In Defence of Development Aid

I am the archetypal free-marketeer. I make no apologies for being right, never have done and never will do. However there is one area where I believe development aid and government intervention is in my best interests.

Northern cities 'beyond revival'

This think-tank tells a familiar tale, and I think we are all aware that development money fails in its initial goal. I don't think after 25 years of 're-development' Liverpool (as an example) is any more livable or has many more opportunities than before. Most of these are structural, the things that made Liverpool grow simply no longer exist, pumping in random amounts of money isn't going to help that.

On a simple free-market basis you can claim therefore that people should be told the facts and encourage them to move to the South-East.

This is where I have a problem, people do know the facts. Myself and many like me have already moved to London from relatively depressed areas to seek out opportunities. The people who do this are usually educated and ambitious (I'm excluding myself from these criteria). So what's left in Liverpool and cities like it? Functional illiterates and crack-addicts? Why would I want them down here, never mind encourage them to make the move?

My argument therefore is that the North acts like a giant open-prison but at a mere fraction of the cost (Nothing is worth nicking up there anyway). If the population of Liverpool (436,100) moved down to London they would almost certainly wind up in prison, and it would cost £14,342,456,800 to house them all (at £32,888 p.a.). Regional development aid is a lot cheaper than that, and I haven't even started on Manchester yet (anyone from Salford would be in a high-security unit).

I say, if they are happy up there away from us, and we are willing to save money on prisons to subsidise them then let's carry on (plus they bring a ready supply of me for our armed-forces).