CRESC's new working paper, City State against National Settlement: UK Economic Policy after the Financial Crisis, has just been released. Critical of the coalition government's fiscal policy, it argues that the City of London has power like that of a City State. This is because financial elites hav come to dominate state policy, and there is no longer any competition between elites.

This is now reflected in current UK government expenditure cuts. These are undermining the redistributive settlement of benefits and publicly funded jobs which were the life support of the ex-industrial areas under the governments of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

So what is to be done? Quoted in the Northern Echo, CRESC's Karel Williams says: “People need to start thinking regionally in England, as the Scots are thinking regionally. You shouldn’t rely on the national government to sort things out because the national government is not working nationally, it is working on behalf of the city state.”

He adds: “Cameron, Clegg, Osborne – they’re from the metropolitan elite – what do they know about Midddlesbrough? Their idea is that we need welfare reforms – we need some jobs.”