Flickr/Conservatives. Some rights reserved.George Osborne likes to see himself as a “successful Conservative blend” of Michael Heseltine’s vision and Nigel Lawson’s maths. Scarcely had the champagne bottles been emptied at No. 11 when the Chancellor announced that the impending Queen’s Speech would contain a devolution bill.
On 14 May, he told a meeting in Manchester that: “The old model of trying to run everything . . . from the centre of London is broken. We will go much further and deliver radical devolution to the great cities of England. I say to [them]: it is time for you to take control of your own affairs. My door now is open to any . . . major city [besides London and Manchester] who wants to take this bold step into the future. This is a revolution in the way we govern England.”
Osborne’s chief purpose, though, isn’t to promote local democracy and pride. As the BBC’s Norman Smith puts it, he wants to wrong-foot Labour in their northern heartlands, and boost the Tories in an area where they’ve traditionally been on the back foot.
