OSBORNE TAKES THE NORTH FOR DAFT

And what's worse he may be right. Faced with the declining Tory support in a region which this government hasn't treated fairly he's decided to attempt in the Broad Acres to pull off the same trick the SNP used in Scotland :accuse Labour of neglecting ots heartland and pose as their new saviour.

So he's pulling two tricks by making offers the North cant refuse and embarrassing and dividing Labour in the process.First he offers a High Speed train to reach Leeds and Manchester some time  fifteen or more years ahead and knock half hour off the journey from Leeds to London. Its a confidence trick so enormously expensive that it will never happen  but already Labour councils and  Labour MPs have fallen for it  and in doing so accepting that the links across the North and expansion and improvement of the East Coat Main line both matters of more importance and greater urgency will be postponed  indefinitely in consequence.

Offer two is devolution through the creation of one Northern powerhouse in Manchester region to set other cities a clamouring for theirs. The offer is spurious because it isn't devolution but decentralisation of pain  since the region will have to enforce all the coming cuts but won't get any new money to soften their impact.It will all be too much for the proposed one person band of a mayor and a powerless council particularly since some of the areas to be considered have already rejected the idea of an elected mayor but will not have to have one forced on them as the price for the new city regions.

Once again another con not only because nothing much is really being decentralised rather  he's creating a cushion between central government and the localities so someone else will get the blame for cuts. You can't have a patchwork quilt with come city areas getting more powers but small towns and rural areas getting  nowt. The only viable vehicles for genuine devolution are either the planning regions Labour used or the creation f bigger units like the whole north  as a new unit such as the ones most European countries have created.

Yet once again many in the Labour Party are falling for this manifest meaningless con and gibbering with gratitude at the pathetic crumbs from the Tory governments over-centralised table. Pathetic   It's about time we recognised that a healthy democracy needs devolution, that the North should have it because Labour will have an alternative power based there and all we have to do is work out what form it should take and proclaim a viable alternative before its too late and the Tories plunge local government and the North into yet anther futile mess.Time to show George that we're not as daft as he thinks by rejecting what's not coming to us.