'Northern Powerhouse' department to close Sheffield office and move 247 jobs to London

[Denzil_DC]

5. In fact I'm left wondering what part of BIS's remit does fall under the "northern powerhouse" stuff.

Last edited Fri Jan 29, 2016, 10:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Well, it's obvious: the part that shifts employment and bureaucratic and decisionmaking investment to London, where it's sorely needed, where more voters live, and particularly more that are likely to vote Tory, and where the whole shebang is much easier to keep an eye on. You don't want natives running the show, and you don't want your own people going native. That would be anarchy.

We have a heck of a lot more devolution up here in Scotland than the NP envisages, but the government has been very careful to divert a substantial chunk of our budget to the Scottish Office, over which we have no control whatsoever, so that their viceroy (a Tory at the moment, previously a Lib Dem - both obnoxious and singularly useless, but that's by the by), can keep a close eye on us and hamper our efforts at self-government if we look like we're making a go of it to an embarrassing extent.