30 June, 2010

Cabinet away-days

There is a fair bit of grumbling that David Cameron has decided to hold a Cabinet meeting in Bradford, Yorkshire. The cost, apparently, is £100,000.

Mega blogger Ian Dale says 'What can they decide in Bradford that they couldn't in London?'

I'm afraid that isn't the point. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the UK is run by a London-centred elite (Dale, with a political publishing business in the capital, is a part of it). Worse, the people know this and resent it. Nothing is going to promote regional unrest more than if they think the Government neither knows nor cares anything about them.

I fully support this modest expenditure and hope it continues. Indeed we should go further and move most of the government departments into the regions where property is cheaper: ministers, policy wonks, Special Advisers, the lot. It would show our elected masters that there is something more to the United Kingdom than a couple of square miles around Westminster.

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