00:04I cannot tell you what a proud moment this is. I think this might be the best day of my
00:09life.
00:11I'm not joking either. I know you think I am, but I'm not.
00:14Things are just completely coming full circle here for me, and to be here with you all in the heart
00:21of Manchester this Friday morning at the end of, you know, a fairly big week is just everything to me.
00:29Because it's almost exactly 35 years since I left this city as a recently graduated young man.
00:39Couldn't find a job in the city. To get on in life, you had to leave where you were because
00:48things weren't here.
00:50And the country's always been a little like that, hasn't it?
00:54That opportunity has not been evenly spread around the country, and not all places have felt that they're part of
01:01the national story.
01:03And that is what this government is going to work every single day to change.
01:11And that is what Number 10 North is all about. Putting power in every postcode so that people can turn
01:19things around for themselves and make changes.
01:22Just as this great city has done, and the other English cities are doing through devolution.
01:28There'll be many voices out there. I can hear them all already. Often London-based, but not exclusively.
01:33You know, they like to say, oh, this will just be another, the new levelling up or another sort of
01:41short-lived gimmick.
01:43And they'll also, I mean, they are saying, what's it going to cost?
01:47But I'm just going to say something now that I'm going to say in the meetings later.
01:52You know, what does it cost for everybody to troop down to London every time there's a meeting when you
01:56need to make an argument about something?
01:58What does that cost? So actually, isn't it better that we have a North Pole that balances the South Pole
02:05of our country,
02:06where power will always be concentrated, but at least it creates that sense of a more balanced country
02:13and that big things can be done from here.
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