Want to properly plug the UK’s north-south divide? Look to Germany

theguardian.com:

B ritain has been struggling to find a solution to its north-south divide since the staple industries of the first Industrial Revolution – textiles and coal – started to decline in the early 20th century.

It is not a unique problem. Every sizeable country has richer and poorer regions, and from the US rust belt to what was once East Germany, geographical inequality is easy to spot.

Even so, the UK stands out. Measured by national income per head, productivity and disposable income, it is one of the most unequal of the world’s industrial economies and over the past 40 years the north-south divide has grown ever wider.

The story is simple. Parts of the country that relied heavily on manufacturing and coal mining suffered after factory and pit closures, while London and the south-east benefited from the growth in financial services and the City’s pivotal position as a global commercial hub. Past failures to narrow the divide mean Britain is now effectively two countries. There is London with the south-east and there is the rest.

It is little wonder that every prime minister, from Margaret Thatcher to Rishi Sunak, has sought to find a way of closing this gap. Levelling up is merely the latest iteration of this quest, and a recognition that all previous attempts have failed.

That goes for Labour governments as well as Conservative ones. Regional policy under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown amounted to creaming off taxes from the booming financial services and housing sectors in London and the south-east and recycling them into higher public spending in the rest of the country.

Some of this money was well spent. The Building Schools for the Future programme, for example, was a much-needed investment in better learning environments for