It is noticeable that for all the Tory rhetoric during the election about building a “northern powerhouse” to rebalance the UK’s Londoncentric economy, there is only one MP in David Cameron’s new cabinet who actually represents anywhere in the north of England.
There are 23 seats around the cabinet table, plus 18 chairs around the outside for those, such as Boris Johnson and his brother Jo, who are allowed to attend meetings but don’t have a table to lean their notepad on.
George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer and MP for Tatton in his spare time, has the most northern constituency of anyone attending cabinet — with the exception of David Mundell, who, as the Conservatives’ only representative in Scotland, was a shoo-in for Scottish secretary. They would no doubt have been joined by William Hague, had he not stood down as MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire before this election.
The Derbyshire Dales, despite being spiritually northern, are officially in the East Midlands, which is why Patrick McLoughlin, who stays on as transport secretary, doesn’t count.
Contrary to common perception, there are actually quite a few Tory MP’s Cameron could have chosen in the north of England, which covers Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, all the Yorkshires and the north-east by my definition.
Rory Stewart and his massive brain reign in Penrith and the Borders, but he is highly likely to be re-elected head of the defence select committee once parliament is up and running again.
Then there’s David Davis in Haltemprice and Howden, in East Yorkshire, who used to hold high office before joining the awkward squad. In recent years he voted against raising tuition fees, and backed the Tory rebellion over EU membership.
Many of the other most recognisable names are the mavericks or the dafties. Philip Davies, who represents Shipley in West Yorkshire, is pro-death penalty and delights in everything that brings Guardian readers out in hives. (Sample hospitality accepted during the last parliament: a trip to Denmark with the British Fur Trade Association).
Nigel Evans, MP for the Ribble Valley and former deputy speaker, is well known for all the wrong reasons. Up in Hexham there is Guy Opperman, a barrister and amateur jockey who made headlines last year for mistaking a member of the public in the Commons gallery for the Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli.
It never ceases to amaze me that Hebden Bridge has a Tory MP, yet Craig Whittaker was re-elected in the Calder Valley last week, on a reduced but still healthy 4,427 majority. He outraged some constituents in the run-up to last week’s poll with a joke suggesting Labour are as trustworthy to govern as Jimmy Savile would be to babysit.
Morecambe and Lunesdale is represented by David Morris, a name-dropping hairdresser who was once in a band with Rick Astley. In 2011 he got David Hasselhoff to support a parliamentary motion to save Morecambe’s Winter Gardens.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrea Jenkyns, who gave Ed Balls a walloping in Morley and Outwood, gets a big job in a few years. But for now she’s too green to attend cabinet.
Probably the most famous northerner sitting on the Conservative benches is Eric Pickles, former head of Bradford city council. But he not only went south to get elected, in Brentwood and Ongar, but has lost his job as communities secretary to Greg Clark, a Middlesbrough lad who won office in Tunbridge Wells.
But does it matter that Osborne is the only member of cabinet who actually has to come to the north of England to hold his constituency surgeries? Perhaps. Thanks to our parliamentary system, our MPs, however big their jobs, have to keep their constituents sweet if they are not to get booted out at the next general election. Listen to prime minister’s questions if you don’t believe me, and hear how many MP’s use their moment in the spotlight to ask a deathly dull question about pot holes in Cheadle or recycling in Harrogate. Forcing politicians to leave Westminster and at least pretend to live part time in the north does mean they see that life is often quite different here.
When in the top jobs they are always conscious to throw their own seats a bone. It can be no coincidence that in his last budget the MP for Tatton in East Cheshire included East Cheshire in his very select list of councils allowed to keep 100% of the additional growth in local business rates above growth forecasts. And it seems implausible that Osborne would be proposing a Cross Rail for the North/HS3 if his own constituents weren’t always moaning about how long it took them to traverse the country.
That said, Tony Blair’s first cabinet was stuffed full of northern MPs. And look what happened. Arguably David Blunkett (Sheffield Brightside), Jack Straw (Blackburn), Mo Mowlam (Redcar), Jack Cunningham (Copeland), John Prescott (Hull East) et al joined the prime minister and MP for Sedgefield in making the biggest push towards centralisation in post-war history.
