00:00I really like the idea of number 10 in the north. I said it.
00:04You can see all the civil servants just like googling flats on Rightmove right now.
00:08Yeah, that's what we did when we wanted to move the House of Lords to York, which is still an
00:12excellent idea. I stand by that.
00:14But I think number 10 in the north is a really good idea.
00:16One of the issues with our governing is that SW1, which is the postcode where Whitehall is, is like a
00:23terrible place to make decisions that affect the whole of the country.
00:25London is atypical, abnormal. The kind of people who can afford to live and work with incommutable distance to SW1
00:35are not representative of the country.
00:38Now, we saw that kind of quite strong, actually, in the, we talked about this last week about the, in
00:44the Brexit referendum.
00:47SW1 isn't representative. The civil service is not representative of everybody.
00:50Now, does it have to be? Different question.
00:52Would it be a good thing if a large amount of the Prime Minister's personal kind of advice and thinking
00:59had in it the DNA of people outside of SW1 100%?
01:04It's one of the problems you and I had in COVID times was the massive disconnect from most people's ordinary
01:11lives and the people who are in the room making the decisions.
01:16So, I think, and in this day and age, it's just nonsense to suggest that you actually physically need to
01:22be in one place in order to get anything done.
01:27Having said that, power goes with the guy.
01:31You should be able to literally sense that the Prime Minister is in the building in number 10.
01:37I always thought that you always could.
01:39The Fridays, when they're in their constituency or at a summit or something.
01:43Oh, when they want a summit, I used to love that. It's blessed relief. They're actually out of the country.
01:47They can do some other stuff.
01:48And it's suddenly like, they're back!
01:49They're back!
01:50You can feel it in the building. So, Prime Ministers carry their power with them.
01:55So, the real question is, like, could Andy Burnham have his policy team based in Manchester? Of course he could.
02:02Is Andy Burnham going to base himself in Manchester? That's a different question.
02:07My only counter to that, because you know how I hate to disagree with you, is I think COVID is
02:13probably my best example of this, that you can have these Zoom calls and they can be very productive and
02:19you can have the formal meeting.
02:20But so much goes on in person around the meetings, the little chats when you're getting your cup of coffee
02:27before or after, and lots of relationships are made that way.
02:32You know, some of it is a lot of what people find distasteful, gossip and so on, but you pick
02:36up all kinds of stuff in the margins.
02:37And once the Zoom call is over, you don't know. And you don't know what the other people are saying
02:42in the room once you've gone off.
02:44And I think it is difficult. You can get a lot of business done, but I think sometimes some of
02:52those atmospherics, particularly because you want to see how the Prime Minister is reacting and the other key stakeholders, you
02:58can't really tell that so much.
02:59So, I actually don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you. We keep being told to disagree more. So,
03:05unfortunately, this isn't it.
03:06Yeah. This is place-based decision-making in this place.
03:11Just make all the decisions. I agree with you. So, it's not going to work if it is the Prime
03:18Minister has a number 10 in the north.
03:20And actually, it's just a group of people on a Zoom call with a load of people in SW1. That's
03:26not what this should be.
03:29If it's meaningful, it does need to be that the actual real-life Prime Minister and the actual real-life
03:33Prime Minister's Chief of Staff and all the people who think they're too important,
03:36to leave the postcode, actually do. And they base themselves for a part of the week or part of the
03:41time. It's quite complicated.
03:43It's the thing I say. So, as soon as you talk about an office called number 10 and a place
03:48where the Prime Minister and his most senior advisors need to be,
03:52you have a proper security question.
03:54Yes.
03:55So, you know, this is not, and I know that this conversation is going on about where this might be.
04:00There is quite a lot of sensitivity around if you're going to really have a nerve centre for our country's
04:07government in another place,
04:09then that needs a bit of careful thought.
04:12Thanks a lot.
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