greater Manchester or they're different in in Cornwall compared to what they are on a on a national scale.So I think that that is, you know, I'd like anything else visions but process.It's not an end in itself, and not in that sense of that.We have a a distinct.We are distinct place.We need a distinct way of doing things and you need to let us get on with that. I'd be interested to see how that looks saying in 5-10 years time, particularly if we see devolution rolled out and in other years you know that might actually start to to evolve that might. That might be the different starting point.That John Wilson talking about.Simon, you're thinking it useful to think of the national economy, or more useful to think of these series of interconnected, but essentially often more local or regionally based economies.I think we need to go back to to Roosevelt here that, and indeed to the construction of the contemporary green New Deal's the starting point is financed but not just the national but we have to see.See the the bigger picture at the International and global levels and where the debate is there, because even the IMF, which which distance itself from austerity in October 2010, just as George Osborne was introducing it in the UK and is also in recent years under the female leadership, I might add of.Kristalina Georgieva, and before her, Christine Lagarde.They have acknowledged that capital controls might be necessary, but but the thing about Roosevelt was he recognized that if you're going to change the terms of the debate and help local people, you've got to get hold of finance and use finance for national purposes.And one thing that.We have learned, have we not in the last 15 years, first with the global financial crisis is?The British state, when it wants to, can find 1162 billion of including 133 billion of cash to bail out fectus banks in 2008 and in 2020, 21320.9 billion was quote borrowed to sustain US.Through coveys it was not borrowed.The Treasury went to the Bank of England and the Bank of England directly funded it.So if we we what we need in England is our third financial revolution.We had the first one at the end of the 17th century. We created a Bank of England. We had the second one in the late 1970s. The deregulation that Margaret.Thatcher brought in not free markets. Canary Wharf was built with £10 billion worth of taxpayers public money. It was a developmental state model.Well, we need now a third financial revolution for England where we create banks for England.Local banks we need.We need local institutions with autonomy we can directly fund this.We are a sovereign country, but we have to link the national with the local.But also we need to take cognisance.Of what's going on with debates about.Finance at the global level. Because if we're going to do this, particularly with regard to sustainability and to meet those 2030 targets, those dramatic targets for carbon limitation and getting the average temperatures not more than 1 1/2 degrees above pre industrial levels by the end of the century.We've got to link together global local with national you can't do.The national or the local without engaging with the broader picture because you've got to get hold of finance.That's the lesson from Roosevelt, and I think we have to re apply that lesson now.OK, thank you very much.I'm going to go into a quick fire round as I think they call it on.The panel shows and now just to end I'm going to ask I I know that Simon Grimm Bulls are asked about personal representation at local council level.Peter May is asked about allowing local government to generate financing rather the way that Simon.Just been talking about it, but I'm going to go to each of our panelists and ask them to say one thing.They won't have read the White paper yet.One thing they would have liked to see in the White Paper on leveling up that they suspect isn't there.So one thing from.Each of you that you would have liked to.See and I will if I may abuse my position in the chair to pick up Joe rather easy question about English and British nationalism.I mean, the reality is in in in England that those people who emphasize their English identity tend to be the most skeptical about the value to England of being in the Union.So there's a spread of views on that.Question, but I don't think it's possible to equate a sense of Englishness with a sense of British nationalism for most or for many people in England, though obviously that's true for some, so having.Given our panelists, some thinking time up.I'll go Simon, Sarah and James.One thing that you're pretty sure isn't in the leveling up white paper that you would have liked to see there Simon.Yep, this government keen on freedom bills so I would have a freedom clause. I would review all those 1400 statutory powers over local government in England and get rid of them as many of them as possibly possible.I I would I would like to have seen a a proper financial settlement for local government.I'd like to have seen the full source, but I'd like to see the regional regional savings and regional financial institutions established.I don't think that's happened at all.OK, great, that's a great start.I'm going to.Thank everybody for.Joining the call, particularly our speakers and sorry Ariana Giovannini wasn't able to to join us.In the end I we will send round links to a recording when we've posted it on the website.Yeah, we've actually covered a huge number of really fascinating issues about the nature of of the English economy, the Constitution of England, where power, lies and so on is the is going to repay.Working back through this conversation to pick up and develop some of those themes, which I hope we can do at the center here in the future, please.Look out for details of our next event, but meantime, thanks for joining us and thanks to all our speakers.Thank you.Thanks, thanks John.Thanks everyone, bye.Thank you.