The funeral for irony will be held next week.

My thoughts on economic growth and education in one place, since it's part of the topic of the day. tomforth.co.uk/graduateprem...

Was a bit much for England to deliberately lose to Argentina so they would be in Miami tonight as part of a very complicated sting, but I’ll take it.

A bit from me about what Burnham may mean by “redindustrialisation” as.ft.com/r/afe5abd3-4...

Burnham’s industrial revival will join up local needs and strengths

Forward-looking centre in Rotherham collaborates with business, capitalising on ‘muscle memory’ and existing assets

as.ft.com

One of the most exciting infrastructure projects in Britain right now. If we could build tunnels like the Norwegians we could build new motorways and railways so cheaply that they could be self-funding. The biggest prize is Manchester to Sheffield. www.thetimes.com/uk/transport...

Explosives could deliver northern boom via cheaper Pennines tunnel

Start-up says Scandinavian tunnelling methods could cut the cost of a proposed dual carriageway connecting Sheffield and Manchester by as much as 90 per cent

thetimes.com

I had great fun on the Crashed Podcast with @stokel.bsky.social and Alex talking about, 1/ My long history of advising Andy Burnham ;) 2/ Why the North South divide hurts the South as well as the North. 3/ Devolution's surprisingly good record, and challenges. share.google/kvT5GFSRwDkm...

Crashed

Podcast · Alex Hudson · In the Crashed podcast, the tech podcast about everything else, hosts Alex Hudson (@alexhuds) and Chris Stokel-Walker (@stokel) delve into the complexities of technology and it...

share.google

In 1998 and 1999, four of Britain's regions and nations voted for devolution. Since then, all have overperformed the rest of the country economically. Even Wales. . Also a bit of a rant about how there's more than one big city in Britain. tomforth.co.uk/agglomeratio...

www.economist.com/britain/2026...

The ascent of the chippy southerner

Andy Burnham offers something precious to the south: grievance

economist.com

Wrote about the ascent of the "chippy southerner" www.economist.com/britain/2026...

New episode: Manchesterism v Thatcherism @goldbergradio.bsky.social @bylinetimes.bsky.social is joined by @tomforth.co.uk who makes the case for greater devolution in England. pod.fo/e/43d3f8

Byline Podcast: Manchesterism vs Thatcherism

Can Andy Burnham's desire for more devolved government in the UK i.e. 'Manchesterism' undo the damage caused by Thatcherism? Adrian Goldberg talks to Leeds-based Tom Forth, an industrial strategist...

pod.fo

Also I look forward to a LOT of 9am Manchester meetings being pencilled into London diaries

There’s me thinking I’d seen the back of Andy Burnham 😂 Am v pro this No 10 idea though as you might expect. Could have a lot of consequences if done right, incl for media ecosystem Also not a ££££ thing but it sends a message. (Helpfully could also allow him to be near Makerfield on a Fri)

Well it’s something to do

I'd partly forgotten this but if you present yourself as the radical political force able to solve deep rooted problems, then you encounter a deep rooted problem and say actually, this is too difficult, I wish we hadn't bothered...it ought to be a tell. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Nigel Farage regrets running 'bankrupt' Worcestershire Council

The Reform UK leader says he wishes the party "hadn't bothered" to take control in Worcestershire.

bbc.co.uk

Here's the fledgling site, with some great stories on it already: theexchange.news/welcome-to-l...

Leeds' new local paper

West Yorkshire deserves great local journalism. Help us launch it.

theexchange.news

Delighted and daunted in equal measure to be joining @millmedia.bsky.social as a staff writer as they branch out to a new city. Launching in June, The Exchange will provide quality writing, features and investigations covering Leeds and West Yorkshire. Any local tips? Reach out!

Has anyone done an academic-type study on the emergence of the Kings Cross tech clusters? There was good work by @maxnathan.bsky.social among others of Tech City and Shoreditch Old Street Silicon Roundabout type stuff back in the day. Stuff like that.

Bradford has a higher business start-up rate than Leeds, Oxford, or Cambridge. But those businesses do very different things and raise much less money to grow. We are very fortunate to have such a broad base of entrepreneurialism in Britain to build on. tomforth.co.uk/entrepreneur...

An excellent, and excellently self-aware, review of three of the latest books on Britain, a reminder of how far we've come, and of our decline (or not), and our inequalities and lost potentials by @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Have we gone too far with British declinism?

Three new books portray a land caught in a muddle and beset by inequalities. A familiar story or is it time for a reset?

giftarticle.ft.com

Late to this tomforth.co.uk/densityisdone/, which as always from @tomforth.co.uk is well worth reading, but I'm not sure about the comparison made in the highlighted paragraph, given all of the European cities mentioned are adjacent to large bodies of water but neither of the English ones are.

In a rare appearance on Bluesky, I shall repeat my argument against this. It's just a case of over-analysing poor data. Use the correct data, and Britain's big cities are just as dense as Northern European equivalents like Hamburg and Rotterdam that are much more productive and support great metros.

Centre for Cities@centreforcities.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Britain’s big cities are not too dense. The issue is where density sits. Manchester and Leeds can look large on a 20km population ring, but they have far fewer homes near the centre than comparable cities abroad👇 buff.ly/VmzM8Bz

On 21 March 2026 almost the entire US is recorded at or near record maximum temperature for this date in the 30-year record. Source: buff.ly/z2LC20Y

Yet Another Dozen -- yet more people in London and Oxford thinking and talking about how to return Britain to prosperity is the last thing we need. tomforth.co.uk/yetanotherdo...

After three decades of building, Britain's large cities have densities -- both at their cores and overall -- that are comparable to their North European equivalents like Amsterdam, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Cologne, and Copenhagen.

Last chance for this. Tomorrow.

Tom Forth@tomforth.co.uk · 5mo ago

Should you wish to know how the AI at @thedatacity.bsky.social works, but not so well you can copy us, please do come to Applied AI at Parallax in Leeds on 17 March at 6pm where I'll be giving a talk on exactly that! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/applied-ai...

Scotland also has the second highest wages of any region for the bottom 75% of the hourly pay distribution, only being beat by the South East at the 80th percentile and the East at the 90th percentile

John Handley@jwhandley.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We don't talk enough about how Scotland went from having lower wages/productivity than the UK average to being second only to the South East and London on both

We don't talk enough about how Scotland went from having lower wages/productivity than the UK average to being second only to the South East and London on both

Londonmaxxing is a good meme with a strong foundation. Business R&D in London -- especially in digital, data, tech, AI -- has exploded since 2012 on the back of decades of high public sector spending on R&D and enormous investments in great infrastructure. tomforth.co.uk/londonmaxxing/

Should you wish to know how the AI at @thedatacity.bsky.social works, but not so well you can copy us, please do come to Applied AI at Parallax in Leeds on 17 March at 6pm where I'll be giving a talk on exactly that! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/applied-ai...

Using the ONS small area GVA estimates and my population around a point tool I calculated GVA/capita for every 30 mile wide ring at increasing distance from London. The picture shows where I calculated GVA and population for to get the answer at 100 miles.