Member

That gulf between rhetoric and reality has consequences. An unbalanced economy does not just affect growth; it strikes at the heart of the fairer country that we want to be. Political choices made over decades mean that a 40-mile commute to Manchester is a world away from a similar journey into London. Take Liverpool, which has only two fast trains an hour to Manchester, and a direct rail journey from Liverpool to Manchester Airport takes an hour and 25 minutes when it is only 28 miles away; or Leeds, which is still the largest city in western Europe without mass transit and where only a third of the population can reach the city centre in 30 minutes.