You could be forgiven for thinking the Chancellor’s speech was to announce Labour’s new northern investment plan.
For the past week, airports in the south east of England have dominated the headlines, with plans for a controversial third runway at Heathrow taking up the lion’s share of the debate.
But the first time an airport was mentioned in Rachel Reeves’ speech, it was the news that one would be reopened in Doncaster – a town whose MPs include one Ed Miliband, as my colleague notes here.
READ MORE: Reeves just gave absent Miliband an airport he wants, not just one he doesn’t
Poor Ed, whose opposition to the airport has been well-documented in recent weeks despite his efforts to play down any idea he may quit, can’t move for airports it seems.
He was also notably absent from the Chancellor’s speech, when a string of other cabinet colleagues were in attendance.
The king in the north
But it was another absent king in the north who loomed large over the first half hour of the speech.
Paying tribute to the Greater Manchester mayor, Reeves said Andy Burnham was a “brilliant” metro mayor working hard to realise Manchester’s “potential and promise”.
Billed by Reeves as home to “the UK’s fastest growing tech sector”, it seems part of that potential will be realised by the redevelopment of Old Trafford – albeit not by any high-speed trains.
READ MORE: Andy Burnham backs public control of key services, blasting ‘damaging deregulation’
Burnham has been vocal in his opposition to Heathrow, claiming recently it would “overheat the economy”, while Manchester airport’s two runways don’t even run at full capacity.
So Reeves sought to minimise the risk of any perceived southern bias by reheating previous northern investment announcements, including the trans-pennine rail upgrade, which will “connect towns and cities from Manchester to York via Stalybridge, Leeds and Huddersfield”.
The Oxford-Cambridge corridor
Finally Reeves came to the second major southern investment plan that had been trailed in the lead-up to her speech.
The Oxford-Cambridge corridor, which isn’t just the career pathway of the average Labour frontbencher, will receive significant investment – with the treasury claiming investing in the area would add up to £78bn to the UK economy.
Will such nods to the north help to shrug off anyone’s sinking feeling that the UK’s regional divide is here to stay?
Eleanor Shearer, Senior Research Fellow at the think tank Common Wealth, sounded the alarm. “Rather than getting to the heart of the matter — that we have an economy structured to put profit over people and planet — the Government has instead borrowed their big ideas from private developers, asset managers and industry lobbyists and announced a smattering of projects mainly across the South East, with the hope that benefits will trickle down to everyone else.”
We’ll have to wait and see what the “king in the north” has to say.
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