Will Tim Leunig be burnt at the stake in Liverpool city centre tomorrow?

For those of you who missed it this morning, here is a quote from today’s Thought for the Day by The Rt Rev. James Jones:

Tomorrow Daniel enters the Lion’s Den up here in Liverpool. The author of the report that recommends ‘ the rolling up’ of the regeneration strategies of the Northern cities is coming to the Anglican Cathedral to face the music! The Dean’s arranged for him to debate with the city’s leaders and academics. Dr Tim Leunig of the Policy Exchange is an economic historian with radical views. As well as questioning the value of regeneration schemes he proposes a shift of the population ‘encouraging significant numbers of people to move , to London and the South East’

Did I hear a groan from those grid locked in traffic within the M25 doughnut? Well, there’s some serious stuff in this paper, even though some of the conclusions will raise hackles in the south and the north. Reading the report in the light of the last two weeks certainly widens the eyes not least its appeal to market forces as a panacea for our urban problems. Whatever else is going on at the moment it’s surely about the limits of the market to guarantee the common good. And although communities need markets, they also need other interventions that secure the peace and safety of the realm. That’s what these urban initiatives are all about.

Now, I have my criticisms of Tim’s presentational style and fear that the heat generated from the introduction of his Policy Exchange pamphlet obscured the light to be found in the content. But I would baulk at misrepresenting his proposals in this way.

Fundamentally, the idea was to take all the money being spent on regeneration currently and hand it over to local authorities to spend as they see fit. This isn’t even mentioned in Jones’ caricature, for all his stoking the fire with talk about entering the lion’s den. Instead Tim is being held up as an advocate of prescribing “market forces as a panacea for our urban problems” – which is utter bilge. In what way is proposing to spend billions of pounds of regeneration budgets differently count as leaving things to market forces?

Is it too much to ask the Bishop of Liverpool to have read a pamphlet which he then denounces on the radio? Worse, not only is it insinuated that Tim has incurred the wrath of God, but he apparently is flying in the face of St Tracey of Emin (no, I didn’t realise she’d been canonised either).

In other news, a new campaign has been launched to secure the official pardons of the thousands of people who were burnt at the stake for witchcraft by populist religious bigots in the 18th century. Not that there is a connection at all, oh no.

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