Can the Tories reclaim Britain’s towns again? The Red Wall vote is riding on it

mitory. But in an era of hybrid working, public attitudes are shifting to become more accepting of a commute into a city office two or three days a week.

That is, as long as public transport is reliable or roads aren’t heavily congested.

THE Conservatives seem to have discovered a new love for cities. Last week Michael Gove announced a new urban quarter for Cambridge, a revamped city centre for Leeds and accelerated development in East London dubbed “Docklands 2.0”. The logic is obvious: boosting growth, building homes, and decarbonising our economy means backing cities.

But something was missing from this vision. Apart from a brief mention of Barrow in Cumbria, the Levelling Up Secretary’s speech was curiously quiet (for once) on the future of Britain’s towns.

Just a few years ago towns were at the heart of political debate. The 2019 election might have been all about getting Brexit done on the surface, but the deeper trend was the backlash of Britain’s towns. “Workington Man”, an archetypical swing voter identified by Onward, became a symbol of the heart of the new Tory coalition; on the left Lisa Nandy argued that Labour needed to move away from its metropolitan fanbase. Ultimately, towns turned out to be the red wall’s unstable foundation.

Britain’s towns are key to our national economic success. In too many parts of the country, people with talent can’t deploy it and high potential businesses can’t recruit. Technological shifts and capital flows are widening the gap between towns and the rest of the economy, and young people are voting with their feet. These trends are self-reinforcing, but they are not inevitable.

The last few years have seen a flurry of policies designed to support towns. Investment was channelled through the towns fund and future high streets fund. Treasury officials were shuffled to a new Darlington civil service campus. Railway stations closed as part of the 1960s Beeching cuts were re-examined and restored.

But these piecemeal policies don’t add up to a proper vision. Britain’s towns are not, as some orthodox economists have argued, doomed to eco- nomic failure and decline. But neither will they restore their historic role as major centres of employment and industry. The future lies instead in a new compromise for our towns, with three elements.

First, every town needs a focussed local economy that can bring in investment. In recent decades too many towns have lazily adopted a “foundational economy” approach, accepting ever increasing employment in the public sector or low value-added services. But it is a town’s tradeable economy - companies that export products and services - that attract investment and create jobs.

Many towns have a comparative advantage already, often in sectors like manufacturing or logistics that are illsuited to cramped urban cores. And the best towns plug in to the growth plans of nearby big cities. The key is being clear-eyed about what successful local industry looks like: South Shields will not be the green manufacturing capital of the UK, but it could be a thriving hub for maintaining offshore wind turbines. Even if this local tradeable economy contributes a decent chunk of economic output, it will never employ as many people as the collieries, shipyards, or factories of the past.

So second, more people will need to commute from towns to cities. This is the truth that many politicians don’t want to admit, fearful of charges that they are turning their patch into a dor-