It’s obviously silly season. You may have seen the reports that Policy Exchange, an influential think tank has decided, presumably from an office in London, that cities and towns in northern England are “beyond revival” and residents of these places should move south.

The report specifically mentions Sunderland and Stockton in this part of the world, although it also states that it could have included Middlesbrough. Hartlepool could easily have been cited in the report, and presumably dismissed in the same manner. The think tank has said that towns and cities in the north are not really worth saving – the logical conclusion of this, of course, is that they should be allowed to die. Whole communities, who do not have the means to migrate, will be neglected.

Policy Exchange have recommended a mass migration to London, Cambridge and Oxford. I spluttered into my cornflakes when I heard this particular point. It manages to annoy everybody concerned: it annoys us Northerners, who rightly resent the fact that Southerners make sweeping statements about where we live, and it will equally annoy the people of Oxford and Cambridge, who will question how some sort of mass migration would work in terms of housing, transport and other migration.

The report is, without question, utterly barmy. It demonstrates once again the sneering patronising attitude of many people in the South East about the North. These people fail to recognise the enormous work in regeneration that has taken place in Hartlepool and other areas of the North in the last decade.

It’s easy to dismiss the report as utter nonsense, an ill thought through and lightweight product of affluent people with too much time on their hands. But there is a very serious point emerging from the report. The Policy Exchange think tank is very well connected to the leadership of the Conservative Party. You probably haven’t heard of Rachel Whetstone, but she is one of the trustees of the think tank that produced this report. She was also chief of staff to Michael Howard when he was Conservative Party leader and is very close to David Cameron. Her partner, Steve Hilton, advises David Cameron on media strategy. The comments and thoughts in the report do give an indication as to what the leadership of the Conservative Party is thinking. The report itself makes it clear that a future Conservative Government would not provide the significant sums of regeneration money that we have seen in the past decade. The report states:

“A future Cabinet, perhaps more representative of suburbs and the wealthy South East, may not have the same commitment to high levels of regeneration funding”.

More tellingly, the report mentions, in a very patronising fashion, that “It seems most unlikely that levels of urban regeneration funding are hot topics in Witney or Tatton.” These are the constituencies of David Cameron and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

This is what concerns me the most. We have an unprecedented amount of funding about to come into Hartlepool in the next decade – almost £250 million in education to transform schools and colleges, and almost half a billion pounds in health investment. We are also receiving our share of a billion pounds in housing market renewal investment over the next three years. All this funding could be at risk thanks to the sneering attitude of a few pampered individuals. I am proud to come from Hartlepool and would not want to live anywhere else. I am a proud Hartlepudlian and will defend this place against anyone. But this is not just a question of standing up for the reputation of the North, important though that is, it is a question of ensuring that future funding for regeneration, for the future of our town, will continue to flow into Hartlepool.