A note from Gateshead
I have an article today for the Times Red Box on the vexed issue of whether a new devolution settlement for the North East of England will be agreed.
Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove must decide whether and how to resolve a new devolution deal for the North East. If agreed, it would mean moving from the current North of Tyne authority, towards the creation of an elected mayoralty extending to the authorities south of the Tyne. But for months a final outcome has been a victim of decision-making gridlock whilst the Tories conducted their internal war. Local news reports wearily refer to a deal as having been close to sign-off since the days when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister.
Impatience with the drift over funding and devolution for the North East symbolises just how badly the Conservatives have allowed their internal strife to take precedence over political administration. The consistent message to government is that the issue needs to be resolved one way or another, and quickly.
I wrote most of that Times piece at a desk that looks out to Gateshead’s Team Valley and much further beyond. You can see the Tyne weaving its way past Dunston. Across the floor of the valley you can occasionally spot the trains arriving from the south or across from other parts of the north - the trains to and from London amongst others.
On one hand, simply by looking at the geography and the transport links of this and other parts of the North East, there is a huge logic for the creation of a combined authority that includes Gateshead and the other authorities to the south of the Tyne. The buses and trains do not stop at the river. Issues of skills, jobs, employment are not easily demarcated between the north and south sides of the Tyne. And the effectiveness of metro mayor-style authorities has been demonstrated in other parts of the North and around the rest of England.
But Gateshead is one of the authorities that turned down a government proposal for a North East mayor in 2016. While Newcastle, Northumberland and North Tyneside all voted to move forward with the plans, Sunderland, Durham, South Tyneside and Gateshead voted against. Ultimately, there were just far too many problems for the authorities to agree. This is why the new deal must be more acceptable to the authorities to south of the Tyne this time round, and why the government’s decision-making vacuum has to end so that all the affected parts of the region can see real engagement.
Within the debate about an authority for the North East, Durham’s position is particularly interesting. Having pursued a county deal rather than participation in a revised North East mayoralty, the question of whether it could now be included is back on the agenda.
Some of the issues around Durham’s position can be read in this local report, which touches on the implications for policing, and also here in the Local Government Chronicle.
Most of all, people want clarity and a sense of direction after months of confusion whilst the government went into meltdown.
Great hop forwards
Gateshead’s wallaby is national news again after BBC Breakfast featured the search for the mysterious marsupial on yesterday morning’s programme. The BBC’s Sunderland district reporter Andy Watson tracked the celebrity wallaby down although the question of how it got to be in the village of Chopwell remains unanswered.
But since it is in the news, it is worth recalling Chopwell has other claims to fame, from the area’s mining and political traditions.
The village, which is situated in the metropolitan borough of Gateshead, was well known for the militant politics of the miners’ union. It was given the nickname “Little Moscow”, and its streets include Marx Terrace and Lenin Terrace. The village’s local history page records that those streets were built to accommodate council housing in 1924.
The miners of Chopwell had a long history of active, militant trade unionism including during the General Strike of 1926. Local papers reported that in the early days of the strike on the Newcastle to Consett road all vehicles were turned back by a crowd of miners mobilised from Chopwell. It is also reported that strikers from Chopwell were among those believed to have removed a section of the railway north of Newcastle, leading to the derailment of the Flying Scotsman near Cramlington.
During the strike the union flag was removed from local council offices in Chopwell and replaced with the red flag bearing the hammer and sickle.
The Chopwell miners’ 1924 banner prominently depicted portraits of Marx, Lenin and Keir Hardie. The pit closed in 1966 but the Chopwell banner’s fame continues.