TORY MP Jake Berry leads the Northern Research Group, the Conservative MPs who claim to know what voters in former Labour seats in the north really want. It turns out Berry thinks they want a fresh dose of Thatcherism.

They want deregulation and they want businessmen taking over local government, in a plan that was put together with the help of a giant bank with a history of big public subsidies and squeezing the “little” people.

This February, Berry co-wrote a widely reported policy pamphlet published by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies — it called for a Northern Big Bang. You wouldn’t think northern voters are clamouring for Thatcherism, with what that did to the north last time, but Berry thinks otherwise.

Thatcher’s Big Bang deregulated the stock market and the City grew rich. So Berry argues a Big Bang of deregulation will make the north rich. This misses the point that Thatcher’s deregulation allowed the City to grow at the expense of the north. This is part of the general pattern of deregulation allowing the rich to redistribute money away from the less well-off and into their pockets.

Berry’s deregulation argument makes more sense when you look at who paid for his pamphlet. The whole thing was funded by Lloyds Banking Group who get “special thanks” for their “generous support” in the introduction.

Lloyds also love deregulation, which allowed them to get rich on vast amounts of speculation. However, when it all went bust, the government had to step in and bail them out with a £20.3 billion investment. Lloyds, like many “free market” institutions, always end up demanding state support when they need it.

Lloyds took state money, but at the same time cheated the system and squeezed the less well off. In 2014 Lloyds was fined a huge £218m for manipulating interest rates including the key Libor rate: Lloyds didn’t like the free market, so it fixed the figures.

At the same Lloyds was fined £8m for trying to manipulate other rates so they could repay less for the support they got from the Special Liquidity Scheme, a Bank of England programme to help banks get credit in the financial crisis.

Lloyds were trying to defraud the public sector over repaying some of the bailout they were given. In 2015 Lloyds were also fined £115m for trying to avoid repaying customers they had cheated over “PPI” insurance. And in 2020 Lloyds were fined £64m for not supporting mortgage customers who fell into arrears.

Lloyds repeatedly tried to fiddle the “free market” to cheat and squeeze small customers. This reached a particularly low point when the police discovered a massive fraud inside Lloyds, where their Reading HBOS branch was gutting small companies that relied on their bank loans.

Managers were also taking bribes — in the form of money, sex parties and exotic foreign holidays — to let criminals squeeze “fees” out of Lloyds/HBOS clients until the companies were driven to the wall. All told, if Lloyds back something, this suggests it is a bad idea.

With Lloyds support, Berry’s Northern Research Group paper argues that northern voters should be made “masters of their own destiny” by taking power away from elected councils and giving it to appointed businessmen.

Berry rightly says that “the UK is one of the most centralised nations in the world.” But he argues power should be “decentralised” away from councils and given to “a new growth board for the north, with private and public-sector representation.”

Berry says this board would influence “economic development and strategic planning.” It would be “closer to the people of the north” — but he seems to be describing a group of businessmen appointed to the board: they would be closer to the people only in the way the manager might come close to you to tell you there isn’t going to be a pay rise this year.

Berry says this: “The Board’s majority private-sector make-up should elevate it above the narrow interests and political squabbling which can adversely affect decision-making at a local level — whether in the north or elsewhere.”

Essentially, he just wants businessmen put in charge. While claiming he wants power to be “closer to the people” in the North, Berry also recommends local councils lose much of their power to control development.

He says “low-level council bodies” have too much power over business through planning rules. Having criticised Britain for being “centralised,” he then says all “large commercial planning applications” should actually come under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime.

Under current rules, planning permission for big infrastructure like power stations and rail routes are decided nationally. Berry wants all big commercial developments — presumably meaning shopping centres, office blocks, warehouses and factories — taken out of local planning hands as well. This is actually an argument for more centralisation.

NSIP planning decisions are managed from on office in Bristol. I double checked and found that Bristol is not, in fact, in the north.

Berry also wants some developers to be completely freed from applying for planning permission. Under current rules, called Permitted Development, owners of some premises don’t have to ask for planning permission to redevelop existing buildings.

Current rules cover housing and have allowed office-block owners to bypass planning rules and turn them into horrible, cramped, substandard housing. Berry wants Permitted Development to be extended to many other kinds of commercial development, so owners of existing buildings could turn them into mega-bars, shops or offices at will, without consulting the local council over planning or standards.

The Tories want to make an effort to hang on to newly won ex-Labour seats. They will be doing so by a mix of selected investments in key seats through various secretive funds and trying to spur growth through deregulation — like the Freeports programme. They will be hoping that shiny new buildings will distract from the way any new investment will circumvent or undermine existing standards.