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The UK can go back to being the richest country in the world

When the UK was the richest country in the world its regional inequality was unusually low. It's unlikely we could return to being the former without reducing regional inequality.

The UK economy flying on a single engine combines with centralised government and a welfare state to mean that huge amounts of money are sent from the Greater South East to the rest of the country every year to fund basic public services. These are, or were, or will be, overwhelmingly good things that have and are using government money and power to make the Greater South East of England one of the best places in the world to build a successful business and a great career. If the Diamond Light Source had stayed in Daresbury, if the Crick Institute hadn’t been one of the final straws in tempting AstraZeneca away from Cheshire, if HS2 wasn’t going to stop before it provided significant benefit to anywhere except London, if the British Library had built the base in Leeds it has long promised to instead of focusing almost all its attention in one place, if the UK government and its laws hadn’t blocked us from expanding our airport and building on our greenbelt as we voted to in Leeds, if Nesta had invested its endowment in anything in the North of England rather than buying a big building in the capital from which to tell us that junk food is bad, we’d be doing better.

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