AIBU to wonder how a government can be based in Manchester?

[dottiedodah]

Andy Burnham is proposing to govern from Manchester when he starts on July 20th.How can this be so ? Surely all previous governments have been based in London?

But you did show a complete lack of understanding of both Parliament and Burnham’s proposal. It suggests you think speeches and votes in parliament are rather than daily, and shows you think Burnham wants to move some of Parliament when it’s one part of the government operation. MPs won’t be based in Manchester.
Incidentally apart from this physical office, nothing Burnham has suggested isn’t in the existing manifesto and much of it is already on progress, so I don’t think he’s the second coming. I’m no fan of his at all.

MPs are not involved. It’s a government office, not part of Parliament. Just read the basics.

They’ve been talking for years about moving MPs to an online voting system anyway, perhaps this will hasten it. It seems ludicrous in this day and age that hundreds of MPs have to physically travel to London just to cast a vote, when they could easily do it online without all the associated cost and inconvenience.

For the hard of thinking:

1. Burnham will not be moving government, let alone Parliament, to Manchester.

2. Manchester is in the north of England, even when other places are to the north of Manchester.

3. Scotland is to the north of England but when Burnham refers to the north, he is not referring to Scotland.

Yes, Farage could do it from Clacton.

More like Mar-a-Lago!

He wants to tax the crap out of Southern England and London to pay for the North to claim more benefits and does not want to look the biggest tax payers in this country in the eye every day - bloody coward.

Lets go for devolution and the South can set its own tax rates, keep all its own taxes and not subsidise the rest of the free loading country - can not see the North surviving long!

Any evidence for this? Any at all? From his speech or anywhere else?

OK, then let all the people living in the regions take their "business" to firms with offices in the regions, i.e. solicitors, pension firms, insurers, investment firms, banks, supermarkets, etc.

It's all well and good saying London is the economic centre, but a lot of that is because the reporting is based on head offices, rather than location of the staff/customers.

If random banks, legal firms, insurance/pension firms, moved their head office address to places like Hartlepool or Blackpool, then suddenly the "statistics" of tax revenue etc would suddenly shift to those places.

London is only so successful (on paper) because of the centralisation of everything from the regions to London over the past few decades.

The profits of a supermarket in Morecambe should really be declared as "profits/tax" in Lancashire, not shown as London just because that's where the supermarket head office is based. Likewise with the "value" of work done by a Sky engineer working in Bradford - should be shown as tax/revenue of Yorkshire rather than London where the Sky head office is based. The economic picture of the UK would be VERY different if it was based on staff/worker location rather than head office location.

Absolutely @Badbadbunny
Also @lifetheuniverse how do you feel about taxes supporting areas of deprivation in the south? There are plenty of those (mainly because as per @Badbadbunny’s post the money isn’t actually earned in the south at all).

@Badbadbunny Please don’t point out those facts to them. You’ll spoil their view that they’re all working 20 times harder than us to prop up us oiks, while we sit on our backsides watching the tumbleweeds blow in our hick northern towns where nothing ever happens.

It’s more central than London.

Yup! Nailed it!

It'd blow their minds to think that I'm sat here in my accountancy office, in a run down deprived ex seaside town, and that half of my clients (in client numbers and revenue) are based in London/SE who I've never met in person, but work with entirely remotely by internet, many of whom have been clients for 15-20 years, in diverse businesses such as internet service providers, a couple of dance teachers/ dance schools, financial advisers, car repair workshop, and numerous IT consultants, a couple of doctors, a couple of online retailers etc.

Shock horror that such deprived places actually have professional people working there, and even more shocking that they're providing services to people living in London/SE.

@BotterMon

But but but who will look after Larry the cat?

This. I'm concerned

I think if his intention is to grow other cities rather than hamper London then it’s better.

It could happen, hopefully London will be largely untouched by this but other places grow more.

A kindly housekeeper who already knows Larry. They’ll live the high life in No 10 accomm.

I actually think Larry the cat would be better placed to be Prime Minister. And he's going to be abandoned.

Wait til you hear Richard III had the idea of governing from York a few centuries earlier (such a shame Bosworth happened). London doesn’t have to be the seat of government

@EasternStandard

A kindly housekeeper who already knows Larry. They’ll live the high life in No 10 accomm.

That's good to hear. Poor Larry! He must get so fed up with all these changing faces.

Apols I made it up but one can dream. I hope so. Larry might be finally! I rule this place.

We still keep coal in the bath in Manchester and draw all our water from a well when we need to use that tin bath on the backyard wall. In winter we are a hardy lot because we have to dig a path through the snow to trek to the outside lavvy. And of course we use the Manchester Evening news for bog roll. Oh and we chopped down all the trees to make clogs.

Don't forget our mode of transportation is still horse and cart

Watter? What's tha need watter for? Lick an' a promise wi' a hanky's allus been good enough for me...

😂😂😂

I'd say there's plenty of people living in the south (not London), who live in deprived areas, struggle to find work and also have the added issue of massive housing costs. It's not as clear cut as North = poor, south = rich